Barrie Rickards’ Angling – Rivers, Too Clean?

Professor Barrie Rickards is President of the Lure Angling Society, and President of the National Association of Specialist Anglers as well as a very experienced and successful specialist angler with a considerable tally of big fish to his credit.

He is author of several fishing books, including the classic work ‘Fishing For Big Pike’, co-authored with the late Ray Webb and only recently his first novel, ‘Fishers On The Green Roads’ was published. He has been an angling writer in newspapers and magazines for nigh on four decades. Barrie takes a keen interest in angling politics.

Away from angling Barrie is a Professor in Palaeontology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a curator of the Sedgwick Museum of Geology.

There have been recent reports that our rivers have serious problems in terms of aquatic insects: in short, there aren’t any. This is of interest to me because I first wrote about the problem nearly ten years ago. The latest idea is that the rivers are too clean, and I read Keith Arthur advancing this idea too. I’m sure there’s some truth in it, but it may be far from the whole story. The question of too clean rivers hits us from another source: between ten and fifteen years ago the then Water Authorities had inexplicable problems with some fenland rivers, and it was decided that they supported a reduced fish biomass because they were too clean. The idea was revolutionary at the time. But no one knew why they were too clean. I had the germ of an idea at that time and since then I have developed it, and in a few moments I’ll try it out on you. See what you think.

Before I do that, however, I want to chase up this insect problem a little further. More than ten years ago I noticed that all the numerous small brown trout, sea trout, and salmon parr were fast disappearing from all the tiny Lake District streams (gills and becks to me and thee). As a geologist I trod these streams for several weeks a year, year after year, and it really was noticeable that the trout were going. Now there are almost none.

As the trout declined there was a gradual increase in algal scum that clung to the pebbles on the bottom of the streams. It became quite dangerous to me, walking along streams as I was doing all day long. I was increasingly in danger of a serious fall. When I examined the stones and their layer of snot – for that is what it looked like – I noticed that all the creepy crawly life, all the bullheads, all the loach, had gone. 100% gone. No wonder the trout disappeared.

Now the algal slime came from the nutrients derived from all the fertilisers that the farmers had been encouraged to put on the hills (to improve grass monoculture for more sheep). The farmers had also been encouraged to increase upland drainage, to improve the grass monoculture, to improve the sheep yield! All this had a devastating effect on the ecology of the streams. All storm water was flushed through the system in nine times the speed it had naturally done so in the past. The waters were, most of the time between floods, at a lower level than they’d ever been, and in these times algae bloomed as a result of the trickle of nutrients. So the waters were not polluted in the traditional sense, were not damaged by abstraction in the traditional sense, and tests showed they were unusually ‘clean’ except for derived fertilisers.

Nowadays the upland drainage is turning slightly for the better because sheep are becoming persona non grata today, and the fertilisation is in decline (EU directives conflicting with the earlier directives) so things may improve. Certainly the slime has nearly gone, though drainage rates are still too fast.

I think these matters are effecting, to varying degrees, many of our non-hill streams too. Drainage rates are much too high, the water flushing through very quickly, leaving the between-floor levels low and unusually ‘clean’ (because nutrients are now also in decline). If the EA can reverse the drainage principles, so that water is held back and trickles through slowly, the waters might become more natural again, not quite so clean, and fly life might return. There would be more water in them more of the time and detailed habitats would become more diverse. So it’s not just that the waters are too clean, it’s that they are badly drained to boot.

The effects of ocean fishing practices on our sea fish stocks

If you have been following this column even irregularly you must be aware that angling today is very much part of a much bigger game. Above we were talking, really, about farming practices influencing fisheries, now I want to mention the latest results of ocean fishing practices on our sea fish stocks.

It seems as if one of the Government Ministers has at last learned first hand, by spending some time on a trawler, just what a disastrous state has been reached in our sea fisheries as a direct result of EU regulations. Edward Heath’s Conservative Government in the 1960s was the one that sold our fisheries down the river (if you’ll excuse that expression) by using them as a bargaining chip in the drive to get us in the EU. The then members of the EU were very keen on getting into our fisheries because, unlike them, we hadn’t plundered them (or, at least, we had learned the lesson of the herring shoal plundering of the early 1950s) so they came, and they plundered, and they continue to do so. The current rules are even dafter than the earlier ones with thousands of tons of undersized fish being killed weekly because the legal net size is too small. The figures were published in The Telegraph of 18 October, and they really are quite frightening. The current EU regulations are destroying the fisheries around the UK. By the time they have worked out some farcical compromise, assuming they ever do, it could be too late.

Our sea fisherman (anglers, ie) will probably have to be penalised in some way – a ‘quota’ no doubt will be imposed, possibly equal to zero. Why on earth do we put up with all this crap? (And remember, as I pointed out some months ago, these idiots want to get control of our freshwater fisheries too). European commercial fisheries interests have never shown any tendency to harvest the fish crop, only to annihilate it. The SAA has been making serious representations on these matters for quite some time, and there is no doubt they are being listened to. Whether this will lead to action on the part of the UK remains to be seen. In the meantime it does seem a bit rich to choose this precise moment to start asking the sea angler for a licence contribution!

PS – The Norfolk Broads, Pike and the BBC

By the way of a postscript, did anyone see a recent BBC Natural World programme on the Norfolk Broads. In many ways it was an excellent programme, with underwater shots of perch shoals, and the whole history of the Broads and their questionable future laid out. A very good programme. Until it came to pike. Once again the pike was portrayed as the villain of the piece, being the only serious predator of birds apart from man. I quote “Man… and a much worse predator – the pike”. What complete nonsense. Of course, given the absence of the great White Shark in the Broads, they feel they just must come up with something. Pike can, and I quote again “completely wipe out all other fish.” These people are supposed to be ecologists and conservationists. Pike can only wipe out all other fish in a very tiny environment such as a fish tank or, just possibly, a garden pond. I once had a pike that ate all six roach I had in a horse trough. It took it eighteen months to do so, and in fact, ate them in twenty-four hours. But in the natural environment, especially one like the Broads, pike will not wipe out other fish – or birds. As I have said many times before, the occasions when a pike eats a bird are exceedingly rare, and may be limited to mopping up the odd dead bird. They cannot digest feathers (or fur for that matter) and they have difficulty passing feathers.

Another quote: “A 20 Kg pike could swallow a coot whole.” No doubt. So could a 21/2 kg pike, but it doesn’t. There haven’t been many 20 Kg (i.e. 44 lbs) pike off the Broads. Ask Neville and Derek. And certainly there have not been any, quote again “35 Kg pike” (i.e. 77 lbs). What we need is a whole programme denigrating the clowns that write this sort of nonsense.