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Why is the Severn record so low ?

Graham Tremble said:
Hi John,
I no longer fish the lower Severn regularly and was wondering if the size of the barbel were decreasing. Back ‘in the day’ doubles were not uncommon once ‘hot’ swims were located. This is bearing in mind that large areas were almost devoid of barbel.
G.T.
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Not really sure to be honest Graham, it seems to be pretty steady. In the last seven years on the Lower, I've only had two 14's and four 13's. I have had lots of 12's though, and countless 10's and 11's. It seems that the odd fish here and there will make it through to 15 and sometimes 16, with the exception being one fish that once made it to 18.

The warks avon seems to be capable of more fish getting beyond 15, as MH has pointed out.
 
John Care said:
Not really sure to be honest Graham, it seems to be pretty steady. In the last seven years on the Lower, I've only had two 14's and four 13's. I have had lots of 12's though, and countless 10's and 11's. It seems that the odd fish here and there will make it through to 15 and sometimes 16, with the exception being one fish that once made it to 18.

The warks avon seems to be capable of more fish getting beyond 15, as MH has pointed out.
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Thanks for the ‘heads up ’ John. You seem to be doing okay to me👍🙂,
Tight Lines,
G.T.
 
Jim Ufton said:
Errr dove and derwent headwaters peak district , both had fish to over 18 lb , the dove is cold enough for rainbow trout to spawn,,,
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It's a reasonable point and may be the most obvious anomaly. However, could the big fish be migrating from the Trent rather than living their entire lives in the Dove or Derwent? It may also be the case that the water temperatures of the Dove and Derwent may still be fractionally warmer than those of the Yorkshire Ouse System rivers or the Severn. It doesn't take massive temperature differences to impact fish growth and the abundance of natural food.
 
Does anybody know how much of the Severn’s water actually comes from the Welsh reservoirs, rather than simple rainfall runoff ? I assume they release water when either; the river is low or conversely when the reservoirs are full…..

I fished the Lower sporadically 10-20 years ago and there used to be times when allegedly ‘compensation’ water was coming in from the reservoirs and the fishing would shut down. Either simply because the water was cold or maybe also because it was devoid of ‘life’ having been sat in a deep reservoir for an indeterminate time ?

Ive never fished the middle or upper river and these days tend to travel East to the middle Thames, rather than target lower Severn barbel. The Thames is hard enough for me !
 
Jim Ufton said:
Errr dove and derwent headwaters peak district , both had fish to over 18 lb , the dove is cold enough for rainbow trout to spawn
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As Chris says that's a fair observation.

Another consideration is that much of the geology in the Upper Derwent and Upper Dove catchments is carboniferous limestone which results in limestone filtered water which isn't as cold (or acidic) as the water that might run off the moors in the dark peak. I have often wondered if the contribution of the limestone water from the Upper Dove and Derwent plays an important role in making the Middle Trent what it is?

I'm not sure the Severn has the same limestone influence in it's catchment?
 
I think it has more to do with numbers, and on the fish movement there may be a few at the confluence as with any river, but ive never had a trent fish from the dove, but i have seen what looked like a dove fish from below willington to another angler, also as far as i am aware, the trent gets stocked most years with calverton stock(upper trent) the dove has never been stocked with barbel,
Regards
 
And just a heads up, if you google coldest river in uk i think you may find its the dove, central england,,,,,
 
Ben Marr said:
More to do with water pH than temperature, I would have thought.
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I reckon pH must be a big factor. Generally more alkaline waters support a far greater biomass than acidic rivers, that's a fact.

But like all many things, it's probably down to a combination of factors rather than just one thing.
 
