Opinion Piece – Predators or Piscivores?

Predators or Piscivores?

WITHOUT WISHING TO appear pedantic, or get too bogged down in semantics, I think it’s worth sorting a few terms out?

The answer to whether all the fish in question are predatory is certainly yes. They all belong to the Cyprinidae family, and other animals form part of their diet. For example, it is correct to state that they ‘predate’ upon invertebrate insects, molluscs etc… Which are generally the bulk of the natural diet of these species.

I think what you are really asking is whether these species are piscivorous, i.e. do they eat live fish? Again, the answer is yes, on occasions, most markedly during the spawning period when fry can form a significant part of their diet. They are also cannibalistic, in that they will eat their own fry and spawn on occasion. Whether physiological changes at spawning time drive piscivorous behaviour, or there is a greater need for animal protein in their diet at the time of greatest seasonal stress, I don’t know. As these species are strictly speaking omnivores, they may just be exploiting a seasonal glut.

In ecological terms you have to ask yourself whether these species are really evolved to be effective piscivores? If you expand more energy catching your dinner than you gain through digesting it, then ultimately you’ll starve!

Obviously, I’ve stated nothing that you don’t already know. Barbel for example will eat plant derived foodstuffs, (hemp, sweetcorn, bread), invertebrates (maggots, casters, worms) and vertebrate derived products (luncheon meat, fish meals, milk proteins).

Which Cyprinids are worth chasing?

On the more interesting topic of whether it’s worth pursuing Cyprinids with live fish baits, there is only really a convincing case for chub. My dad used to catch more chub when piking on the Great Ouse at Hemingford Abbots than he did pike. This was on really ropey gear, snap tackle, fishing gazette bung and pilot float! A big gudgeon appeared to be the most effective ‘lively’.

Chub are certainly the most piscivorous of the English cyprinids, but the only European cyprinid to regularly eat large fishes in its adult diet is the Asp (Giles, N. 1994). As I’m sure you are aware there are an increasing number of anglers who actively and successfully fish for chub with artificial lures. Consider the parallels with the Masheer in India, which readily attack lures as well as huge ‘dough-balls’ of paste.

Fishing for barbel with live or dead fish is pointless

I’m satisfied that barbel fishing with both live and dead fish is a pointless exercise in proving what we already know, i.e. on occasion they will take both. If you read the details of Peter Stone’s recollections of catching barbel on trotted live minnows on the gravel runs below Thames weirs, you’ll note the following:He was technically fishing for brown trout in what is currently the coarse fish closed season on rivers. From memory I am almost certain that Peter states this unequivocally in his book ‘Come fish with Me‘. This corroborates the increased piscivorous tendencies of cyprinids during the spawning period. Now I rarely fish for barbel much before September, they can often take a long time to regain condition after spawning. So I prefer not to stress the fish at a time when they are not ‘match fit’ and dissolved oxygen contents are often at the lowest. This set of circumstances is associated with the summer deaths of a number of very big barbel after capture. Given the pressure the species is now under on many rivers, I’m happy to leave them alone until the autumn when live fish baits are likely to be less effective than in the early season.

A lot of noise about the effectiveness of minnows

John Bailey and Roger Miller did make a lot of noise about the effectiveness of minnows, live and dead, as barbel baits a while back now. While I don’t doubt their integrity, I do believe they were a little disingenuous to suggest that minnows are a comparable alternative to established barbel baits. Whenever I’ve seen John fishing the Wye on TV, when presumably he’s under pressure to produce, he’s used maggots, corn etc… and kept stum about the mighty minnow. Nuff said I reckon, and unless someone of the calibre of a Trefor West starts raving about fish baits for barbel I’ll give ’em a miss thanks. Similarly, you are welcome to your lampreys Ray and why is it always the youngsters who have to carry out other people’s experiments? I recall Peter Stone stating that he’d like to see some anglers use only fish-baits for cyprinids for an entire season but wasn’t prepared to risk it himself.

I have done a lot of Zander fishing with small deads and half baits etc… in good barbel areas on both the Lower Severn and Warks Avon. The tackle I’ve used is pretty much what I’d use for barbel and the sum total of bonus barbel I’ve caught this way stands at a big fat zero. So if we meet up on the Tidal Trent for a barbel bash and I bring the bait and offer you the choice of a bucket of Halibut pellets or a pack of lampreys, what’s it going to be Ron Clay (see forum discussion)? You are also far more trusting of hearsay and anecdotal evidence than I am. Wasn’t it established that the vast majority of those big barbel caught by salmon anglers on the Hants Avon, including the 16lb 1oz beastie, were either foul hooked while fly-fishing or took a worm or prawn bait?

No compelling evidence that our barbel can reach much over 16lb on a natural diet

There is one other detail about barbel that needs to be set straight Ron. Whatever species of barbel it is you are referring to that grows to 30lb in Europe, it is not the same species as our English Barbus barbus. There is no compelling evidence that our barbel can reach much over 16lb on a natural diet. The Ouse monsters are frankly analogous to a Dever Springs or Avington 20lb Rainbow Trout. As you correctly state there are a great many different species of barbel, some of which grow substantially heavier than our own. For example, the Aral barbel of the Volga Delta are said to reach 50lb!

Bream – “non fighting lumps of semi-animated mucus”

Bream then? Again we know they are major league lovers of anything with a high fishmeal content. I believe some enormous fish have been caught on fly spoons from the Dutch polders, again during the spawning period. As notorious “non fighting lumps of semi-animated mucus” (per Gibbinson, sorry Graham I’m not a fan of the species [you’re welcome, each to his own – Graham]) they are hardly well adapted to a piscivorous life-style, are they? If you’re serious about bream you aren’t really going to use live fish baits are you?

Tench – little evidence that they eat fish at all

Now tench are an interesting topic, there is very little evidence to suggest they eat fish at all? Back in the ’70’s Ray Forsberg wrote about his experiences with the tench of Thompson’s pond, a gravel pit near Brandesburton. He caught tench, squarely hooked in the chops on deadbaits while fishing for eels and then successfully caught a few more by fishing for them with deads. Now I know from personal experience that these fish were no pushovers. I caught a few by design on lobworms and a few more by accident on boilies while after carp. Now I’ve seen tench feed in pretty untypical tench ways where they are obviously hungry in overstocked waters, especially after a carp injection. This wasn’t the case with Thomo’s at all, which if anything, was lightly stocked. That’s all I know about tench on fish baits, can anyone else shed any light on this?

Carp – not much mileage in fishing for carp with lives, deads or lures

Finally carp, on a few occasions I’ve landed a fish and found a very small fry dead in the net as well. Whether the carp had coughed these up I can’t say but I suspect they might have been. A couple of years ago, I decided to try and see if there were any big perch in a small clay pit I’d fished for carp. I’d seen fry scattering in the margins but had not been able to see what had caused the scare because the water is very coloured. Anyway, I ended up float-fishing a live(ish) rudd of about 2oz a couple of feet off the bottom. After about half an hour something tried to drag my rod in while I was looking away from the float. Despite initial hopes that I had hooked a record perch, I eventually landed a carp of about 7lbs, neatly hooked in the mouth with the rudd still hanging in there. Despite this experience I can’t really see much mileage in fishing for carp with lives, deads or lures. Carp are so widespread now, in waters where the pike are also heavily fished (ditto Catfish), that you’d be hearing about regular captures if it was worth the effort.