Fly fishing for roach

[Beresford]

I caught my best roach of 2 1/4 lbs on a fly at Grafham. Funnily enough it took a Roach Fry Fly! It hit the fly hard, which surprised me.

[Ian]

Great pics Martin and great input from you guys,I’m really looking forward to trying this.i bet it will be great fun.

[ReelMaker]

I've had some good sport with small flys when the weather's warm,but you need to use little nymphs just under the surface unless the fish are rising,Dace are very fast so you need to quick.Reelmaker

[Olly]

Grafham must be very strange - roach over 2 and bream into doubled figures --- on imitation fry flies!

I once saw a big - very big roach caught on a small spinner -- a fry copy again?

They must be predatory at some time of their lives - after spawning perhaps.

[Rutland Rod]

One of our Trout pools has a number of small Roach like the one in the pic caught on a small gold head, usual slow retrieve on a floating line, other members have had them on a dry fly. They don’t get much bigger than the one pictured as the Trout hoover up the fry.

[Mole-Patrol]

My first fly caught fish was a roach, well three of them all on GRHE nymphs. I had bought a fly-fishing outfit and went to a local coarse river to practice and got lucky. Latterly I used to target roach using fly tackle and tied some small shrimp versions of Sawyer's Killer Bug on 18 and 16 hooks. Takes were very gentle plucks. In late summer I found roach feeding on fry and flies like a Silver Butcher or Polystickle would catch them. Takes were much more positive.



Chub too were good sport on fly-tackle. I had a lot of luck using a small Pheasant Tail Nymph suspended a couple of inches under an Elk Hair Caddis dry fly. The EHC itself was a good chub fly fished dry in summer.



The best chub I had was just under 6lb and caught from a small pool, no more than bath tub size where the flow entered over a lip about 2" above the pool. There was a willow on the far side and a high bank on the near side. To approach I had to use bank side cover, keep low and slide carefully down the banking with fly line coiled in my left hand. The fly, usually a brown Wooly-Bugger was cast onto the lip to wash down into the pool. There was no possibility to re-cast. One cast was all I got. Fish would appear from under the willow to snaffle the fly. Incredibly in one year I got two chub over 3lb, the near 6lb chub a 2lb perch and a 2lb 4 oz trout all on fly. Then someone decided to 'improve' the swim by removing the willow. I never caught another fish from 'The Glory Hole'.

[Bobby Marlene]

I think the best approach is to try to catch a good grayling! At least that works for me usually...
Bobby

[ReelMaker]

Check a website named flys online there are some flys suited for Roach dace and chubReelmaker

[Mole-Patrol]

The Roach Grub and Shrimp from that site are similar to the flies I used to tie to fish for roach. For dace you can't beat a small Elk Hair Caddis dry fly. It resists the slime that is associated with coarse fish, more so than with trout, and will float all day. All you then need are reflexes of a Super Hero to connect to the takes.

[TrentFisher]

Never cast a fly!!!!!!
Oddly enough I acquired a Abu Garcia fly fishing set up from a friend (carbon...but beggars can't be...etc)
So you may see some fool in the middle of playing field in Nottingham getting in a mess with fly fishing outfit practicing his back cast!
It has to be done, it sounds very exciting indeed.

I wish you all well in your efforts.
Nige.