The Hybrid Controversy – Part 2

March 12, 2001

This article combines extracts from Tony’s comments on the forum and further comments received with the images.

Tony Miles

I am now going to throw the cat squarely amongst the pigeons! Of the two fish in the feature ‘The Hybrid Controversy’ (see linkbelow), the top fish being returned is, without doubt, a roach/bream hybrid. The anal fin enlargement is obviously blurred, but it certainly contains something like 17-19 branched rays, putting it firmly in the hybrid range and well outside of the range of trueroach.

The bottom fish, although the anal fin appears correct, is, Ibelieve, a roach/rudd hybrid. One of the classic differentialsbetween roach and rudd is the relative positioning of dorsal andpelvic fins. In a true roach, the leading edge of these two fins islevel if you draw a vertical line up the flank. On the rudd, thedorsal is set further back. Although the fish has the silvery sheenof a roach, the dorsal is set as for a rudd. Not so many years ago,Linch Hill produced good rudd and I believe we are seeing a similarscenario there to Hollowell in the Midlands, where all the apparenthuge rudd are in fact roach/rudd.

The problem with roach/bream and roach/rudd is that there is nostandard appearance. Roach/bream from some waters are obvious, inthat they have silvery bodies but black fins. Others are like the onein the feature, where the only giveaway is the anal fin. I saw thiswith a 2lb 10oz ‘roach’ that Trefor West caught from the Wensum manyyears back. That had 18 rays in the anal and was a definiteroach/bream hybrid. Several other big Wensum “roach” were alsohybrids although, I hasten to add, most were true roach.

Roach/rudd can be silvery, golden, or any shade in between andthat’s what makes identification so fiendishly difficult. But therelative fin positioning is usually a reliable guide.

The problem of course is that where hybrids were once thought tobe 50/50 crosses of the parents and were themselves sterile, we nowknow that hybrids are fertile. So it is possible to have the scenarioof 90% roach/10% bream. Even more confusing is when hybrids crosswith hybrids, because this, within a very short time, brings intodoubt the pedigree of the entire stock of a water.

To return to Hollowell, I have had catches of fish which I wascertain contained one or two true rudd and one or two true roach,with everything else obviously cross-bred. The sadness is that thosefish could indeed have been true rudd or roach, but this becomes moreunlikely with each new generation.

Just been through a few back copies of the weeklies and foundAnglers Mail of January 20th. Very clear picture of Alan Wilson’sfabulous fish of 3lb 13ozs. Alan’s a good friend of mine and the fishlooks fabulous, but I’m sorry, the fish is not a roach in my opinion.I am certain it’s a roach/rudd hybrid. Look how far back the dorsalis set.

Look at the pictures and judge for yourselves.

Alan Wilson’s 3lb 13oz fish
see how the dorsal fin is set back in relation to the pelvic fin

Tony Miles returning a 3lb 10oz fish to Hollowell.
This is a roach/rudd hybrid. See how the relative alignment
of the dorsal and the pelvic is the same as Alan Wilson’s fish.