Joe Winstanley said:
With the greatest of respect Jim, I find that very difficult to believe?
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So do i, especially as it was a uk area search, so that includes scottish rivers, wich is where i would have thought the coldest uk river would be, however i have herd this in passing convesations but never gave it too much thought, untill this topic turned up, the fact that i new that the rainbow trout spawn in winter , ( i caught one that was milking in early january once) didn' t mean a lot to me, untill you read up on steelhead spawning and the fact its got to be a cold river for this to happen, that said this conversation isn't going to put pounds on a severn fish, the fact is some rivers hold bigger fish than others and thats just the way it is for whatever reason,,,
Regards
 
Sitting here reading this thread and the similarity of the Wye and the Severn come to mind. We could ask the same question of the Wye too. From my own experience on the Wye having fished the river for over 30 years now , one thing always springs to mind. The mainstay feed for the Barbel for most of their lives ? A guess that it would probably be small fish ? minnows predominantly - certainly in the later summer months , probably the same for the Chub too. a few years ago there were reports of a major increase in silvers on the middle Wye , and this year probably has to be the best Chub fishing that I or friends can remember - I’ve had over a hundred with 4 over 6lb and god knows how many fives so far. Barbel fishing has been good , with 5 fish over double figure with 3 12s ( one a repeat capture ) So is there a correlation between food availability and better fishing years for chub and Barbel ? So if the Barbel are not seeing massive amounts of non natural food that would probably have some bearing in their potential size ? . Also do big barbel on the Wye and Severn make many mistakes ? my pb on the Wye has stuck at 13.2 for nearly 25 years until a few weeks ago where I had a 14 which was witnessed and as far as I could tell a fish that had never been caught before.it was huge , 36 inches long , very wide and deep , no fin or scale damage and quite empty. It’s mouth had no marks whatsoever and if it gains condition it will be massive this winter , but it resides in a stretch that is private and little fished after October , but has no obstruction to its journey up or down river if it wants - and stretches either way wouldn’t see an angler all season potentially. So how many big barbel never make a mistake and get caught and how many never get even near an anglers bait ?
 
Jim Ufton said:
So do i, especially as it was a uk area search, so that includes scottish rivers, wich is where i would have thought the coldest uk river would be, however i have herd this in passing convesations but never gave it too much thought, untill this topic turned up, the fact that i new that the rainbow trout spawn in winter , ( i caught one that was milking in early january once) didn' t mean a lot to me, untill you read up on steelhead spawning and the fact its got to be a cold river for this to happen, that said this conversation isn't going to put pounds on a severn fish, the fact is some rivers hold bigger fish than others and thats just the way it is for whatever reason,,,
Regards
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Exactly.
I would say volume of fish and competing for food would play a much bigger part than the water’s temperature.

To elaborate on your cold river Jim but on the other end of the scale completely is the upper river Lea. Situated in the warmest part of the country and absolutely rammed with fish.
Stunning river yet those barbel tend to average around 6lb. A double is a very rare fish.

Now The lower Lea is fed by this so one would assume water temperature being pretty equal and this is the opposite end of the scale. Probably less than 20 barbel left in it up to nearly 20lb. Far less fish, far less competition for food and they get big and fat.

I also think the amount of time a river spends in spate plays a part too especially on the girth of fish. rivers fed from the mountains rise like helium balloons with a drop of rain and the barbel deal with this constantly throughout the year.
You don’t often get big fat fish in these rivers they are more like torpedoes and down in weight unlike fish in slower paced rivers where the source likely is another river and they aren’t up nearly as much.

I’m sure temperatures and growth are found to have a link somewhere but there’s afew examples that contradict that link so I think competition for food and the frequency of the river to be in spate play bigger parts in this superb question and debate
 
If minnows played a significant part in the size of barbel, the Swale would have been churning out 20lb fish for decades.
Monster Minnow.JPG
 
Chris Jones said:
Hordes of smaller ones is the more usual issue. That one was caught just over a year ago and it's a 4.5" pin. It probably should have been weighed and witnessed properly, but I just couldn't be bothered. The closest I'll ever come to troubling a record.
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Nice pin btw. I have the standard (not reduced weight version) and like using it a lot.
 
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