Wintle’s World of Angling

Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish, tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises.

Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular weekly column.

Are our dace in decline? Asks Mark

ARE DACE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES?

Dace have been in the news lately as a species that could be considered as endangered, along with rudd, salmon, eels and crucian carp. But should we have cause for concern? And what is the evidence for an irreversible decline?

For me as an angler, dace have long played an important part in my river sport. I grew up in the Dorset town of Wareham with its twin rivers the Dorset Frome and Piddle. Both are mainly tidal in this area, and for many years provided excellent dace fishing. In my early days, in the seventies, I caught far more dace than anything else, with bags to over 50lbs. It was only later that I learnt how to target the roach and avoid the dace. When I started to travel more widely in the early eighties I found excellent dace sport in the Dorset Stour and Hampshire Avon.

But the last fifteen or twenty years I have noticed an accelerating decline in dace numbers. Many former hotspots are simply devoid of dace. I still catch dace, but rarely in anything like the numbers that I used to, which is alarming considering how much better the tackle is nowadays. I must admit that the sheer hard work of putting a big bag of dace together has lost its appeal. What’s more, I reckon that my skills at feeding a big shoal of dace are getting distinctly rusty.

The lifecycle
Before I go into the causes for their decline, it is vital to understand a little about the life cycle of dace. These fish are not the longest living fish species by a long way, with a life expectancy of around ten or eleven years, considerably less than roach, chub, bream and barbel. Dace become sexually mature at around three years, and are one of the earliest spawners, spawning from as early as late February through into March. Their spawning success depends on what are virtually late winter conditions including low temperatures and floods. This means that dace may endure several bad spawning years before a good year boosts stocks. These good years may dominate stocks for several years. Examples of very good spawning years include 1976, 1995 and 2001. This last year has resulted in a glut of small dace (currently around two ounces) in a few parts of the Stour and Avon (and the Wye and lower Thames) but with a lack of much bigger dace. The good news is these dace are now big enough to spawn for the first time. Will the dace be able to stage a comeback?

The Dorset Frome (click for bigger picture)

The evidence
Although dace are prolific spawners, and despite that recent good spawning year, many areas of these Dorset and Hampshire rivers remain largely devoid of dace. This must in part be due to the remaining numbers of dace being so small that even a good spawning year does not achieve a revival. When you consider that thirty years ago a spawning shoal of dace could be several hundred yards long, with tens of thousands of fish, and compare it with the groups measured in dozens, then it takes little to be convinced of a serious decline.

These huge numbers meant that it was possible to catch dace at will on many stretches, and dace were considered a curse on the Avon by those fishing with maggots in summer after bigger game. I am trying to get updated survey reports on these rivers. The previous Environment Agency surveys showed that there had been a decline in dace numbers through the nineties. Like several other species, growth rates had increased significantly. Less competition and longer growing seasons must contribute to this. Big concentrations of dace do still occur from time to time but the days of shoals that stretch over several hundred yards are gone.

Bloody Cormorants!
The ill-judged protection of the cormorant some twenty odd years ago is probably the single factor that has had the most detrimental effect on dace populations. Their Europe-wide exponential increase in numbers is now serious cause for alarm. There is considerable evidence of major damage to not only dace but also roach and salmon numbers.

Much more locally, their impact on the middle Stour from Wimborne to Blandford has been nothing short of disastrous, to say nothing of their impact on the Hampshire Avon. Several areas that had good populations of dace in the seventies are now virtually fishless. The problem is partly that this part of the river has long been remote and undisturbed. Many lengths of this river hardly see an angler from one year to the next, and it was only during the back end of the season when the dace would shoal up prior to spawning that anglers would bother to fish. So, for the increasing numbers of cormorants, here was paradise, plentiful food and no disturbance (no dog walkers, bird watchers, nothing). As the fishing declined, interest in the fishing slumped ever further until we have the situation today where a number of lengths are regarded as uneconomic to rent.

Of course, this is the tip of the iceberg as far as cormorants are concerned, for their impact on dace has been far-reaching. The glut of small dace that I mentioned earlier, are, I suspect, too small to interest the cormorants yet, but in another year…?

What are the effects on other species such as chub, roach, grayling and barbel?
Dace don’t live alone in these rivers. The demise of one species must by definition impact on other species. In parts of the Stour I sometimes get the impression that roach are doing better in the absence of dace, especially on the tidal reaches and the upper Stour. The impact of barbel must be taken into account. This sought-after fish continues to increase in numbers and populate new areas of many rivers (often assisted by stocking by the EA). Many years ago, it was thought the introduction of barbel drastically altered the species balance on the Severn by pushing out the dace and roach from the fast gravelly stretches, and caused a decline in the numbers of dace and roach.

What should be done?
Along with eels, crucians and rudd, I think that dace should be classed as an endangered species in the UK. To let the situation gradually deteriorate until it is too late would be scandalous. Considering that all sorts of obscure butterflies and snails are seemingly worthy of protection when no one cares about several of our prime native fishes (there are but a fraction of species of fish compared to birds), suggests a very warped sense of priorities.

As anglers, we recognise that species domination must alter in time. Previously, incidents such as roach and perch disease were catastrophic for those species, and yet in time recovery took place. In their place, other species were able to exploit the ecological niche with little competition, at least for a while. It’s possible that dace did well on some waters because of this, and now the balance has swung the other way.

There is currently a strong, and politically motivated, desire to restore the otter. I had my third sighting of one just a few weeks ago, which suggests that they are becoming more common. But for this to succeed there must be recognition that only the sustenance of well-stocked rivers, including thriving dace and eel populations, can enable this. Europe-wide, the cormorant is going to have to go on the vermin list, and have its numbers reduced to levels that have neutral environmental impact. The resistance to such a move in Britain may only be overcome when directed from Europe, which is a sad indictment of our environmental protection agencies. The hard part about doing just that is that would mean a sustained cull eliminating more than 95% of the cormorant population, something that many object to. Yet, when the boot is on the other foot, such as the case with the ruddy duck or coypu (and mink, I hope), there is no such lack of determination. With a growing realisation that we have totally annihilated the seas around us with fishing policies based on ever more efficient netting, trashing the sea-bed and billions of discards, it is time to turn the tide in both the sea and freshwater.

If nothing is done, then it won’t be that long in the future that dace, eels, rudd, salmon, and some of our sea fish, do become endangered. The cormorant is far from endangered. The powerful bird lobby, whilst its heart might be in the right place, and I enjoy watching birds as much as anyone, has got to come round to the view that birds are not sacred objects. You cannot protect all birds equally, and yet not eventually have an overall adverse environmental impact. This issue is wider than cormorants, of course, but the point is that to maintain a sustainable environment, there must be a recognition that all of the factors must be taken into consideration.

Conclusions
I haven’t covered all of the many factors involved. I hope my views do not seem extreme but I saw the benefits of sustained cormorant culling in the 1970s in Poole Harbour (there has since been a collapse in flounder populations as the cormorants have multiplied fifty-fold). Sadly, I don’t yet hold much hope of this happening in the next few years.

Despite the many problems, there is still dace sport to be had here and there, and I look forward to catching some big dace next season, for the chances of really big dace are better than ever. Like many other species, dace are growing ever faster, and bigger.

Next week: ‘A Trip to the Windrush’