Roach on lures?

[Krang]

I was fishing for trout, sometime around july, and I caught a roach on a hard micro lure. It really hit it too. At first I thought it was a trout. It was my first or maybe second cast. It was a nice roach too. I thought it was just a freak occurrence, but it strikes me that I've never actually tried using these tiny lures to catch roach. I mainly target trout and chub with them. On this particular day I didn't catch any trout, only that roach and some small perch. It's the only time I have failed to catch trout at this particular spot having fished there about 20 times. Yet there was constant fish activity, circles on the water. I'm guessing the water was too warm for the trout, but had sent the roach hyperactive. Does anyone have any experience with roach on lures?

 

[The Sogster]

Depends on your definition of lure, I've had allsorts of fish on fake casters etc.

 

[Krang]

This is the type of lure I caught it on.

Maybe a fluke, maybe something that would happen more if I actually targeted roach, or maybe an aspect of roach behaviour that only surfaces when the water is very warm.

 

[Molehill]

Back in my childhood on the dorset stour I had a friend whose only method of fishing was a mepps spinner! He seemed to catch everything at some point and pretty sure some good roach were included.
Rudd I used to find very aggressive and would often take large lure type flies when trout fishing reservoirs.

 

[steve2]

Although I haven't targeted roach on lures I have caught them on small spinner baits. Also Rudd on small spinners and carp on different types of lures.

 

[markcw]

All fish are cannibalistic, I have a friend who fishes for eels, he has had double figure carp on Roach or Rudd dead baits.

 

[rob48]

Not on lures exactly, but certainly on retrieved bait, which surprised me.
Having been "bitted out" on the float while fishing the Warks Avon I tried straight lead on a wand in order to try and get the bait down more quickly (in about 6-7' deep swim). Everything was being ragged on the way down, with bites I couldn't hit, even tares. Deciding to cast beyond the feed area and work the bait back along the bottom I experienced bites so hard that I could feel them up to the rod handle and many roach hooked themselves.
So if they'll take baits being retrieved across and against the flow of the river there doesn't seem any reason why they wouldn't take a lure.

 

[Krang]

Can you guys remember what the water temperature was like?

 

[The Sogster]

Back in my childhood on the dorset stour I had a friend whose only method of fishing was a mepps spinner! He seemed to catch everything at some point and pretty sure some good roach were included.
Rudd I used to find very aggressive and would often take large lure type flies when trout fishing reservoirs.

Can't beat a good old Mepps number 3

 

[Kevin Perkins]

Another vote for Mepps, skimmer bream from canal.

 

[seth49]

Plenty of chub on small mepps when spinning for sea trout.

 

[Keith M]

I used to catch both Bream and Roach on polystickles that imitated tiny fish when I was younger. Most if not all fish are carnivorous and will eat fry at certain times of the year, especially in the late spring.

Keith

 

[dorsetsteve]

If you scale down to micro jigs, “baits” like Westins Bloodteeze etc which imitate invertebrate life you will probably find a few.

 

[steve2]

I used to catch both Bream and Roach on polystickles that imitated tiny fish when I was younger. Most if not all fish are carnivorous and will eat fry at certain times of the year, especially in the late spring.

Keith

Carp certainly do judging by the amount that now get caught on live and deadbaits on my club waters.

 

[Krang]

If you scale down to micro jigs, “baits” like Westins Bloodteeze etc which imitate invertebrate life you will probably find a few.

Just bought some Bloodteeze. Not tried bloodworm type lures before but they look pretty interesting.

Have you used them much? Any tips?

 

[no-one in particular]

If you scale down to micro jigs, “baits” like Westins Bloodteeze etc which imitate invertebrate life you will probably find a few.

Just had a look at those bloodteeze on utube, I might try them fly fishing by whipping them to a hook.

 

[Molehill]

Carp certainly do judging by the amount that now get caught on live and deadbaits on my club waters.

Carp are a sodding nuisance on deadbaits.
Edit: Carp are are sodding nuisance, end of story ?

 

[John Aston]

Apart from the obvious target fish I've had roach , rudd , chub , carp , bream dace and tench on fly (typically PTN , buzzer and small dries ) . On perch/pike/zander jig and dropshot tactics I've had carp , chub , ide, roach/bream hybrid and salmon as 'by catch'. So far .... Fly can be incredibly effective at catching coarse fish -my only 100plus bag of chub was taken on dry fly on a blazing hot afternoon (37 fish between low threes and big fours ) .

Until I started fly fishing -decades ago now - like most purely coarse anglers ,as I then was , I gave shamefully little thought to what fish actually ate . My ignorance of entomology was total and I realised , early on in my fly career , that I had been blissfully ignorant about a lot of fish habitat, especially very shallow water.