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Barbel decline in the Upper Teme

J

James Farrer

Senior Member
Barbel decline: The BIG population of Barbel in the Upper Teme by Upper I mean from Ludlow down to Stanford Bridge is IMO gone for now don't get me wrong there is still Barbel in the Upper Teme but few and far between there seams to be far more in the lower Teme by all accounts, I don't know why the Upper Teme stock of Barbel has diminished so over the last 2/3 years but IMHO I think it is due to our furry little friend the OTTER (who needs them) I might be wrong and I stand corrected if I am, there may be other factors involved but the fact still remains the same there is very few Barbel in the Upper Teme I no longer fish the Teme it is not worth the time and effort I now go to the Severn or the Wye where there is a lot more Barbel to have a go at .
I think there is a lot less OTTERS in the Wye then the Severn because the landlord & there river keeper of these large estates have got the matter under control nudge nudge ;) ;) they are not going to let a furry little creature ruin there business when they have got all those Salomon Anglers paying all that money for a days fishing just to see an OTTER in there swim now are they ? (I don't think so) and I say long may it continue.
That's my opinion for what it's worth.
I am not looking for people to criticise my opinion because everyone has a right to there opinion so if you have an opinion I would like to hear it not to criticise it.

Jim.
 
Personally I'd say take a look at the rivers suitability to sustain barbel, yes it ticks a lot of the boxes but in its summer state, its bloody dire and that covers from April/May until October.
Sort of akin to my local river Windrush, no bloody water!!
Only not quite so bad as we get it.

Maybe that makes barbel an easy prey target but I'd say not, its just gradually reducing its numbers to a more viable population that the environment can sustain.
Also I reckon that after several years of intense angling pressure, the barbel are finally reacting this form of predation; angling.
Its innate behaviour that I believe many/most barbel had lost; fear of predation. After years of having no threats to an adult fish, they adapted to being a true 'mug' fish now they're being forced to evolve back to being cautious, by us chasing them for sport and otters for food.

I reckon anglers need to get used too barbel being a lot more elusive because if we all move onto the easier Wye, they'll just go the same way.

As for the Lower Teme, I think you'll find many of the barbel are immigrants and not permanent residents.
 
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I think the floods of 2007 have had a far greater effect than the otters. The waters I fish changed overnight and are only just starting to recover.
 
I agree with you Andrew. A lot of small fish (2-3lbs) suddenly appeared at Eardiston immediately after the flood, from further upstream I guess...but they didn't stay long.
I dont know much about the river above Eastam, but I reckon the barbel population between Eastam Bridge to Stanford Bridge has reduced by over 50% since 2007.
I still love the Teme though, and there's still some big girls about (and I dont mean on the Seme-Tevern).
 
I've had 7's and 8's this year above Eastham,even in this low water and in daylight, a great improvement on the last 3 seasons. Maybe the reason the lower is so prolific (ignoring the migrants) is that it contains a fair proportion of fish that were previously found in higher reaches, washed down by the flood.

Anyway I'm still more than happy to be fishing it.....however occasionally
 
I really do have some serious doubts on this theory that huge numbers of barbel were washed down rivers or killed. We are talking about a species of fish that has evolved to be the ultimate bottom dwelling resident of fast rivers. I mean if they were that easily washed away, why do they actively feed in flood conditions?
I think what the 2007 floods done was massively alter the river bed and surrounding cover, subsequently the fish have moved around and sadly one thing most of us are guilty of is re-visiting the old 'banker' swims even though (unknown to us) the fish now reside 25 yards downstream.

One thing I'll say about most of my Teme catches, they have come from pretty innocuous previously unfished swims, and on the few occasions I have fished the 'popular' swims, they resulted in NO barbel, just the odd mediocre chub.
 
Colin, the floods may not cause a mass wipe out, but barbel have been proven to move downstream during big floods, down further than many seem to realise. Whether that is by choice or not, who knows.

Example, when was the Severn below Tewkesbury stocked with barbel?

Another example, barbel caught in salmon nets in the estuary following big floods years back, as referenced in Nick Giles book - Nature of Barbel.
 
Given the Teme is one of the few English rivers which were never without otters, although for a while in the early eighties and nineties they were confined to the actual Upper Teme (that is above Ludlow), returning to the middle (from Ludlow to Powick) in the late nineties and have never been absent from the Wye otters would hardly be the cause; and why would they target only barbel?

The idea that any Wye based gamekeeper or gillie would risk his livelihood to shoot otters is just barmy, otters never worried the salmon anglers (I speak as an occasional salmon angler myself) so they don't worry the river keepers, its barbel they don't like and will kill if they get the chance, not otters. People confuse the river managers managing overstocked trout streams down in the south of England, who did indeed hate otters; with river managed for Salmon such as the Wye. Otters were controlled by otter hounds, now sadly illegal, but gamekeepers on the Wye would be mad to start shooting otters, they would face large fines and the sack without gaining any thanks from Salmon anglers. However a good percentage of Salmon anglers of my acquaintance would pay them to kill all the barbel I am afraid.

