''The pinnacle of success''

[no-one in particular]

I think something to do with it is that the roach is the first fish many of us catch and we always retain a fondness for it. If I ever held a record I would be the most chuffed if it was for the roach. I think I would be immortalised for ever, more than any other species. Not that I seek that but it would be kind of cool. There would be a big roach thread somewhere in a 100 years time and I would get a mention.

As to finding a 2lb, never caught one, a fair few over a 1lb. So a 2lb is still a magic number for me. I always think one lurks somewhere in every water I fish but, they must be very wary, feed less often and probably after I have gone home. Which is probably the case for almost every other fish that swims.

 

[Derek Gibson]

Bob,

I would definately go along with ''three' of the former reasons. But as regards to predators, the position is far less clear. Truth be told that my experience on three large northern reservoirs spanning many years seems to indicate that during the periods of prime fishing,''their hayday'' for both Roach and Pike, both species flourished in tandem if you will. Pyramid principals perhaps, or as one guy employed by Yorkshire water to do a survey explained to me,''At this moment in time the fish and water are in near perfect equilibrium.

Some few years later all that was to change, we began to notice what I can only describe as lack lustre on the scales and fins, and pattern marks on the Pike. Then for some inexplicable reason (at least to us) the water quality changed. We then decided to take a few water samples to the University as we had done a few years before. It was confirmed there had been a distinct change in water quality. ''Both'' species suffered as a consequence, and have never recovered to this day.

 

[Bob Hornegold]

Bob,

I would definately go along with ''three' of the former reasons. But as regards to predators, the position is far less clear. Truth be told that my experience on three large northern reservoirs spanning many years seems to indicate that during the periods of prime fishing,''their hayday'' for both Roach and Pike, both species flourished in tandem if you will. Pyramid principals perhaps, or as one guy employed by Yorkshire water to do a survey explained to me,''At this moment in time the fish and water are in near perfect equilibrium.

Some few years later all that was to change, we began to notice what I can only describe as lack lustre on the scales and fins, and pattern marks on the Pike. Then for some inexplicable reason (at least to us) the water quality changed. We then decided to take a few water samples to the University as we had done a few years before. It was confirmed there had been a distinct change in water quality. ''Both'' species suffered as a consequence, and have never recovered to this day.

Derek

Not the fishy type predators, I'm talking Crayfish, Mitten Crabs, Mink, Cormorants, Goosander,and Otters.

All in the Lea Valley and local to where I fish in surrounding counties, some on here might not like it, but predations has a direct effect on fish stocks of all species, from fish eggs eaten to large fish eaten.

If you add abstraction to the list of reasons why once great Roach river like the Bean, Rib and Lea have hardly any big Roach and Dace, you will not be far from a reason.

Bob

 

[Derek Gibson]

Derek

Not the fishy type predators, I'm talking Crayfish, Mitten Crabs, Mink, Cormorants, Goosander,and Otters.

All in the Lea Valley and local to where I fish in surrounding counties, some on here might not like it, but predations has a direct effect on fish stocks of all species, from fish eggs eaten to large fish eaten.

If you add abstraction to the list of reasons why once great Roach river like the Bean, Rib and Lea have hardly any big Roach and Dace, you will not be far from a reason.

Bob

My mistake Bob, apologies.

 

[The bad one]

Here’s something of note for you ponder on, some years ago I did some research on roach in a Cheshire Mere. In the 40 years I’ve fished the meres I’ve only had 1 2lb roach from them (2lb 01oz) Must have had 100s between a 1 lb and 1. 12.
On the particular large mere 100+ acres, which I did the research on, we gained access to it in 1992 via a syndicate and for the first 3-4 years we never caught a roach. We even ran a net through it at several selective places to see what was in it. This turned up small perch, rudd, pike, tench and a few big bream. The syndicate btw was a bream, tench and pike syndicate.
In the evening we’d see the odd big roach top but never caught them even though we were fishing large quantities of maggot, so we knew there were a few old warriors somewhere in the mere. Now it had long been known on the meres the fish stocks (all species) were cyclical.

