River orbits of large roach

Description

The roach has a long, slightly laterally flattened body structure. The back is black, with a bluish or greenish tint. Silvery scales with fairly wide plates. The dorsal and anal fins are dark, the others are tinged with red. The eyes are orange with a scarlet spot at the top. The mouth is equipped with five to six pharyngeal teeth.

During spawning, the male is covered with epithelial tubercles (“pearl rash”) - the nuptial plumage and looks rough, like a file.

Residential individuals grow to a length of 35 centimeters and a weight of up to 1 kilogram. Semi-through forms are larger: length up to 51 centimeters and weight up to 2 kilograms. Specimens of larger sizes were caught in Chebakul.

How long does a roach live? Its maximum lifespan reaches 20 years.

Roach and Sorog

Scientists studying ichthyofauna identify up to 13 subspecies of roach. Each of them has different names and its own characteristics in different areas. Fishermen are familiar with the soroga, sorozhka, roach, ram, bagel, carapace, roach, and red-eye.

In Siberia and the Urals it is a narrow chebak with yellow eyes. In the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Kirov regions, and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug there is a wide red-eyed sorog. On Baikal and Yenisei there is a path.

That is, the sorog and the roach are all varieties of the same species.

Some ichthyologists have identified a subspecies - the Caspian roach (Rutilus caspicus) - a marine inhabitant of the Northern Caspian Sea, which only spawns in rivers.

The name given to it by the people would be incorrect - “red roach”, which mixes the names of two different species: Rutilus rutilus and rudd Scardinius. The differences are in the iris of the eyes: the first one is red-eyed, the second one is yellow-eyed. Also, the roach has 10-12 soft feathers on the dorsal fin, the rudd has 8-9.

A representative of the carp or kutum family (pictured below) is listed in the international and Russian Red Books. Its habitat is the Caspian drainage area.

Where it lives: sea or river

Resident roach is a freshwater, semi-anadromous species found in brackish waters.

The silver fish grows in the Eurasian part in almost all lakes, estuaries, reservoirs, and canals, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.

In the Central part of Russia, in Siberia, in the Urals, with the exception of the Far East (it is not there), it has chosen:

• Kola Peninsula (Lovozero, Imandra, Ponoy River),
• Karelia (Syamozero, Vygozero, Segozero and others),
• rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean,
• Seyakha River (Yamal Peninsula),
• reservoirs of the Urals,
• river basins of the Black and Azov Seas (except Crimea),
• river systems of the Aral Sea,
• river basins of the Altai Mountains,
• Baikal.

The roach's habitat is freshwater, with a slow current. It lives in schools in creeks, backwaters, reaches, oxbow lakes and other biotopes with dense vegetation and a muddy bottom. It constantly drifts along their borders and hides in them when there is danger.

In technogenically polluted lakes with melt and rainwater from urban areas, roaches are caught whose modified skeleton structure looks abnormal: 14 rays in the dorsal fin, two rows of pharyngeal teeth, with additional links in the spine. This means that a new morphotype of fish is being formed.

Choice and reasons

It is curious that in many not-so-ancient fishing reference books - from the end of the twentieth century - there are statements that the maximum mass of roach does not exceed 700 g. I don’t know whether the writers made a blunder on this issue, or in subsequent years this fish became growing more rapidly against the backdrop of climate change, but now the picture is different.

On my personal account, let’s say, there are repeated catches of 800-gram roaches, and my partners pulled out not only the same ones (photo 1) , but also monsters up to 1 kg 100 g. Moreover, if you manage to catch at least one such individual, there will invariably be more in the catch several approaching in size or simply very worthy (photo 2) . Especially when this happens in late autumn and winter, because during these intervals of the year trophy roach is caught most often.

As for the very fact of the presence of large roach in reservoirs and watercourses, I am not afraid to say that it is, if not constantly, then temporarily (spawning, coming to feed, etc.) present in everyone. The main reason for the rare catches of trophy fish, at any time of the year, is not so much the poor skills of the fishermen, but rather the peculiarities of the lifestyle and nutrition of such fish. Therefore, when it seems to someone that such “bast shoes” do not float in his home river, it is appropriate to remember the saying: if you don’t see something, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Well, any doubts can be dispelled only in practice, by carefully and intelligently studying water bodies.

