The roach thread

[Steve Walker]

There was a club water I used to fish years ago, a deep, clear cut-off arm of a reservoir. I usually quivertipped with open or block end feeders and two maggots, and I found that putting on three maggots would very often produce a bonus fish - a tench, chub or decent bream.

 

In this case, though, I'm less concerned about sorting big fish from the shoal than about location. It's not so much that I think I may be sat on big fish and not catching them as the thought that maybe they are elsewhere. I've just started fishing this stretch, in a swim I know contains some roach because I've caught them before when fishing for perch bait. So really, the question is - is a good big roach swim likely also a good average roach swim? When I've had good roach in the past it's usually been as part of a mixed bag of smaller fish, but I have not been explicitly targeting specimens. When I have had the opportunity to observe good roach, they have been surrounded by smaller fish, usually nearer to the bottom, but the situations in which one can observe fish tend not to be typical of the situations in which one can fish for them.

[Anderoo]

I have very little to draw on here and better roach anglers will hopefully have something to say, but when I have had the bigger roach from the Thames they have usually been the first fish caught and followed by numbers of smaller fish. Whether there have been more of the bigger fish there and they leave the swim after the first one gets caught, I don't know. But it's been a definite pattern.

[Steve Walker]

You've more experience of catching them by design, Andrew! Sounds as if the presence of small roach is not necessarily a negative.

[The Flying Tench]

You've more experience of catching them by design, Andrew! Sounds as if the presence of small roach is not necessarily a negative.

The thing I mentioned about change of bait producing the goods was meant to be slight evidence for that

[Steve Walker]

Good point John, thank you, and I agree with you. I've had the same experience when just fishing for whatever comes along, but I'm trying to improve my chances of finding the larger fish. My biggest roach, which I didn't weigh but which must have been close to 2lb, came in a large bag of smaller fish, but at the time that river was producing a very good stamp of average roach. It was a temporary phase in the recovery of a previously polluted water. I don't want to wait another twenty odd years to match it!

[Anderoo]

Another thing to say is that on the bits of the (upper) river I fish, I've only ever found big roach (i.e. over a pound and a half) in one small section. So if you're not catching the bigger fish, I would be tempted to keep trying new bits until you find them. The section where I stumbled upon those fish is not extraordinary in any way, there is loads of very similar water. They just happened to be there. However, the reason I tried for roach there is that I saw them rolling at dusk in winter while chub fishing - so it might be worth spending some time walking the banks and trying to spot them.

 

This may be a Thames thing, but I have never done any good after dark for the roach, even the smaller ones. At dusk they seem to shut down. In winter, daytime has always been best for me.

[Steve Walker]

I got there quite late, I had planned to fish Sunday but the weather forecast wasn't good so I made a last minute decision. When I got there, I was getting a bite a cast, almost immediately. As the sun went down, the bites abruptly stopped. The only thing I caught after that was the larger chub. So I think your experience may apply to the Avon too.

 

I only have access to a relatively short stretch of river there, two fields or so, so it wouldn't be too hard to give every swim a go over a few sessions.

[Anderoo]

I have often wondered if the bigger fish have a feeding spell well after dark, say around midnight, but have never stayed that long to find out!

[Vagabond]

I have often wondered if the bigger fish have a feeding spell well after dark, say around midnight, but have never stayed that long to find out!

Just as the biggest fish are always just out of casting range, so do feeding times always coincide with your absences. Murphy's Law.

 

The trick is to choose a day when Murphy and his fellow demons are elsewhere.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Vagabond

[Anderoo]

As mentioned on another topic, on Saturday I had a very unexpected roach of 1lb 9oz while chub fishing. Unexpected as I've never caught a roach from this river before, and I was fishing a big lump of cheesepaste on a size 6 hook to 6lb line!

 

Anyway, the question is, is this definitely a proper roach? It was a rather funny shape with a big humped back, it seemed to be the real thing but there was something about it that didn't seem quite right... what do you reckon?