Do you ever wonder

[Alan Whitty]

I think a lot of what you say is true John, in the last twenty plus years my local rivers and lakes were being decimated by cormorants, silver fish wise, in recent years we suddenly have excellent roach/dace fishing, when conditions are right, yet guys tell me that the roach are being herded and hammered, come maybe the last two weeks of the season or certainly next summer they will be catching again, well they didn't grow from fry in that short a time, again I mention our (anglers as a whole) belief that if we don't catch, they aren't there, now there will be stretches where fish are few and far between, but surely not mules of river, leading me to the belief that if I shut my mouth, I can't eat....
Also, as you say in respect to the fens, a mate of mine lives just outside Wisbech, he fishes a local drain, the only places that get fished are a few swims either side of two bridges, this dyke is 7 miles long, he drives along it regularly and there would never be a day when there were 10 anglers pleasure fishing it, yet the locals reckon all the fish are adjacent to those two bridges, how would they know??? There are miles of it with no swims cut in, on my waters those areas would be where the fish might be...

 

[nottskev]

I've watched a vlog on YouTube this morning by tackle and Bates about the fens seemingly being in terminal decline, blaming cormorants, otters, seals, crayfish, mitten crabs and man's decision on managing the east's waterways, saying there are only three or four that are being fished regularly, one being the old Nene at March and even that is deteriorating, my opinion on this is that if you have two or three matches a week producing good catches of silver fish where last year most anglers would have weighed double figures of roach I don't think it is sustainable, if two fish die in each keepnet full then after a few years the population will reduce steadily, we are by all accounts another predator, even though we don't eat them...

When they mention "managing" waterways at the end of that list of claimed problems, I'm assuming that means failing or neglecting to manage? There are canals near me that are fading away from existence, as they have been for decades, but it's not because they are being managed ....
I only recently discovered the house I live in was built over the course of a canal filled in 100 years ago. Second time something similar has happened - my last house in Chester was, I found, built on the original course of the tidal river; a new course was dug in the early 18c in an attempt to combat silting and keep Chester viable as a port.

This free tidal stretch once provided good fishing, especially for dace and roach, but the Dee suffered a host of problems after the river was plugged into Welsh mountain reservoirs in the 60's and used as a conduit for drinking water. The steep descent of the upper river rapidly delivers cold water down to the plain where coarse fish live. Lowered temperatures, and tree-lined banks keeping sun off the margins, made the river inhospitable to the food chains that let fry thrive. It took about 40 years for the lower river to recover, and it waited til I'd left to do so. The arrival of the cormorants on that tidal stretch in the 90's just put the tin hat on it. The sight of them lined up drying their wings on the rotted posts of old wharves was a bleak trailer for what was coming our way.

Are the fish not there, not there in numbers or there but not caught? Could be any combination of these. During the 90's on the Dee at Chester, a friend used to strip his gear down, get on his bike and search for fish over several miles upstream stopping where experience told him the nomadic pockets of fish were likely to settle. Once he found some (always on't wag; he was from Preston) he'd go back and if he was lucky they'd still be there and he'd catch roach. But it was quite likely they'd be gone. To add to the difficulty, the roach, even if there were some, often only fed in low light, and you'd get your first bite when there was only an hour's daylight left.

Not really relevant, but I chanced upon this pic just now of a pack of predators on a drain

 

[Alan Whitty]

The vlog is reasonably interesting, especially this one, it has to be said that the east of England has a higher density of non-carp(specimen size) anglers than the majority of the country, that is why their tackle shops still stock floats, feeders etc, but these anglers either fish commercials or three or four localised stretches of river/drain, the club my friend at Wisbech had footage shown to them by the EA somehow filmed by some sort of ultrasound device of fish on their stretches and how certain areas were virtually devoid of fish....

 

[nottskev]

I don't know these Fen waters, but I have the impression the drain fishing is seasonal and based in the areas where fish are known to congregate in the winter, typically the built-up areas where we're told the water is fractionally warmer. If fish congregate in some spots, others must be pretty devoid ..... I can think of several rivers where the town centre stretches are where the fish winter. Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to my local one!

 

[@Clive]

When they mention "managing" waterways at the end of that list of claimed problems, I'm assuming that means failing or neglecting to manage? There are canals near me that are fading away from existence, as they have been for decades, but it's not because they are being managed ....
I only recently discovered the house I live in was built over the course of a canal filled in 100 years ago. Second time something similar has happened - my last house in Chester was, I found, built on the original course of the tidal river; a new course was dug in the early 18c in an attempt to combat silting and keep Chester viable as a port.

This free tidal stretch once provided good fishing, especially for dace and roach, but the Dee suffered a host of problems after the river was plugged into Welsh mountain reservoirs in the 60's and used as a conduit for drinking water. The steep descent of the upper river rapidly delivers cold water down to the plain where coarse fish live. Lowered temperatures, and tree-lined banks keeping sun off the margins, made the river inhospitable to the food chains that let fry thrive. It took about 40 years for the lower river to recover, and it waited til I'd left to do so. The arrival of the cormorants on that tidal stretch in the 90's just put the tin hat on it. The sight of them lined up drying their wings on the rotted posts of old wharves was a bleak trailer for what was coming our way.

Are the fish not there, not there in numbers or there but not caught? Could be any combination of these. During the 90's on the Dee at Chester, a friend used to strip his gear down, get on his bike and search for fish over several miles upstream stopping where experience told him the nomadic pockets of fish were likely to settle. Once he found some (always on't wag; he was from Preston) he'd go back and if he was lucky they'd still be there and he'd catch roach. But it was quite likely they'd be gone. To add to the difficulty, the roach, even if there were some, often only fed in low light, and you'd get your first bite when there was only an hour's daylight left.

Not really relevant, but I chanced upon this pic just now of a pack of predators on a drain

View attachment 32814

That is a lovely photo. A bit before the thousand peg Woodbine matches. Possibly a train load of Sheffield anglers steelworks social club match?

A basket and one rod. The nets, bait, reel and everything else inside the basket in most cases along with their flask & sandwiches.

 

[Mark Wintle]

That is a lovely photo. A bit before the thousand peg Woodbine matches. Possibly a train load of Sheffield anglers steelworks social club match?

A basket and one rod. The nets, bait, reel and everything else inside the basket along with their flask & sandwiches.

It's anglers going to their pegs in the 1908 All-England Championship on the North Level Drain at Tydd Gote, and is on the cover of John Essex's book on the history of the Nationals.

 

[Mark Wintle]

The vlog is reasonably interesting, especially this one, it has to be said that the east of England has a higher density of non-carp(specimen size) anglers than the majority of the country, that is why their tackle shops still stock floats, feeders etc, but these anglers either fish commercials or three or four localised stretches of river/drain, the club my friend at Wisbech had footage shown to them by the EA somehow filmed by some sort of ultrasound device of fish on their stretches and how certain areas were virtually devoid of fish....

The Welland seems to have a vast concentration of bream in winter in just one shoal of thousands, with the roach moving into the old river in Spalding.

 

[nottskev]

That is a lovely photo. A bit before the thousand peg Woodbine matches. Possibly a train load of Sheffield anglers steelworks social club match?

A basket and one rod. The nets, bait, reel and everything else inside the basket in most cases along with their flask & sandwiches.

Yes - it reminded me of that video we've all seen of Sheffield coach parties. I saw it on a Fb page called Simple Match Fishing, where you see all kinds of memory-jogging pics of anglers and venues from the recent past.

 

[Kevin Perkins]

Pretty sure that's Ron Clay on the left telling them how he would fish this stretch......