Thanks for the review Mark

Any book, or tome like this will never satisfy all of course.

Yet it looks the kind of book, if you are a roach enthusiast, that you must possess.

Order is on it's way.

I've had this one on my radar for a while so thanks Mark.

Has the Professor found a publisher for his own tome yet?

I just night get it by Saturday. I intent to do a further review.

Mark,

The artwork on the front cover has a remarkable resemblance to the work of John Searle, right?

If so, are the line drawings his also?

Peter,
It's not John's work.

I'd been looking forward to getting my copy with a great deal of anticipation.

I've had it now for about two weeks and have dipped into it a few times.

The last good Roach book i bought was John Bailey's Roach the Gentle Giants which I really enjoyed. Unfortuantely I leant it to someone and can't remember who; it never came back !

This is much bigger book but has less photo's of fish is harder to read, contains a lot of ancillary information that was of little interest to me and is at times poorly researched.

I love fishing for Roach. I've had them over 2lbs on float and ledger from stillwaters lakes and from rivers. My best fish were a 3 lb 1 oz 8 dr stillwater fish and a 2 lb 14 oz river fish.

I'm interested in how methods, populations and records have changed over time and why they have done so and these are covered in the book.

However, the stuff on the history of records was in many cases wrong and when it got to the present day the author whilst agreeing with the acceptance of the NI fish and the rejection of the Basingstoke fish failed to say why.

The writer suggested that the Trent fish couldn't be a Roach because it had a lateral line count of 40. He then went on to suggest that it was a Roach x Chub hybrid but has clearly not considered the obvious - a lateral line count of 40 would mean that it couldn't be a Roach x Chub hybrid either. Roach x Chub hybrids have HIGHER lateral line counts than roach (Wheeler 75, Pitts 94)

I actually agree with his conclusion that the fish was probably a Roach x Chub but the point that he missed and it is a fundamental one is that you cannot rely on lateral line counts.

Like MW I would have liked to see more on the Brown fish and Walkers involvement. I would also have liked to have seen the wrtiter look properly at Roach x Rudd hybrids and refer to the academic papers from Wheeler '75 to the present day. In that study Wheeler was actually looking at fish from Estwaite obtained by Fred Buller and Wheeler, Buller and Walker discussed the issue at length as is mentioned in the acknowledgements at the end of the paper.

Interestingly the Wheeler paper took measurements of the relative position of the dorsal of Rudd, Roach and hybrids and plotted them on a graph. Its an absolute must read when you are making your mind up about the NI fish.

Roach chub hybrids are a rarity. I think I did catch one once from the River Leam. It weighed 2 1/2 lbs, looked like a compressed chub but had a very small mouth.

I put it down as a deformed chub at the time and never photographed it.

I should have done.

Andy.......have YOU considered writing a book?

You are part of a band who actually "do" rather than think they do.......we need more writers that "do"!

I like Pauls idea, a book by you would go down a treat.

Commute to London,fish intensively,have a life.
Come on Andy, you must have plenty of time on your hands to write a book. ;o)

I have just received my copy.

It certainly looks to me a monumental work. My first impressions are that there is a great deal of scientific stuff in this book that might not appeal to the average angler. Yet perhaps Dr. Mark Everard is not targeting this tome at the average angler.

The other aspect to this book is that many of the photographs are poor and have not reproduced well. I would have expected to have seen a few plates showing the roach in all it's colours and shades - hybrids too.

But I will read it and in time do a review.

"Come on Andy, you must have plenty of time on your hands to write a book."

of course he has he's a solicitor they only work 15 minutes per day.

I found this a very disappointing book and for the high price I expected more - not quantity but quality. The author has tried to satisfy too many potential readers. The science e.g. the bacteriology of roach is no different to most other freshwater fish and for those readers with a scientific bent there will be nothing new here that cannot be gleaned from other sources. Similalry the physiology, anatomy, sensory systems etc are all better explained elsewhere (obtain "The New Compleat Angler" if you want to read something oustanding in this area).

The author states that this is a book for the lay reader to dip into. I believe a lay reader will opt for a general fishing book and one at a much more competetive price. If you are a roach angler and are looking for some tips on fishing roach rivers then think again. There is but a single page that mentions the Kennet and nothing on the Frome and numerous other southern chalk streams. Even the author's home river gets fairly short shrift.

The index is not much help - look up "reel" and you find lots of pages listed but many of them have just a single passing reference to the word.

The "Glossary of Terms" has got to be a joke. Do we pay good money to learn the definition of "Wellies" or a "rod" described as a hollow rod for catching fish (is split cane hollow?) or that "Avon" is a river and a set of scales. This is stupid rubbish.

However my biggest gripe is the appalling pictures. There are none in colour for a start. The black and white photographs are very poor and are minute. A couple of underwater pictures appear to be home-made montages that simply defy description. As for the line drawings, well these are equally bad although that may be as a result of the reproduction and if so then poor marks there for Medlar.

My advice - borrow it but don't buy it.

Having had more time to look at this book I'm starting to think that the approach to the book of chuck in everything bar the kitchen sink was ill conceived. A solid chapter on roach biology that told us the things that matter to roach anglers, like how long they live and how the populations fluctuate in cycles, a chapter getting to the truth about roachxrudd hybrids, and then some objectivity on methods, history and records might have resulted in a far shorter book but one that is far more engrossing. Perhaps Mark wasn't the ideal author for such a book after all?

I have found it hard to get into to read from end to end - something that I've done with many books. The political correctness on conservation seemed out of place and irrelevant. I can read a page or two and then it seems disjointed.

I wonder how Ron is getting on with his copy. "Green Drake" has hit the nail on the head; I didn't want to seem too unkind!

John Bailey's book is back in print by the way.

Yes Mark, I have had a good read at this book and certainly agree with a lot of what Green Drake has written. There appears to be quite a few errors in the index. I'll not go into them now, but they are there for anyone to discover.

The lack of a few really good colour photographs showing roach and the various hybrids laid out flat, without the captor grinning behind them is a major error if you ask me. Such pictures are quite easy to take yet are so valuable for people who might not be able to recognise a true roach, and who am I to talk. We are human and can all make mistakes.

I think the best way of putting a book like this together would have been to invite a few other writers who are experts in their fields to contribute. Seperate chapters on stick float fishing, still water fishing, fishing the different rivers of England would have been a good idea.