Floods change the bottom of the river and fish move around in response to this. The floods of 2007 may have been so severe that a gap in the recruitment cycle may have occurred; but barbel of all fish being washed out of a river....., why not the chub? The trout, the grayling? . If barbel moved downstream in response to the floods, then they would just move upstream as well. Barbel regularly move between the lower Teme and the lower Severn.

The Teme is presently full of chub in the middle and has a good head of grayling. Barbel are not in the large shoals they once may have been and certain parts of the middle Teme certainly don't seem to have the numbers they once did, they may also be a little harder to catch since the pellet boom of the early days as has already been pointed out, but a look at the Teme reports will show that most regular Teme anglers catch, because they know where the fish are now rather than where the where when some one built a swim five years ago. But rivers come and go. The boom in barbel on the Teme is over, but the river continues to hold a few and of all sizes, which is the best sign for the future. What hasn't happened on the Teme as has happened elsewhere, is the river to only have large mainly female, fish.
The Teme has plenty of problems. Abstraction from old licenses, diffuse and other agricultural pollutants particular from the tributaries not part of the SSSI, threatened hydro schemes on tributary, diseased and un managed trees, over grazing and lack of fencing, poorly;y managed bank access...I could go on, but it remains the best mixed fishery in England.

PS Caught one myself tonight and a visitor, not used to the Teme, caught two in a swim I pointed him at. Not that difficult really and I would take the odd fish from a interesting swim I have found myself over the five I pulled out the other day on an over fished stretch of the Wye.....it may be "England's favourite river" but to many people on it, in it and by it for my liking these days..
 
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Darren George said:
Colin, the floods may not cause a mass wipe out, but barbel have been proven to move downstream during big floods, down further than many seem to realise. Whether that is by choice or not, who knows.

Example, when was the Severn below Tewkesbury stocked with barbel?

Another example, barbel caught in salmon nets in the estuary following big floods years back, as referenced in Nick Giles book - Nature of Barbel.
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Darren, barbel migrate through lock systems with ease, as do carp and who knows what else, so little or no need to stock the Lower reaches of a navigable river. TBH I'd have thought the only limiting factor in their migration being habitat suitability, salinity of the water etc
 
Colin Gordon said:
I really do have some serious doubts on this theory that huge numbers of barbel were washed down rivers or killed. We are talking about a species of fish that has evolved to be the ultimate bottom dwelling resident of fast rivers. I mean if they were that easily washed away, why do they actively feed in flood conditions?
I think what the 2007 floods done was massively alter the river bed and surrounding cover, subsequently the fish have moved around and sadly one thing most of us are guilty of is re-visiting the old 'banker' swims even though (unknown to us) the fish now reside 25 yards downstream.

One thing I'll say about most of my Teme catches, they have come from pretty innocuous previously unfished swims, and on the few occasions I have fished the 'popular' swims, they resulted in NO barbel, just the odd mediocre chub.
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So Colin, do you now regularly fish the Middle Teme? Or in the past?
 
Once again, I fear, the sense of Bloated Barbel Expectation and Entitlement (we saw it with carp, first - seeing them go from rare and occasional to ubiquitous, even "Heritage" ), that this is how it's "always" been [in reality, for less than twenty years or so] and how it must always be...

I just wish I could wheel on here the now late-80s / early-90s Teme salmon man (if he were still alive) I once once knew well from his summer holiday visits with his wife to Wales in the early to mid 1970s - how he'd fry and eff you crowd now, sound off terribly about your very newly arrived, effing incomer barbel...
 
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No, not "lacking in credence" Colin, I just wondered how informed your opinion actually was. You seem to be implying that the main reason for reduced catches on the Teme is that other anglers are fishing in the wrong place, whereas you know better. Yes there are some Teme anglers that keep banging away at their erstwhile 'banker' swims (or those sited near to car park), and yes we do have a small band of the plastic bag and picnic chair brigade, but IMHO I believe a great many regular Teme anglers are continually seeking out new swims..esp on non-BAA waters.
I, like a few others on this board, visit the banks of the Teme maybe 200+ days a year (not always to fish but to observe, and talk to other anglers). Most informed Teme anglers would probably accept that barbel numbers HAVE reduced. IMO it sounds a bit condescending to imply they are all still there.. just hiding 25yds away from where they used to be.
N.B.. saw 7 heron together in a meadow adjoining the Teme yesterday, and 3 cormorants at the weekend. None looked starving:).
 
