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Fallow Rivers?

Neil Smart

Neil Smart

Senior Member
I don't know if this has been discussed on here previously, but I have been thinking about the pressure that some popular waters have to endure...so would it be a reasonable idea in setting these waters aside for a whole season? Similar to a 'fallow' field that farming use to 'rest' the ground. I appreciate that it would create difficulties for some clubs but overall the benefits would seem worthwhile. I imagine such rivers like the Ouse Kennet and Teme would benefit.
After all the Wye and Usk foundation seem pretty on the ball in such matters in limiting rods for both coarse amd game and from what I have witnessed the catch rates are excellent.
It would I guess have to be a EA policy matter as I reckon clubs such as the BAA would not consider it viable.
 
Many of the pessured river venues that I know of are pressured mainly because access is easy. My suspicion would be that the void created would simply be filled by non-members or members that conveniently ignored the fallow period. Nothing much would be gained at all.
 
Andrew Thomas said:
The Teme pressured? You are obviously fishing the fashionable stretch(es)
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I dont know about 'fashionable' but two stretches spring to mind Cotheridge and Broadwas, they see a lot of action.
But I wasn't just focusing on the Teme it was more of a general point I was making
So..
Wadda you think?
 
The only pressure I ever see is artificially created in the first month of the season by the presence of the anachronistic close season, and that only in easily accessible and cheap stretches. I speak for Teme and Severn.
 
Neil Smart said:
I don't know if this has been discussed on here previously, but I have been thinking about the pressure that some popular waters have to endure...so would it be a reasonable idea in setting these waters aside for a whole season? Similar to a 'fallow' field that farming use to 'rest' the ground. I appreciate that it would create difficulties for some clubs but overall the benefits would seem worthwhile. I imagine such rivers like the Ouse Kennet and Teme would benefit.
After all the Wye and Usk foundation seem pretty on the ball in such matters in limiting rods for both coarse amd game and from what I have witnessed the catch rates are excellent.
It would I guess have to be a EA policy matter as I reckon clubs such as the BAA would not consider it viable.
Click to expand...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshkO8HqQ10
 
How would you inforce it and police it . My own personal opinion on the close season is to keep it . Give the fish a break . Salmon ,Trout , Pheasant , Grouse etc etc are all left alone in the mating season . So why should fishing for course fish in a river be any different . Other than for pure'ly selfish reasons . After all guys I assume you would not want to be disturbed when you were mating :rolleyes:
 
Joe Fletcher said:
How would you inforce it and police it . My own personal opinion on the close season is to keep it . Give the fish a break . Salmon ,Trout , Pheasant , Grouse etc etc are all left alone in the mating season . So why should fishing for course fish in a river be any different . Other than for pure'ly selfish reasons . After all guys I assume you would not want to be disturbed when you were mating :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

My thinking would be that releasing angling pressure on popular stretches for a time would improve the habitat for the fish and would benefit the whole eco system of both fish and fauna, I wasn't advocating the scrapping of the closed season, but then again you have to question the true motives of the closed season, I don't believe for one minute it was brought in to protect the welfare of wildlife, more to protect the fly fishers from the coarse types:)
 
Years ago when I first started fishing the Avon, from June 16th for a few weeks there was a general consensus that the populations of barbel and chub had, during the close season, learnt again to feed from what the river supplies them, as such things were slow. A lot has changed in the years since, not so much where I fish as populations are relatively low, but elsewhere. The Royalty being a prime example; the numbers of fish contained and the amount of bait going in will, I think, have meant a change in the relationship between the fisherman and the fish. Boilies and pastes were unheard of with regard to them being used for fishing for barbel or chub, but now, I suspect, the readiness and frequency with which a barbel or a chub will eat a boilie or a lump of paste, in places like the Royalty, means that such a source of food will be taken as almost natural. Consequently, it could be said that to have a fishery closed for a year may possibly have a detrimental effect on it.

Damian
 
Probably some truth in that. Come to a pretty pass, though, I believe, when a paper could run a headline "Once-wild, river fish starve and die as fishermen stop feeding them junk food"...
 
Well, maybe we should be a little more introspective then Paul?
In reality it's more likely they'll just dissipate looking for what they need, but my point still stands.


Damian
 
Damian Kimmins said:
Years ago when I first started fishing the Avon, from June 16th for a few weeks there was a general consensus that the populations of barbel and chub had, during the close season, learnt again to feed from what the river supplies them, as such things were slow. A lot has changed in the years since, not so much where I fish as populations are relatively low, but elsewhere. The Royalty being a prime example; the numbers of fish contained and the amount of bait going in will, I think, have meant a change in the relationship between the fisherman and the fish. Boilies and pastes were unheard of with regard to them being used for fishing for barbel or chub, but now, I suspect, the readiness and frequency with which a barbel or a chub will eat a boilie or a lump of paste, in places like the Royalty, means that such a source of food will be taken as almost natural. Consequently, it could be said that to have a fishery closed for a year may possibly have a detrimental effect on it.

Damian
Click to expand...

Let them eat cake ?

The long term impact on piling in artificial food is as yet not known, but as sure as night follows day there has to be a downside.

Perhaps some might find hunting in a Zoo more satisfying than seeking to hunt in the wild.

