The Rudd is a fantastic fish to catch, and will guarantee bites all year round. At first glance the Rudd looks very similar to a roach, and it’s easy for a new angler to think they are the same species. The Rudd is a much deeper fish, and its dorsal fin is much further back than that of the Roach. It has a flat–sided body and quite a small mouth, which curves obliquely upwards to suit its surface feeding habits.
It is the colour of the Rudd that makes it such a lovely fish to catch. It has a bluish green back, which fades to a golden coloured flank and silvery white belly. Its fins are a deep orange colour, and go almost red in some healthy waters. Another way of telling roach and Rudd apart is the eyes. The Rudd has yellow/orange irises, where the Roach is red eyed. Roach and Rudd both spawn at similar times, April to June, and it is common for them to hybridise. Many clamed records of roach and Rudd have been cancelled due to this.
The Rudd is distributed over the whole of Europe, except for some of the very northern tips of Scotland and Scandinavia. They will happily inhabit stagnant and slow moving water, and love thick aquatic vegetation. They have however been stocked in many commercial fisheries, and now provide great sport for match anglers throughout the country.
They are a shoal fish, and a large weight can be amassed if they are targeted. The average size is usually between 2oz and 6oz, although they have been caught over 3lb! Rudd are adapted to be a surface feeder, and naturally take insects of the surface as well as bloodworm, plankton and also eat some aquatic plants.
Rudd will also take anglers baits with ease. Maggots, casters, bread and worms are favourites, but the farmed fish will have been fed a diet of small pellets, to they have a bit of a taste for fish meal too!
Targeting Rudd
Not many people will go out to necessarily catch Rudd nowadays, but these colourful darting fish can be a pleasure to catch. In natural lakes, where the large, wiser Rudd tend to be found, bread flake is an excellent bait. Free-lining or fishing very light under the surface with a waggler float should tempt them. As said before, live baits such as maggots and worms may also work well fished in the same way.
On commercials, Rudd can be caught very close in, usually on the top three or four sections of pole. Feeding maggots and caters regularly should get them competing, and using a light float in the upper layers of water should be effective, especially in the warmer months. The waggler can also be effective, fishing shallow and spraying maggots. Rudd can be seen as a pest to some anglers who are targeting bigger fish, but there have been some huge weights amassed in matches on commercials when anglers have targeted them.
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i have only caught about 20 rudd but they are one of the best fish to catch. i use origanal groundbait with a single maggot and thats what i catch em on
ive recently caught 3 large rudd,2lb6 0z,2lb9oz,2lb130z,along with 1lb60z and 1lb90z,and on the water i fish i believe there are even bigger rudd possibly 4lbers.my method is to swim feed using mixed brown/white crumb with some mashed sweetcorn for groundbait using either popped up sweetcorn or breadflake on a size 16 hook.
you have to pop up sweetcorn because rudd are not bottom feeders,they will try to get at a bottom bait by nudging the bait up before taking it.
fishing the way i do is great sport for rudd,i use 3lb line straight through with a daiwa tornado quiver rod.
hi can you tell me plz,,,if a rudd mail or femail have a white line that runs douwn the back of thr fish. my mate he has this line on one of his rudd in is pond and it bothers him. it is defo a rudd fish so is this line supose to be there. cheers gouldie.
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