Ok Then What is this?

[lutra]

I believe so but it is said to be more rare in a river.

Unless you fish the tidal ribble where their not that uncommon, even to over 4lb.

 

Their nice fish, but the biggest down side of having them in your local river is you get tales of donkey sided roach and you can't believe any of them.

[Latimeria]

Plenty Choach down the bottom end, more than one has been in the weeklies claimed as big roach. Harder to spot when small.

[Vagabond]

I would have to say an Ide. .

 

If ever you suspect you have caught an ide, look at the scales - ide have many small scales.

In actual fact the scale counts along the lateral line are

 

Roach 45 or less

Chub 46 or less

 

Ide 56 or more

 

Ten or so scales difference doesn't sound much, but one you've seen an ide or two, it the feature that is obvious straight away.

 

Must come and have a go at the lower Ribble some time - although I have caught nine hybrids in the UK, chub x roach is not one of them

[Latimeria]

Must come and have a go at the lower Ribble some time - although I have caught nine hybrids in the UK, chub x roach is not one of them

 

May be better off in the colder months when there are not as many of those sad souls with barbel blinkers on gazing at two skyward-pointing rod tips. Stick, waggler, or feeder, they're there to be caught. Day tickets available for right-hand bank.

[fantasticfisherman]

Definitely seems to have some chub in there. I bet it fought well

[dant]

Looks like it is indeed a Chub/Roach Hybrid. I never knew they were as common as they seem to be on the Ribble or as well known. I thought them to be a exceptionally rare occurrence.

Despite what the thing actually looks like, common sense made me plump for an Ide.

Interesting fish that.

[Mark Wintle]

I'd guess it is a chub x roach; I sourced pictures of three of these for my Big Roach book. I caught a couple myself many years ago in the Thames at Oxford. Their presence suggests degraded spawning habitat.

[Vagabond]

Chub/Roach Hybrid. ...I never knew they were as common as they seem to be on the Ribble or as well known. I thought them to be a exceptionally rare occurrence.

 

Me too. I am very interested in naturally occurring hybrids, and a group I have never knowingly caught is that of roach x dace, roach x chub, dace x chub, and the various hybrids with bleak.

 

Of course I may have done so and missed it - as Mr Coelacanth says, they are hard to spot when small, and I don't necessarily scrutinise every small fish I catch, particularly in a "bite a chuck" situation - perhaps I should start doing so.

 

As Mark says, the answer might be degraded spawning habitat - fish having a Hobson's Choice of ever-shrinking spawning beds, thus forcing different species to spawn in the same place, whereas normally they might spawn over differing types of ground.

[Mark Wintle]

Chub x roach are pretty rare. There is no 'known' biological barrier to roach x dace or dace x chub but the reason we never see them is that the spawning trigger for dace is lengthening daylight hours and as a result they seem to spawn much much earlier than chub or roach - late Feb or early March in my local rivers as opposed to late April at the earliest for the roach and chub so it's a case of never the twain shall meet, 6 weeks or more being too great a gap to bridge.

 

Dr Adrian Pinder did research on habitat degradation and hybrid incidence was one marker for this. Navigable rivers tend to be worse hence me catching hybrids in the Thames. Dredging and damage to banks, spawning gravels, trees and weedbeds contribute to force fish together to spawn

[lutra]

Must come and have a go at the lower Ribble some time - although I have caught nine hybrids in the UK, chub x roach is not one of them

Note i didn't say very common. I don't fish the tidal ribble that much, but i have a bit with some good chub and roach bags and ive not knowingly had one. So their not odds on one a chuck.