Following this message, I long ago determined that in my region, of the entire range of water bodies, rivers are most suitable for catching large roach. And not only big ones, but also small ones. Of course, in conditions of warm winters, which negatively affect the formation and strength of ice, things are now more difficult. With this trend, such a wonderful river fishing method as “pulling”, associated with working on the main stream, may soon become a thing of the past.

Therefore, I am now focusing primarily on river channels, bays, backwaters, and oxbow lakes called eriks (closed to the river). In fact, all these water bodies are something between a river and a lake (photo 3) . They abound in a variety of fish, large ones at that, their oxygen regime is more favorable than in lakes, and the ice is quite strong. In addition, the food supply is richer, formed by a large amount of aquatic vegetation with the invertebrates inhabiting it.

As for small watercourses, clarification is required. For a long time I believed that decent fish and, above all, roaches had nothing to do with them in winter. However, in life everything turned out to be not so clear. It turned out that in addition to deep holes, heavy roach in small rivers are also attracted to the mouths, the areas where they flow into large rivers (photo 4) . Moreover, we are talking about both the mouths themselves and the sections adjacent to them upstream, several hundred meters long. The roach may follow a schedule known only to it, but it regularly enters such places.

I have also encountered large roaches on lakes and reservoirs. However, there they are few in number, and the size is still inferior to the river fish, and the behavior of the fish often depends on local characteristics, sometimes simply amazing.

For example, I know a lake where roaches weighing up to 400 g from under the ice are caught exclusively on steamed wheat, ignoring even bloodworms! It turned out that she was simply accustomed to this by regular fishermen.

The main conclusion from the above is that you can and should prepare yourself for catching large roach by organizing fishing with skill, especially in terms of increasing knowledge about its unpredictable behavior, which I will dwell on in more detail.

What do roaches eat?

Roach eats everything. It has a very varied diet, but this does not mean that it is a predator. This is a herbivore.

Juveniles and fry feed on the remains of invertebrates and larvae of aquatic insects. In the first summer of life, the fry prefer single-celled sargassum and daphnia, and in the fall they look for small waterfowl.

Fingerlings and mature fish up to 15 centimeters long love to eat:

• tadpoles,
• mosquito-dergun,
• small dung worms,
• dragonfly larvae,
• maggots,
• fry,
• underleaves,
• filamentous algae.

Larger specimens consume food mollusks: mussels, oysters, gastropods. In deep reservoirs, where there is a lot of bivalve river zebra mussel, which the roach eats intensively from the age of five to six, there are units weighing up to 1 kilogram.

The first 3-4 years of roach are characterized by linear growth, in subsequent periods of life - weight gain.

How to catch large roach - we tell you all the main details

Roach is almost the most common fish, and every fisherman is sure to come across it every time, no matter whether it is the purpose of fishing or not. Of course, roach is a tasty fish, and few people will refuse it, only very modest specimens are usually found and most of all they delight their beloved cats. But you want to catch not a modest roach, but a huge one, even if not two kilograms, but one that can pull at least a kilogram - for a roach this is a lot, because the average weight of a caught roach fluctuates around three hundred grams. In order to catch an average roach, you don’t need any special skill, you only need patience, a fishing rod, bait and, in fact, the presence of the roach itself in the reservoir. But in order to catch a large roach, this will not be enough; you will need knowledge about where the trophy roach hides and what it likes.

It is unlikely that you can find a large roach in a small and shallow body of water. The larger the roach, the more extensive and deep bodies of water it chooses to live in. Promising in this regard will be rivers, but not small ones, but large or medium ones, canals, only really large and deep ones, large lakes and large reservoirs. In addition to their size, reservoirs must have a suitable food supply, a mandatory influx of fresh water and favorable species of other fish. More precisely, carp or carp are not desirable neighbors as competitors in the battle for food, but species such as bream, crucian carp or tench are favorable. Also a possible indicator of the presence of large roach in a particular reservoir are, oddly enough, predators such as pike, catfish or pike perch.

