Roach

The roach is a sociable, silvery cyprinid with reddish fins and one of the most common and adaptable white fish. In the Franconian Saale it is widely distributed as an undemanding companion fish of the summer-warm middle and lower river, favouring harder ground in the lee of the current and in open water, for instance behind groynes, in bays and in impoundments. It is expressly recorded for the Saale and a rewarding fish for beginners.

How to identify it

Characteristic are the terminal, straight mouth, the red iris often with a red spot at the upper edge of the eye, and the dorsal fin that begins roughly vertically above the base of the pelvic fin.

Look-alikes

From the very similar rudd it is distinguished by the terminal rather than superior mouth, the dorsal fin above rather than clearly behind the pelvic fin, the red rather than yellow-golden eye, and the rounded rather than sharply keeled belly edge between pelvic and anal fin.