In 96 the margins were black with tiny roach, the mere has never been stock btw even to this day. So we had a start point for when the roach first appeared and over the next few years we saw these fish grow to the point (6-8 oz) we couldn’t fish maggot anymore for the bream and tench. A move to corn for another year or so stopped them taking the bream bait but by 2001 they were 12 oz - 1 00lb and taking everything except 12-14 mm boillies. To say it was a roach anglers paradise is an understatement 40 -50 lb of roach in 5 hours fished was easily achievable.
A mate of mine who was a pleasure angler loved it when I took him on a guest ticket a couple of time that year, sitting in the punt battering roach after roach all day long.

Thankfully the roach stopped feeding after it went dark and you could keep a bait in the water to fish for the bream without the constant beep, beep of them trying to get the boillie in their mouths.

At the height of their dominance in 2003 they’d reach a size between 1 08 and 1 12 but none of the members ever had one over the magic 2. The best I recall logged in the logbook was 1 15. I took scales off all the biggest fish I caught for reading, around 50 I recall, and all of them read 8 years growth.
The following year the bigger fish vanished and you were lucky to get one over 1.00 lb. Based on this and concern that we’d lost the bigger fish we called in a group of good match anglers from around Cheshire (20 in total) for 3 matches between August and September to help out with the research programme I’d formulated. They really didn’t take much persuading, as they’d all heard about the huge catches that had been coming out over the last few years.

We placed them all around the mere so we got a really good spread of fish stocks and at the end of the match we weighed every bodies larger fish and I took scales of them for reading later on. There were over the 3 matches, around 200 scales I had to read. The best fish weighed 1 06 and had a scale growth of 8 years, the rest were 7 years of growth and weighed between 14 oz to 1 02.

The best weight over the 3 matches was 65lb of fish, lowest around 30. There were 20 happy matchmen I can tell you at the end of the matches. I bet they’re still talking about now.

The conclusion reach for this mere were the roach lived for around 9 years and then died, which coincided with what happened on other meres in Cheshire. Mere Anglers always talked about the 10 year cycle for roach and this bore out this belief. The roach were fast growers and quick dyers. And I say that as myself and my mate “Puntman” did a smaller scale research project over two years on one of the reservoir we fished very regularly, where we did have 4 two’s from, 3 of which Puntman had. In that reservoir the oldest growth rate was 12 years, the bulk of them being 9-11 years.

The cautionary notes I make on these reservoir findings is we weren’t totally sure when the roach explosion happened, unlike the mere fish where we knew the start year. And therefore as with all scale readings, it only tells you how long they grew for not their definitive age. So the reservoir fish could well have been several years older than the scales read.

 

[no-one in particular]

The cautionary notes I make on these reservoir findings is we weren’t totally sure when the roach explosion happened, unlike the mere fish where we knew the start year. And therefore as with all scale readings, it only tells you how long they grew for not their definitive age. So the reservoir fish could well have been several years older than the scales read.

Good article Badone-What do you think it was that made them die before they reached over 8 years or 2lb+ Badone. Must be something or lack of something in the water. I am assuming 2lb+ or 3lb roach are older than 8 years. Why can they live longer in some waters and not others? Or is it 10 years max but just they grow faster in some waters, better food maybe.

 

[wanderer]

Interesting theory mate, I wonder if the cycles that you are suggesting, are national, or regional or simply restricted to a particular water. I notice that no one has mentioned the Norfolk Broads, where good Roach have been taken in the past. I know that very large specimens exist in the trout reservoirs, but deliberately targeting them would be impossible, but someone will eventually catch a giant by accident.

 

[barbelboi]

That's an interesting post in respect of Cheshire Mere Phil, highlighting the different lifespans between waters.

I believe that in a rich environment a roach can reach 2lbs in as little as seven to ten years,although 11 years is probably more realistic. Ones over 3lbs are probably at least 12 years – I’ve often wondered if a roach could make 20 years as, once a fish stops growing, it becomes somewhat more difficult to age.

 

[The bad one]

Good article Badone-What do you think it was that made them die before they reached over 8 years or 2lb+ Badone. Must be something or lack of something in the water. I am assuming 2lb+ or 3lb roach are older than 8 years. Why can they live longer in some waters and not others? Or is it 10 years max but just they grow faster in some waters, better food maybe.

