Same swim differnt fish

[lozza]

I have been fishing the streach of water recently with mixed resualts. Went out today and had a bite a chuck from the off unfortunatly nothing bigger than a few once dace and roach however fished the same swim on thursday and a good day with the average fish being 6oz up the around a pound mark. Condition were very simular but a totaly differnt outcome any thoughts? do roach shoal up in the same year class or will you get fish range from a few onces up to a pound and a half in the same shoal?

[Dick Dastardly]

I have been fishing the streach of water recently with mixed resualts. Went out today and had a bite a chuck from the off unfortunatly nothing bigger than a few once dace and roach however fished the same swim on thursday and a good day with the average fish being 6oz up the around a pound mark. Condition were very simular but a totaly differnt outcome any thoughts? do roach shoal up in the same year class or will you get fish range from a few onces up to a pound and a half in the same shoal?

 

Shoals are generally made up of fish of the same size/year class.This is what gives them the "anonymity" of the shoal.Any of a significantly different size would stick out and be an easier target to predators.The whole point of shoaling.

[Tigger]

Shoals are generally made up of fish of the same size/year class.This is what gives them the "anonymity" of the shoal.Any of a significantly different size would stick out and be an easier target to predators.The whole point of shoaling.

 

 

What Budgie says is right but I don't think it's set in stone as i've actually caught some nice roach amongst tiddlers. I can remember many occassions when i've tossed a handfull of maggots in a swim (still water) and watched lots of small roach darting throught them taking them on the drop. The few maggots that got past the tiddlers and fell deeper in the water where being taken by some large roach and also large perch that never came up past a certain point. It was as though the larger fish where using the small ones as a shield between them and the surface. They where very wiley and even dropping my maggot in with no float or shot on the light line (donkey dangling which was frowned upon when I was a kid and classed as cheating and the fish didn't count if caught in that fashion) I was lucky to catch a few tiddlers, but most often my maggot would be left sinking on it's own having been sussed by the fish. How they sussed it in the mad frenzie of them zooming through the maggots beats me .

[Phone]

lozza,

 

WIVES TALE! I don't know if it's true. When fish of more than one size but of one species are in the same school (shoal) the largest predators in the venue will be close by. Flathead catfishermen "love" that situation.

 

Phone