Perhaps then the barbel is the new carp, how long will it be before the barbel will not have the need to roam and every individual fish will be known and given a name, which will of course be a huge benefit to Fish and T1ts where front page captures will no longer be 'just' fish but celebrity's too:)
 
As I have long said, Damian, "results" (and not just in Angling) mean nothing if they come at too high a cost. For those unaware of the term "Pyrrhic Victory", here is a line or two about it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory

In our case, however, it's not merely us, the victors, who lose, but the very thing we profess to love.
 
It's down to balance really isn't it?
Purely for financial reasons, the Avon used to be accessed by coarse anglers a lot less than it is now. On the grounds that it would help any discrepancies in the spawning cycle and the close season, I'd like to see it somewhat reinstated.
I'd view that from an external point of view as purely positive.
 
Putting aside the closed season issue, do we not find that on over popular stretches the fish eventually just move to areas where they receive less attention? Definitely seems to be the case on a few of the rivers in the North East were barbel have been observed to be spooked out of swims by the introduction of pellets and boilies, negative association?
 
My opinion is that fish, and most other wild creatures (including us) are opportunistic feeders...they will consume the food most easily available to them, providing it is life sustaining.

It may well be that barbel will take boilies and other baits in preference to naturally occurring foodstufs while that source is readilly available and plentiful. However, that will not stop them quickly reverting back to naturals if their new found supply should suddenly dry up. It would be naive to believe that animals natural instincts could be so altered by a regular supply of anglers baits that they would starve to death in their sudden absence.

It has been found during the husbandry of all types of fish (and other animals) that it is almost impossible to permanently change habits that have taken millions of years of evolution to develop. You may temporarily change an animals behaviour/habits by artificial means, and THINK you have acheived permanency...but the animal soon reverts to it's original ways when circumstances allow/demand (As the zoo keepers employed by a certain Mr. Aspinal discovered to their cost)

Cheers, Dave.
 
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I am lucky that where I live I am only a one hours drive or less from the Wye,Teme.W/Avon, Severn and the Upper Thames and over the years I have fished them all .Having fished the Wye alot this season in and a round Hereford I have all ways found that where ever my point of entry has been to the river . The farther you walk the less likely you were to come across some one who was or had been fishing . In places you can walk for miles and not see another soul on the river bank. I have found the same thing on the W/Avon and some parts of the Severn that hardly ever see a angler .
Even when I fished the Teme I would turn up and I would be the only one on the bank and on other times there would only be two or three or anglers on the bank .
Its all to easy to turn up some where you know and plonk your self down in the nearest known hot spot with out bothering to find out or the walk puts you of to find out what the rest of the paticular river you happen to be on might be like .
So to answer the question put ''Fallow Rivers '' My answer would be that some parts of some rivers are already left fallow due to the length of the walk . Who knows what to lie's out there waiting to be discoverd on some of these less pressured stretch's of river
 
The Chairman on Monday

Subject: It's so unfair!


Poohsticks (from that terrible mimsy-whimsy A.A. Milne book that grown-up folk in places like Surrey like) on the Thames in the Close Season. Look!



In praise of … Poohsticks

It's a fair bet that thousands of spontaneous games rippled out from the World Poohsticks Championships in Little Wittenham

Editorial

The Guardian, Monday 28 March 2011


It may have been a sunny spring day, just like yesterday, when Winnie the Pooh first came to the bridge in Ashdown Forest, tripped over something and saw his fir cone fly out of his paw and into the river, thus inventing the game called Poohsticks. If so, it was appropriate, because yesterday produced exactly the right conditions for the resumption of the World Poohsticks Championships, postponed last year because of flooding, which were held once again on a bridge over the Thames at Little Wittenham in Oxfordshire. The championship is 28 years old now, and brings as many as 2,000 spectators and competitors to Little Wittenham to drop sticks into the river – throwing is strictly forbidden – with teams making the pilgrimage from as far away as Australia and the USA. Yet it's a fair bet, too, that yesterday's fine weather, by enticing families and the young of heart out of their homes and on to bridges all over Britain, also helped give birth to thousands of spontaneous games of Poohsticks, thus ensuring the good health of the game for fresh generations to come. The best thing of all about Poohsticks is that it can only be played in the open air and that, unlike almost every other child's game these days, it is completely free. Another joy is that it can be played from almost any bridge anywhere, even though special veneration will always rightly be reserved for the timber Posingford Bridge, near Tunbridge Wells, where Pooh first won 36 and lost 28 of his invention before he went home for tea.



What if a barbel (or an otter) had ingested one of the sticks, or an EE had mistaken a dozen of them for the fixed ends of his night lines...?

Something must be done!


As ever,

B.B.
 
Completly unworkable in my opinion, for all of the reasons stated in previous posts, clubs that control these popular stretches, would suffer financially, some very severly, whilst other clubs and commercials would benefit at their expense.
The club i belong to would fall into that catergory, if we shut our most popular, and pressured stretch, i wouldn't like to calculate the resulting loss of membership, and income, but it would be severe, and i'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any compensation forthcoming.
The resulting many anglers looking for other places to fish would increase the pressure on other venues where there wasn't any previously, places where anglers go for peace and quiet, not just to catch fish would suddenly find they can't get swims, creating potential confrontational situations.
I could go on all day thinking of bad reasons, but struggle to think of one good one.

Ian.
 
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