Mark I think it's down to genetics and a genetic predisposing. The roach in most of the Cheshire meres at that time had never been messed with by man. E.g, New stock added. Therefore they had a lineage going back 1000s of years to when they were formed after the last Ice Age. It’s probably likely that they developed an evolutionary genetic trait over the long time period that they have never lost that makes them quick growers but fast dyers.

There is one mere quite close to the large one that has done many 2 s over the 40 years I’ve fished it but it’s much shallower 13 ft max and may well have had new stock added to by the then controlling club or members from other waters which were not meres. My club now owns it and I’m getting reports that the roach stocks are very much on the up after about 7 year of few being caught. Sadly, the bream, which it was famous for, are at a critical level of very old fish, 20+ year, and few fish and are probably unable to spawn because of their diminished fertility through their age.

I really fear that they may die out altogether in the next few years, which will be a catastrophe for this once famous bream mere and Cheshire as a whole.

 

[laguna]

A 3 was caught many many years ago from a local river (not by design I hasten to add, in fact it was a case of fish for whatever comes along back then, usually roach but never guaranteed), and I have also recently caught a 2 after many years of trying (by design) and hope to do so again soon using 4EVA elderberry. But I will tell you now, I have not caught anything like the numbers of fish I use to catch on rivers and the roach especially is, it would seem; are much much rarer these days. In the 70's it was not uncommon to catch a good net of roach in a short session, mostly small and up to 1lb or so but they simply aren't there anymore on my rivers.

Perhaps back then survival rates and stocking was better managed. I know one thing, the environments suffered as a result of commercial interests, insects are in decline too.

 

[peterjg]

Bad One. It would be very interesting to know if the other species in your mere reach specimen sizes or were they also limited in their top weights?

---------- Post added at 23:44 ---------- Previous post was at 23:26 ----------

The following is not as daft as it initially sounds .....

Could it be that us roach fishermen are doing it all wrong? Think about it, the best baits for big roach (probably bread, sweetcorn, maggots, casters) are easily eaten or mullered by small fish. All the big roach that I have caught have been caught really by just being persistent. Bread and maggots work well for roach in the known big roach waters but where there is a head of smaller fish these baits are not nearly so effective.

How to single out the big roach where there are lots of small fish requires a bait such as a small boilie or pellet. However; even then the boilie or pellet is usually taken by bream, chub, carp, tench etc.

In the past could it be that there were just more big roach around that there are today and therefore standard roach baits worked more often?

 

[The bad one]

Bad One. It would be very interesting to know if the other species in your mere reach specimen sizes or were they also limited in their top weights?

---------- Post added at 23:44 ---------- Previous post was at 23:26 ----------

The following is not as daft as it initially sounds .....

Could it be that us roach fishermen are doing it all wrong? Think about it, the best baits for big roach (probably bread, sweetcorn, maggots, casters) are easily eaten or mullered by small fish. All the big roach that I have caught have been caught really by just being persistent. Bread and maggots work well for roach in the known big roach waters but where there is a head of smaller fish these baits are not nearly so effective.

How to single out the big roach where there are lots of small fish requires a bait such as a small boilie or pellet. However; even then the boilie or pellet is usually taken by bream, chub, carp, tench etc.

In the past could it be that there were just more big roach around that there are today and therefore standard roach baits worked more often?

Yes Peter the other species in most meres reached specimen sizes. In a few they reach nation record size and beyond. It’s important here to understand a few facts about these unique waters.
They are some, if not the oldest natural waters in the UK.
Probably about half up and until 25-30 years ago had not been tampered with by man ie stocked. Sadly no longer and some, the smaller ones, have been turned into carp only water.
They have always had truly native fish in them. I e –Bream, tench, roach, rudd, perch, eels and pike.
2 had a unique species of whitefish in them up and until the 1940s. Now believed to have become extinct.
Most now, but not all have carp in them to varying numbers.
They are eutrophic in nature. See this link http://fsj.field-studies-council.org/media/343331/vol5.1_129.pdf
About 2/3 are now SSSI sites.
A small number, 3, I seem to recall, are RAMSAR sites.
So, all in all, as I said they are unique and I believe very precious indeed.