Very good points made Terry, I dropped into Broadwas last Sunday week (Bank Holiday) there was no one fishing save for a chap who was on the float picking off the smaller fish. I have never seen the Teme so deserted of both anglers and dare I say fish. However I have seen many a mink and other predators when I used to fish there quite often, but the decline has really been apparent post 2007 floods. To say that the barbel are still there in any numbers, is quite remarkable, and further to suggest that you and others just don't have the knowledge to catch them is plainly bare faced cheek:rolleyes:
I don't know anyone other than you that spends so much Teme side, certainly if you say the stocks have declined then that's good enough for me.
Colin, I think you need to have a re-think on this one, looks like you have bitten off more than you can chew:)
 
Chaps, has it occurred to you that the Teme for a few years (like a number of others rivers) was carrying a huge boom-time barbel population, way beyond the river's natural carrying capacity, and that such unsustainable population booms are inevitably followed by redressive crashes (or, less dramatically, mere slow but sure, natural levellings-out)? If you put, say, trout into waters that have never held trout (e.g. in those of Kashmir, South America, New Zealand etc in the past), you see a population explosion, first in size of fish (few but huge), then in numbers, followed a great levelling-off and falling back in size and numbers; I believe that we are merely seeing the same with barbel, and that to expect that the brief Gold Rush we all experienced to continue forever and a day is to entirely misunderstand how fish, rivers and the natural world work.
 
Yes Paul, understood. But we're (well, most of us) musing over WHY the population has declined on the Teme i.e. what are the factors? Can anything be done? etc.
Yes there may be an element of navel gazing, but maybe..just maybe, the musing may be productive.
Yes we could just lazily conclude that what's happened is 'natural' (yeah man, sh*t happens..keep on cycling Teme) and then sit back and wait for the next 'boom' in the cycle (IF there is one).. or we could attempt to be 'quasi-analytically constructive'.
Its a discussion.
 
Paul Boote said:
Chaps, has it occurred to you that the Teme for a few years (like a number of others rivers) was carrying a huge boom-time barbel population, way beyond the river's natural carrying capacity, and that such unsustainable population booms are inevitably followed by redressive crashes (or, less dramatically, mere slow but sure, natural levellings-out)? If you put, say, trout into waters that have never held trout (e.g. in those of Kashmir, South America, New Zealand etc in the past), you see a population explosion, first in size of fish (few but huge), then in numbers, followed a great levelling-off and falling back in size and numbers; I believe that we are merely seeing the same with barbel, and that to expect that the brief Gold Rush we all experienced to continue forever and a day is to entirely misunderstand how fish, rivers and the natural world work.
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I absolutely agree,in the early 70s if you landed 10 fish in a session 9 would be chub,by the 90s this had reversed and 9 would be Barbel,the river could never sustain that population ,angling pressure has also had a big say-so.The big flood had the most impression,scouring out the spawning beds and altering the riverbed .

Pete Otters were in the Knightwick area all through the 70s 80s and 90s Tatty and I regularly watched them then.

mike
 
Neil Smart said:
Colin, I think you need to have a re-think on this one, looks like you have bitten off more than you can chew:)
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Neil, NEVER!!


Terry, I'm not trying to imply that I'm a great angler and everyone else on the river is inferior, because be sure of one thing, I ain't a great angler at all!

Obviously my point was poorly put across.
I do fully accept that the Teme currently has a reduced population of barbel and one that is likely to drop further. This IMO is due in the main to an ageing barbel population, yes some of them may have perished in the 2007 floods but I don't think that it was anymore than in any other flood, I think as a percentage of the rivers stock it'd be higher than on rivers with a more established population but a total collapse in numbers, I debate.
I reckon a heck of a lot of fish redistribution went on, but not loads of adult barbel swept downstream, I also don't think that many 3-5 year old barbel were swept away either.

Going back to the how good an angler I am, or not... Like I said we are ALL guilty of revisiting sites of former glories, I'd reckon it to be human nature to do so but if a new angler to tips up on a river, he arrives with no preconceived ideas as to where is good and bad. Though I will say if the river newbie engages his brain, unless he sees fish being hauled out of the busy swims, he'll do best steering well clear of them.

Basically my conclusion being: Yes the Teme's barbel stocks are falling, this though is due to a number of factors, yes we can simplify it and blame one of those factors; otter predation, flood impacts and like I said, the effects of sustained angling pressure; moreover on a declining head of fish making whatever that is in the river ever harder to catch.
But its a mixture of all these factors that is causing the decline and the accumulation of them that has made the decline so fast.
 
Interesting debate, I'd like to hear Will's opinion as he is on the river most days like Terry. I've only been fishing the river since 2008 and my experience in the last 3 years is that its been pretty consistent on the Upper Middle (I fish from Eardiston up to Ludlow). Last year during the summer the river was low and coloured and my catch rate was way up (x 3) on this year when the river is low and clear. I believe the fish are still there but its just conditions that are harder.
 
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