Ok Then What is this?

[Little Roachess]

Hey, I've seen this in angler's mail!

 

Trust the River Ribble to throw something up at us like this hybrid!!!! Back in the 70's some parts of the Ribble were poluted by the factories still running business and flushing effluent, etc, and no doubt this could be a mutation harping back to those days????

 

[Andy Macfarlane]

I have to admit, I'd probably have just thought it a big roach, took a picture and carried on without really examining it. The longer I look at it though, the more I'm inclined to agree with the chub X roach thing, even though I had queried this potential before.

 

It's a stonking thing though and with the chub 'bit' in there, you have to wonder just how big they can get to. Hybrids seemingly produce bigger specimens than either of the parent species.

 

Lets face it, if you caught one of them at 5 or 6 lbs, you'd be pretty full of yourself for weeks.

[Ken L]

Hybrids seemingly produce bigger specimens than either of the parent species.

 

If only that were true of roach x bream.

[Mark Wintle]

To the best of my knowledge, authenticated specimens:

 

Roach x rudd - 5lbs

Roach x chub - 4-04 (very rare so could get bigger.)

Roach x bream - 9lbs

 

The mutations mentioned earlier are nothing to do with hybrids, no evidence of pollution-caused mutations in this country but any trout farmer will tell you that it's not that uncommon to get double-tailed/double-headed trout - they don't live long though!

Edited June 17, 2012 by Mark Wintle

[Vagabond]

To the best of my knowledge, authenticated specimens:

 

Roach x rudd - 5lbs

There were some huge ones about in a local trout ressy some ten years ago - I had them to 3-12 and my mate the late Roger Standen found a five-pounder dead.

 

Possibly a different explanation there to the "degraded habitat" though. Its a very clean water, with plenty of rudd - good ones, normally coloured ones and the lemon-finned sort - but none of us ever caught a roach there, or ever heard of anyone else catching roach.

 

My hypothesis is that a very few roach (maybe as few as one) were put in by a person unknown, and the roach had two choices - remain celibate or spawn with the rudd. So just a few year-classes of hybrids until the roach died. The hybrids then in their turn died out.

 

No hybrids have been reported there for some years now.

[Latimeria]

I had a single choach in amongst a mixed catch of dace, roach and pup chub yesterday from further up on the Ribble, first time I've had or seen one from that length, the others have always been from the bottom end. One of the dace was a real beast, would have liked to have known its weight in early March.