roach

some advice on roach fishing on still waters would be of help. ie should I fish shallow or deep. On the bottom or slow fall. Things like that please. I know maggots casters bread punch would be a good hook bait but should I use any groundbait. Thanks in anticipation.

Trevor,
If I am roaching on the cut, I usually start by fishing an inch off bottom at this time of year. Normally I would feed squatts or feeders, and fish a pinkie on a size 20 hook, or a couple of feeders.
Normally the perch will be there first, followed by the roach later on.

At the moment small balls of liquidised bread with small bread punch on the hook is doing well. I also fish this an inch off bottom.
Don't forget to dot your float right down to a dimple. Do this by overshotting your float, so that it sinks, then smear the tip of the float with veseline, so that only the surface tension of the water is holding the float up.

Hooklength for my rod would be about ten inches, with the last number ten shot pinched on where it meets the main line. I might have another couple of number tens up the line, each one a little further appart than the previouse shot. This eliminates tangles on the cast. The rest of the shot would be around the base of the float.

trevor,if i`m fishing for the roach in my local boating lake,i never go without a pint of hemp.wether its hot or bloody freezing,the seed never fails.when its elderberry season,i will put a berry on a wide gape hook and use hemp as loose feed but only throwing in a very small amount every time.when the roach turn up,they go crackers for it!!!
i`ve also tried using fake/rubber seeds on the hook as well and also throwing in a few seeds at a time....as in most forms of fishing,it`s little and often.
you can also use proper hemp seeds on the hook but i find it too fiddly and can never get the things to stay on<any ideas on that one folks>.
i dont use a rod for this,i opt for one of my whips and only use a waggler when the roach move well out of range but this is very rare.
the roach in my local lake are of a good stamp as well with many nudging the 1lb mark and a good few in there a lot bigger as well.