Whilst I don’t necessarily disagree with what you said, Re “We” roach Anglers, I’m confident in the finding of the research we did on the larger mere and the findings it told. Whilst the above is the headline figure for the largest fish that were caught I did map the year classes and growth rates per year of others and the sizes achieved. The detail of which escapes me at this moment, but I do have it on file on floppy disk somewhere.
I also did a projected biomass quantity based on the data collected and more besides, as the owner was looking to crop stock from the mere and we as the syndicate didn’t feel it was appropriate to do that.
Needless to say we dissuaded her from doing it.
Just for Graham if he’s reading this… Barsteward Kelly Again!

The syndicate had some very capable all-round specialist anglers in it with many 2 lb roach to their names and just to drop a few - Graham Marsden, Rodger Harker, Eddie Bibby, John Charlesworth the best specialist stillwater float angler I’ve ever met and others who few would have heard of but as competent as the above.
When you’ve had that calibre of angler fishing a water and 1 15 is the best that has come out, you need to look somewhere else to see if you’re missing something. Which as I’ve stated is what we did, with the matchmen and their fiancée.
But there was still no cigar!

 

[dorsetandchub]

For me, the 2lb roach is the pinnacle of success because Peter Wheat told me it was. I read The Observer's Book of Coarse Fishing by under duvet torch light, long after lights out as a 9, 10, 11 year old gadzillions of times.

Fast forward to June 2007 and a non descript late afternoon session on the River Frome at Wareham confirmed it for me.

It's not often I'm speechless but that fish stunned me into silence.

Without a doubt my personal memory maker.

 

[steve2]

Having caught many big fish, by my own standards, I still waiting on my first 2lb roach. Fish upto 1lb 14ozs i can catch, but never that 2lb. I know waters locally that have 2lb plus roach the carp get in the way.
Think I will have a go at them now the weather is changing.

 

[binka]

Having caught many big fish, by my own standards, I still waiting on my first 2lb roach. Fish upto 1lb 14ozs i can catch, but never that 2lb. I know waters locally that have 2lb plus roach the carp get in the way.Think I will have a go at them now the weather is changing.

Good luck with it Steve, I'm sure you will crack it eventually given that you've already come so close.

I highlighted the bit in your post in bold because, on the water where I recently took mine, I'm convinced that the carp anglers feed is one of the reasons that the fish I caught had reached such a weight.

It is hard to be selective on such waters though, if I learned anything that day it was that the conditions with a strong and warm westerly pushing into a certain area also played a big part in being able to locate them but that was on a large gravel pit and not a river.

 

[laguna]

It could be as simple as this... Roach do not do as well on 'modern' anglers baits like other species?
Maybe the 'moderns' are so detrimental to the health and welbeing of roach that they simply die prematurely, the pigs put on weight and die early, the roach simply dies early before reaching a certain weight?

Years ago we fished and fed them on maggots, casters worms and bread... and the odd elderberry. I am not aware of, nor ever saw anyone using pellets and boilies 40 years ago.

 

[sam vimes]

I'd put good money on a big factor in the reduction in roach size being down to the use of pesticides.

 

[laguna]

Yep me too Sam. As I said in an earlier post, theres a lot less insects about and those that are eaten effects mortality rates.

 

[bennygesserit]

I'd put good money on a big factor in the reduction in roach size being down to the use of pesticides.

Equally I would put your money on massive roach co existing with much sought after carp

 

[thecrow]

Could it be that Roach sizes have not increased at the pace we have seen in other species because they are unable to "get fat" as so many others do? many large fish are not overly long but are very deep.

Its noticeable in Barbel from different rivers, when I first fished the Derbyshire Derwent I thought my scales were giving a false reading, fish that were of a length that would have easily been into double figures on the Trent were not weighing much more than 8lbs, they were though "proper shaped" Barbel with no for want of a better word fat on them, I put this down to the fact that the stretch of the Derwent I fished didn't see nearly so much anglers bait as the Trent.