Large roaches do not form large schools, unlike their more modest counterparts. As a rule, its flocks number no more than ten individuals, and even then not always. It gathers in large flocks only for wintering, joining flocks of smaller roaches. The larger the roach, the deeper places it chooses for its habitat; it will not, like a small thing, crowd into shallow water. Its favorite depth is from three to five meters with the obligatory slightly noticeable current, but if there is no current or it is too strong, then the roach is unlikely to stay there. Depending on external conditions, it can stay either half-water or near the very bottom. It is effective to use an echo sounder to find it, because the roach, no matter whether it is large or not, does not allow you to determine parking places by its behavior - it does not make noise, does not gurgle, does not fidget.

The gear is the most traditional . For winter, winter fishing rods and jigs (with or without bait) are used; in summer, bottom, feeder and float fishing rods are used. The requirements are the most common, that is, a reliable and durable fishing rod, a good reel (with a friction clutch), an inconspicuous fishing line, always of minimum thickness, a good sharp hook, a fluorocarbon leader, a light and thin float with a hollow antenna and a graphite keel.

Bait – plant or animal, depending on the season. For an animal, you can take a longer leash, for a plant, a shorter one. Bait is required, but it should be purely symbolic, and the feeding area should be as compact as possible; it would be best to throw the bait as close to the float as possible. The first cast is made into the dead zone, then the first bait is made. After a couple of minutes, you can carefully pull the tackle to the shore, no more than forty centimeters, and again pause for a couple of minutes and carefully pull it up again. The second bait is made as soon as the lower bait touches the bottom, and most often it is at this time that the bite occurs. If after a couple of minutes no one has bitten, then you need to repeat it all over again.

We must not forget that large roach are very careful. Therefore, when fishing from the shore, it is not recommended to approach the water closer than a meter and try not to make noise or fuss, so as not to spook the fish.

Reproduction

Sexual maturity of the fish occurs at approximately three years, some representatives are sexually mature by the age of two.

Roaches spawn when the ice breaks. Usually this is the period from late April to mid-May, when the water temperature reaches 10-12°C, and in shallow water - up to 16-17°C. After the reservoir is cleared of ice in the spring, the depth warms up quite quickly, and good conditions are created for the development of food resources, especially plankton, phyto- and zoobenthos, and aquatic vegetation.

Reproduction is accompanied by the approach of a large number of males, who stay in the territory longer than the females and fertilize the eggs of several of them.

Females are distinguished by their fertility: one individual lays from three to one hundred thousand eggs at once.

The roach is a phytophile: its throwing products stick to old or fresh vegetation (stems, leaves) floating on the surface, to the roots of trees, reeds, driftwood, and stones. They are located very closely together, and if they are on moss, they look like bunches of grapes. The largest clusters contain more than 84 thousand units.

The diameter of the egg is 1.5 millimeters. It grows into a larva in 9 days - 2 weeks. The length of the young at hatching reaches 5.2-6.6 millimeters.

In the first days of life, the larvae, while still at rest, hold on to the stems and leaves in the spawning areas with the help of special sticky-like secretions from the gland on the underside of the snout.

Semi-anadromous roach is large and grows at a faster rate. Its fertility reaches 200 thousand eggs. After spawning, adult specimens return to the sea and intensively fatten, eating as much as they weigh.

Before spawning, the fish gathers in numerous schools, approaches the edge of aquatic vegetation and constantly feeds. During this period, it can be caught with anything, even foam.

Large roach

The classification of roach by body size is explained by the biology of this fish and fishing tradition. Fishermen are accustomed to distinguishing roach from roach, that is, large fish from small ones. Every angler wants to catch only “roaches,” that is, large fish 25-30 cm long. Unfortunately, before learning this art, he will only catch roaches.

An angler who catches a large roach is proud of it and receives recognition from his colleagues. Groundbait and bait that can attract large roach is the best recommendation for the manufacturer, and places where large roach are found attract anglers like iron filings like a magnet. The lifestyle of large roach differs significantly from the life of small individuals, so roach fishing skills are not suitable for catching large specimens. In order to regularly catch large roach, you should, in particular, study the topography of the bottom of the reservoir, and also fall in love with ice fishing, because large roach is much easier to catch in winter.

PROTECTION PERIOD: none SPAWNING: from April to May DAILY LIMIT: none MINIMUM SIZE: none RUSSIAN RECORD: not registered

Large roach lives away from the shallow coastal zone; it is most often found with small individuals on the spawning ground.

