Ide or Roach?

[dave19k43]

Hi fellow Maggotdrowners...I'm regularly fishing a commercial fishery which has a good mix of species. I recently had a good catch of "roach" to 2 lbs but the fishery owner later told me that the larger fish were most probably silver Ide, a fish that I'm not familiar with. Is there an easy way to spot the difference between these two species?

 

[Silverfisher]

Unless the roach are very washed out and thin it should be quite easy to tell as they are quite disticitive looking species. Roach tend to be deeper shaped than Ide which are quite elongated plus roach have generally more colour in their fins. Roach also have bigger, fewer scales and generally more distinct scales. I think roach have something like 42 scales down their lateral line with ide comfortably over 50.

 

[carphauler]

Unless the roach are very washed out and thin it should be quite easy to tell as they are quite disticitive looking species. Roach tend to be deeper shaped than Ide which are quite elongated plus roach have generally more colour in their fins. Roach also have bigger, fewer scales and generally more distinct scales. I think roach have something like 42 scales down their lateral line with ide comfortably over 50.

You forgot the main bit....... Red eyes.

 

[Silverfisher]

You forgot the main bit....... Red eyes.

That is a good point!

 

[dave19k43]

Thanks to you both for the helpful information. I'm now 77 years old and my personal best roach, caught in a match on the river Trent, has stood at 2lb 2ozs for almost 50 years. I believe there could be some roach in this fishery that are much bigger than that, so it's personally important for me to know which species I'm catching. I assume ide don't have the red eyes which I know roach have, so I'll be looking for that first, before I start counting scales

 

[Ken the Pacman]

Mostly covered in this thread Any ideas what this is?

 

[Markywhizz]

Ide grow a lot bigger. They are more silvery like skimmers and their fins are more pinky as opposed to orangey.

 

[MarkW]

Don't bother with eye colour, just do that lateral line scale count. Ide/orfe have upwards of 55, roach usually around 41/42.

 

[The one and only Harvey]

Don't bother with eye colour, just do that lateral line scale count. Ide/orfe have upwards of 55, roach usually around 41/42.

Exactly. They have much smaller scales, that don't look roachy at all.