The Barbel Society R & C Report

Research and Conservation Report

The highlight of this year has to be the astounding success of the Research and Conservation online auction.

Thanks to the generosity of a host of donors and bidding members, we raised an impressive seven thousand seven hundred and eighty pounds according to my reckoning.

Our sincere and grateful thanks go to all the participants, and especially to Mike Berridge who organised and administered the online process. It all ran quite smoothly, even when bidders were in hot competition for some of the more desirable lots and we were operating temporarily on two different clocks!

All sorted out very professionally by Mike and his pals.

Thanks also to John Found, Steve Derby and Damian Kimmins and again old Mike, who helped me to get the lots together.

A full list of donors will be listed, both here and on the website.

With a bit more cash in the coffers, we can invest in barbel and barbel rivers, and hopefully make some sort of difference. The work that we have done is watched by others, and will also hopefully set an example for what can be done by independent or charitable organisations to preserve and protect our fishing and our rivers. A brief summary of our activities and progress and plans to date follows, but we are always open to suggestions and ideas from members, particularly in areas where they feel we could target some funding.

Aire stocking
Our donation of £ 1000 to Keighley Angling Club resulted in a stocking of barbel into their waters on the River Aire in Yorkshire this autumn, and we will always consider giving a bit of financial help to small fishing clubs in the future, as well as advice on habitat improvement work.

Bransford Fishery
We have finally got the go ahead from the EA to start the fishery improvement plans at Bransford, and as I write the EA team is finishing the tree work which will skylight the river, and encourage instream weed and low marginal growth. We will also be able to see more clearly where some instream cover could be introduced which does not constitute a dangerous snag or flooding or erosion threat.

The biggest willows and alders have been coppiced and pollarded in rotation, and it will be a bit of a shock to some members initially to see such a big difference in the early stages.
Before they start screaming about habitat destruction, they should remember that both species will very quickly grow back to produce a lower canopy of dense growth that is ecologically more favourable to wildlife, and especially fish , in the long term. The EA Biodiversity Officers and Natural England will have been consulted and given approval, and we are expecting that the newly formed Severn Rivers Trust will be viewing our work at Bransford with interest, and may use it as a template for further habitat enhancement work on the Teme and Severn. The Severn Rivers Trust is newly formed, and will I am sure prove to be as effective as all the other Rivers Trusts in representing the concerns of anglers and others who want to help look after our rivers. See their website at srt@severnriverstrust.org.uk for more details.

The work at Bransford would not have occurred without our ideas and funding, and the EA have been able to more than match our funding, and together we have been able to make a big difference there.

Dorset Stour barbel stocking
The second batch of barbel has been introduced, with 3000 barbel going in last autumn. The fish were marked at the Calverton fish farm a few weeks earlier, and were stocked at the same three sites as last year. It is planned to stock another 3000 next year, with all the fish provided free of charge by the EA.

The Barbel Society has in return committed £ 2000 to the habitat enhancement project that is running in partnership with the EA, and I have managed to persuade local clubs and organisations to a further £ 3250.

We have paid for twenty tonnes of gravel to topdress some stone croys already, and two other bits of work are in the planning stages, involving fry refuges and further instream work to improve spawning gravels, which will use up all that cash and some more.

Planning and consultations and form filling means that these projects, like the Bransford one, take time to come to fruition, but things do happen in the end!

The fish were once again marked with the injection of small liquid plastic tags, which harden slightly and remain in place, in theory, for the life of the fish, and certainly for the life of the monitoring process.

The BS paid for the kits which are imported from America.

Again, an idea from us and a bit of pump priming of funds has produced a project that has directed over fifty thousand pounds worth of expenditure towards the river.

Thames barbel project
I spent an extra couple of days at Calverton helping fishery officers from Thames region in marking a batch of 1250 barbel for stocking into the Upper Thames, and was able to gain a better idea of the work that they are doing to try and improve the habitat for the barbel populations there, which have been on the decline, probably as a result of heavy dredging in the seventies and eighties. Like the Stour, it can take that long for the lack of recruitment of barbel to start to show, but there are things that can be done to improve their chances of breeding in a self sustaining way. Stocking can never be a long term solution, only a way of giving recovering stocks a helping hand.

We still have cash committed to helping with spawning gravels on the Upper Thames, and although the original project on the Great Brook has been shelved, we are currently discussing where we can enhance and add to EA plans for reinstating spawning areas, We hope to contribute to the scheme this spring, and may make a bigger contribution if a project can be found for us.

Loddon Consultative and Loddon habitat work
BS member Ian Watson has our thanks for acting as a BS representative on this committee, which is working with the EA to identify and address fishery problems on the Loddon. When I get more details, I will probably be recommending that the BS helps to fund a series of habitat improvements on the upper Loddon and possibly the Blackwater. The problems are seen to be the common ones of historical over dredging and loss of spawning gravels, which can be replaced fairly cheaply over time. Again, we can increase the number of sites or the intensity of the work with a BS contribution.

I am in close contact presently with some of the EA officers planning work for this spring, and we may have a result to inform you of in the next newsletter.

River Blackwater barbel stocking
We are currently trying to liaise between local clubs and EA regarding a stocking of barbel into the Blackwater in Essex, which has a small barbel population, but barbel are viewed by the EA as a non native species at present. The BS does not give blanket support to stocking barbel in rivers where they are non native, and remains completely opposed to illegal stockings.

However, every case for stocking should be judged individually, and if there are already existing long term stocks, and where it could be argued that there is no negative effect on existing species, and where the fishery could be judged to be maintained and improved, there is a case for stocking in our view.

In conjunction with habitat improvement work, it could be that the introduction of barbel may be approved, but it is early days yet, although the local clubs and anglers all seem to be very much in favour.

We will continue to support and advise them.

River Ouse barbel project
We have been approached by the EA to see how we can help in the project currently being planned to investigate barbel habitat and recruitment on the Ouse, and although the EA has a budget of over fifty thousand pounds for this work, I am sure there is a contribution we can make.

A stocking of marked fish has already been done at Sharnbrook, I think, and any captures of the dyemarked fish should be reported to local clubs. I am sure those of you who are members of these clubs will be informed in more detail. Again, the requirements for successful self sustaining stocks is the issue, and I will keep you informed once I have had a chance to meet with EA officers about this one.

As always, we are asking for any more ideas you may have on how we can target the research and conservation funding. True research can be hugely expensive and time consuming, but I do have some ideas for smaller projects which we could afford or contribute to.

For example, we put aside a couple of hundred barbel with the elastomer marks for retention in the farm to see how long the tags last, and if there are any unexpected effects on the fish. Work on this is novel and could be expanded.

I would like to see the Society gathering and maintaining a national database of spawning sites and spawning activity, which the EA would find most useful and would also provide some measure of protection for those sites.

We have experimented with gathering data on length/weight records from various rivers, but it needs more thought and more of a justification and driving influence, and would be very big job to manage.

Growth rates in both stillwaters and rivers need to be studied more, and the effects of climate change have had much more of an effect than bait in my view. Big fat barbel may not be very good breeders, or have shortened life spans!

On my local Hampshire Avon, I was far more delighted to hear of a catch of a dozen two pound barbel than the news of a sixteen pounder, especially when I was not the captor of the latter specimen!

Rivers where we have not been able to make a contribution may be screaming out for work, so please let me know!

Donations to the R and C Fund are of course very welcome on top of your renewal, and your renewal form/application form will ask you again!

Thanks again for all the support for the RandC section.

Pete Reading