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Another 'Bigger' Problem!

Ray Walton

Ray Walton

Senior Member
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With the Kentish Stour in such poor condition due to bad river management, poaching, weed cutting, abstraction and cormorant predation etc, the last thing it needed was a couple of hundred seals making their way up river. These pics were taken at Grove Ferry. It is said they have moved over 10 miles upstream decimating the fish populations!:(
 
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Makes you wonder why seals feel the need to come this far upstream?
 
On the Hull which had it specimen fish (Barbel, Pike, Bream, Carp etc.) decimated by Seals in 2009-2010 - the seals regularly follow the Sea Trout up the Humber and into the Hull.
On the Wharfe and Ouse the seals tend to follow the large spring salmon runs from the Humber.
Once there they graze through the fresh water stocks.
 
On the Tees, the barrage is holding up the salmon and sea trout because of n inadequate pass (though i hear work is being done). Seal line up for a free dinner..
 
Are seals protected ? or should I call Captain Ahab ? Seriously though surely we can do something about these !!!!!!!!!!!!
 
i dont think this is a new problem as some 25yrs or so ago when i was at school and living in tewkesbury i was fishing a place called stanchards pit which is where the avon and severn sort of meet,on the pit is a jetty where when i was fishing opposite up popped a seal with a specimen bream and promptly sat there and ate it! he/she was there for several weeks i recal and i believe that there have been more visits from seals since,:(
 
Age-old thing, particularly on salmon and sea-trout rivers. In the mid 1970s I was fishing a Welsh river a good fifteen miles (probably 20-odd as the river twisted and turned) from the sea when an angler fishing the same pool got into a salmon. I prepared my massive hoop of steel on a hayfork handle landing net...

Then the man cried "What the devil!". I turned to see his rod bent double, hear his fixed-spool screaming, then see the surface of the pool furrowed by something huge moving at speed...

Seal. Lost salmon. Much cursing.
 
Well, at this juncture, as both a life-long Angler and Conservationist, I find myself thinking (and even yelling) "Kill them!". Microbes, mice, invading foreigners, David Icke's Lizards, blinkered one-way-street fishers (they're all out to get us).

Infamy - YouTube


PS - I forgot synchronized-swimming North Californian Sea otters. B'stards (they're taking the wee-wee).

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Well, at this juncture, as both a life-long Angler and Conservationist, I find myself thinking (and perhaps even yelling, in put-upon outrage) "Kill them!". Microbes, mice, invading foreigners, David Icke's Lizards, blinkered one-way-street fishers (they're all out to get us).

Infamy - YouTube
 
I used to fish the kent stour about 35years ago. Remember seeing seals at Minster; so it isn't a new problem. The once magnificent roach specimens aren't in the river any more
 
I remember fishing grove ferry and plucks gutter on the kentish stour many years ago, we used to get big bags of good sized roach up to two and a half pounds in the depths of winter. The colder the better down at plucks on a nice dropping tide get a swim by the bridge and bag up!! its a shame to see the river in such a mess!
 
Ray Walton said:
Robert..Yes to some extent in England and Wales but not so much in Scotland!
Worth a read below as the problem could/will get worse i think with lower sea fish populations probably due to overfishing around our coasts.

The Seals Protection Groups: Fighting to save the lives of our seals by aiming to replace the Conservation of Seals Act 1970 with a Protection of Seals Act.
Click to expand...

This is what I was alluding to when I asked what is making Seals move into rivers. It seems to me that it's pretty obvious that plundering sea fish stocks will force animals of all sorts to diversify.
 
Sorry, but this is making look like a loud of selfish minded fanatics, how the hell can we legislate or do anything about seals that swim up estuaries and eat a few fish? I believe seals have been doing this for a very long time, certainly around these parts as records prove.
Anglers and angling have to co-exist with whatever nature throws up, to think we have 'first shout' on fish stocks is crazy, and will sure as hell put at odds with the wider public, as far as I am concerned the Otter, Seal, Black Death, Signal Crays are a minimal problem compared with the disasters that wait us with rivers drying up, forget who 'owns' the fish, there won't be any.
 
I agree, seals eat fish so to blame them or call for them to be shot is a bit out of order imo.
 
And mine too Lee. Bit of an OTT response that Neil - Ray has started a thread highlighting an occurance of seals eating fish. Most have passed comment that it's nothing new, one poster has asked if something can be done and that's about it!

My thoughts yesterday were along the lines of Lee - if we continue to rape our seas of fish then surely more seals will make there way up rivers? A number of members have stated that they follow the runs of salmon and sea trout up the rivers and if that be the case here's another thought. The EA seem very keen to improve runs of salmon and sea trout up our now cleaner rivers, as and when they succeed surely we can expect more and more seals to be making their way up rivers?

Anyway, it's definately nothing new around my way. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...rZSDCA&usg=AFQjCNFov6YeSxFIYAw8H9rNRKY_uY-_1g

Ribble Seal and Bio Diesel - FishingMagic Forums

There's been a few seen in the river this winter aswell.
 
Andrew Boyne said:
A number of members have stated that they follow the runs of salmon and sea trout up the rivers and if that be the case here's another thought. The EA seem very keen to improve runs of salmon and sea trout up our now cleaner rivers, as and when they succeed surely we can expect more and more seals to be making their way up rivers?
Click to expand...
Seals have always followed migratory fish when they return and yes, if more return, then more seals will no doubt follow. But why do you think only the EA are keen to improve returns of sea trout and salmon? Many anglers, myself included, are also rather keen to see the runs that once took place returned, and spend a lot of money and time trying to enable this to happen. Clean rivers are unfortunatly not enough by a long way to re establish the migratory runs of yester year. Scottish rivers are as clean as you can get, but there are no sea trout runs and next to no salmon runs on any west coast river, due to salmon farming. The over exploitation and over netting at sea continues to be a problem, with both Greenland and Faroes considering ending their voluntary suspensions of salmon netting due to the Scottish governments constant unwillingness to deal with the problems of their rivers.

The obstructions to returning fish along the Severn and it's tributaries, with such proposals as the Severn barrage along with the continued hydro schemes on many spawning rivers adds to problems.
The EA does very little these days to help deal with the problems of migratory fish. What money there is to help deal with problems is either from the EU fund set up for this purpose or raised by salmon anglers themselves. As some one who pays nearly £80 a year to the EA for a migratory license I sometimes wonder what I get for this.
 
Like with the protected inland Cormorants and Otters, the problem gets worse when they multiply over time and are unchecked. With sea fish stocks being wiped out by the sea fishing industry as Pete says, it has now become a matter of survival for all creatures. In my opinion, the Seals are having to do the same and it aint just salmon and sea trout that they are now after as you can see by the pictures. If the preferred diet of migratory fish have been wiped out by man then they will take what is available, which happens to be remaining coarse fish and then wildfowl etc! Just watched BBC daytime news with Martin Salter, Hugh Miles Trevor Harrop highlighting fishing and the Cormorant issue saying they want to cull and shoot them + the RSPB response which was against it. Personally speaking, i think the public would be on the side of the cormorants here as it came across as just cormorants spoiling anglers pleasure and enjoyment with less fish to catch and not enough on the bigger picture regarding the current and future environmental impact on all riverine and riverbank lifeforms.
 
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