Read: Catching roach on the first ice

Roach is a common fish because it can survive in any type of body of water, from mountain rivers to the coastal zone of the Baltic Sea. However, the ability to survive in extremely unfavorable conditions results in small body size. If a roach suffers from a lack of food or oxygen, lives in dirty water, individuals grow slowly, and often the entire population becomes smaller.

In order for large individuals to grow in the roach population, living conditions must be stable, feeding areas with an abundance of food and varied depths are necessary. Large roach spend most of their time near the bottom, descending to a depth of up to 14 m. In large and deep reservoirs and natural lakes, large roach do not swim to the coastline in the littoral zone. Only in winter can it be caught in shallow water, most often at a depth of 5-6 m. In spring, the roach goes to spawning grounds located at a depth of 3-4 m, then swims to depth.

Large roaches have very strong throat teeth and feed on molluscs and crustaceans. This food is highly nutritious and satisfies the calorie and mineral needs of the fish. The roach supplements its diet with seasonal plant food, as well as small organisms that it collects from the stems of plants on the hills, from sticks and branches that fall into the reservoir. Many of these organisms can be used as bait, such as amphipods, caddis fly larvae, and leeches. Whole swarms of roaches eat the larvae as they transform into winged insects.

Read: Catching roach in the lake

In reservoirs, the water level periodically drops significantly, the oxygen content drops sharply, in these cases large roach swim to the shore in search of food. This is the only opportunity to catch it from the shore.

Large roach is rarely caught in sporting competitions because it is a shy fish and stays away from anglers' positions.

Large roaches form schools primarily in deep and large lakes; in rivers they are found less frequently and mainly in small groups of several fish. Even in large rivers, large roach are caught irregularly; we can talk about individual individuals. The exception is rivers connected to large lakes; schools of large roach swim here. The behavior of roach and the composition of the population depends on environmental conditions, and in many reservoirs also on the number of fishermen.

Large roach tolerate temperature fluctuations in the reservoir well, but most readily stay in cold and oxygenated water. It feeds on zebra mussels in the bottom zone. If you have a boat and an echo sounder, the first place to look for large roach is in the subtidal zone, because this is where zebra mussels are most abundant.

Read: Bait and tactics for catching winter roach

The roach grows quite slowly, for example, it gains 0.25 kg (most often these are the individuals that are found) at the age of 7-10 years, and 1 kg only at the age of 20 years. It is for this reason that many anglers release it.

Large roach often moves within a large body of water, whenever possible, it swims from one body of water to another, from sea to river, from lake to river, covering tens of kilometers. Most often this is due to spawning and the search for places to eat, less often – with deterioration in water quality.

Natural enemies

In the natural environment, this shy fish has many enemies.

In spring and especially at the beginning of summer, a significant number of its eggs die due to active eating by eels.

Huge predatory fish (perch, pike, pike perch, voracious chub) constantly follow schools of rams, attacking even during the spawning period. She watches for juvenile roach swimming behind plankton in underwater thickets.

The enemy of the fish is the predatory feathered gull and cormorant. They eat about 500 grams in one day. Kingfishers prefer young animals and small fish no more than 10 centimeters tall. Herons devour mature roaches measuring about 35 centimeters. Waterfowl great grebes - grebes - graze in the coastal zone to catch small fish.

Individuals are also destroyed by waterfowl predators: mink, otter, muskrat. They hunt it along the coast. Small specimens of roach are eaten by them immediately in the water, large ones are swallowed on the ground.

The track is also overcome by various ailments, from which it dies. Due to eating snails infected with a parasitic worm, the ram suffers from black-spot disorder, when dark plaques appear on the body of the ailing fish. Infected specimens are not dangerous to humans.

As a result of feeding on water fleas, roaches become infected with ligulosis. With it, tapeworms develop in the abdominal cavity, compressing the internal systems. The ram becomes barren and dies.

What class and order does it belong to?

