recognising ide

[The Flying Tench]

One day next week I hope to fish a commercial fishery that has ide, and may need to identify a fish as being roach or ide. The trouble with the stuff I find on the web is that it relies on the number of scales on the lateral line, and in the heat of battle I'm not sure I'd get that right! Does anyone here catch ide? How do you identify them vis a vis roach?

[Peterjg]

You'll recognise one straight away - they have bigger mouths than roach and their scales are smaller and there's more of them.  Quite frankly it's a shame that they are stocked anywhere.

[Chris Plumb]

Agree with Peter - have many more scales (circa60) on the lateral line than roach, chub, dace etc...A problem with Ide is that they are quite fecund and hybridise easily with other cyprinids - I used to have access to a bit of the Kennet where some ide/orfe had been illegally released and it used to throw up all sorts of odd looking chub, roach and bream. If you are fishing where ide have been stocked with other cyprinids for any liength of time - you may catch hybrids which will make ID a little more problematic!

[The Flying Tench]

Thanks. The place I'm going to is a commercial fishery in N Yorks. I agree with you both, I wish there weren't any Ide there!

[Ken L]

They are noticeably more robust tan roach - in addition to the features outlined aboce.

Maggots fished shallow as bait is catapulted in was the method that worked for me.

[Whitty]

In my opinion their mouths and eyes are the biggest giveaway,as chub have a big mouths with basically level lips(in the perpendicular,dace have a slight top lip protrusion,as do roach,rudd the opposite,it is possible to mistake decent roach(say a pound)with similar sized ideas,but ide do not have orangey red eyes,more golden,like rudd. They are easy to differentiate once you have caught them a few times,but....

[Tigger]

I just tried posting some pic's of ide but I can't post them on hee any loner for some reason.

As has already been said ide had smaller scales which look kind'a cramped up on the fishs body in my eyes. They are a stockier fish than a roach and some of the have bright blood red pelvic and anal fins.

Problem is they often hybridise with other fish such as roach and imo should be knocked on the head (unless in purpose built waters) and definately not introduced anywhere....same as catfish!

Edited July 15, 2022 by Tigger