The description of the species - common roach - is constructed as follows:

• superkingdom - eukaryotes (nucleated cells),
• kingdom - animals
• subkingdom - eumetazoans (true multicellular organisms),
• bilateria (bilaterally symmetrical) - there is a body axis,
• deuterostomes,
• type - chordates,
• subtype - vertebrates,
• infratype (group) - gnathostomes,
• clade (a group with a common ancestor and all its descendants) - fish,
• superclass - bony fishes,
• class - ray-finned,
• subclass - new feathers,
• infraclass - bony,
• superorder - osteovesical (there is a Weberian apparatus that connects the swim bladder to the inner ear),
• series - ostariophysics,
• order - carp-like,
• superfamily - carp-like,
• family - carp (Cyprinidae),
• subfamily - Leuciscinae (true minnows),
• genus - roach,
• species - roach.

International scientific name Rutilus rutilus (Linnaeus, 1758). The name was given by the Swedish biologist Carl von Linnaeus, who formed the binomial system in which living things are given double names.

There are Spanish, Shirvan, Alpine, Italian and other tracks in the world.

The biggest

Roach is classified as a weed in the world and is not of industrial importance. Recently, it has been caught exclusively for the restoration of zooplankton, due to which it is being replaced by more valuable varieties of fish. It is not in demand in Europe, since it is used to prepare animal feed, and is recognized as dangerous for the Baltic.

Now it is only relevant for recreational fishing.

In 2015, while fishing, an English schoolboy from Belfast (Northern Ireland, pictured below) caught the largest roach weighing 1.39 kg.

Interesting! The absolute record holder in the world is a huge ram weighing 2.58 kilograms found in the German Democratic Republic. In Russia in 1931, a 19-year-old male weighing 2.1 kilograms was caught.

Roach fishing gear

The main factor influencing which gear is best for catching roach is the season. At each time of the year, fish have their own habits, and external conditions also change them. The behavioral characteristics of roach depend on the ambient temperature; even within the same season, fishing methods can vary greatly.

The season is the main factor influencing what gear is best for catching roach

In the warm season, it makes sense to use one of three gears:

• classic donk or elastic band. It is used in reservoirs with a relatively flat bottom. 3-10 leashes up to 15 cm long are usually attached to the main line. To ensure the buoyancy of the gear, small floats of a few grams made of foam are added. In bottom versions of the gear, bait is not used for catching roach. It is better to use bloodworms and dung worms (medium size) as bait. It’s easy to detect a bite using the bite alarm;
• feeder. Catching roach in the spring on a feeder is effective at depths of 2-3 m. Typically, a picker rod with a small cast and up to 3 m in length is used. It is important to use any sensitive installation of gear (for example, an asymmetrical loop), and use light feeders with a small mesh size. It is better to take dry, dusty components as bait. When fishing at a distance of 20 m from the shore, it is better to use braided line, and the main bait should be maggot or bloodworm. The leashes should be 10-20 cm, and if there is no bite, it makes sense to increase the length of the leashes by 10 cm;
• float tackle. The most effective fishing tool is during the pre-spawning feast, when the roach approaches the shore in search of a suitable place for spawning. Nowadays the best are Bolognese and fly rods, with which you can catch significantly more fish than with half-bottoms, but the size is somewhat smaller. It is better to use floats of 0.5-3 g with a load of pellets. The main line is a monofilament thread with a diameter of 0.15±0.01 mm. Small hooks No. 16-18 on leashes 15-20 cm from fishing line with a cross-section of 0.11 ± 0.01 mm are suitable.

There are several opinions on which hook to catch roach on, but they all boil down to two basic rules:

• the larger the size of the expected prey, the larger the hook;
• The larger the bait, the smaller the hook number.

The behavior of roach depends on the ambient temperature
. Winter gear:

• In winter, we often catch roach with a reelless jig, although it is difficult to determine in absentia which jig is better to catch roach with: with or without a nozzle. Often, roach fishing initially comes down to identifying the preferences of fish in a body of water, only then is a conclusion made about the type of gear. When choosing which reel is best for catching roach, preference should be given to silver, golden and red colors, but the fish does not have any special inclinations when it comes to plumage;
• for nods and winter float gear. The main rule is that baits of plant origin are now useless; getting a roach to bite is only possible with animal food. It is important not only to identify the bait, but also to make the right game;
• using jigs and garlands. Long tackles with numerous leashes are installed. In winter they are used for fishing from great depths.