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During the Thaw??

Paul Thomas

Senior Member
Just been thinking that the last time we had a decent cold Winter such as this I had never even seen a Barbel - let alone caught one !!!

When the weather finally starts to turn round and we get some South Westerlies again....will the Barbel turn straight onto the feed as soon as the water temps start to slowly rise or will they slooooooooowly come out of their enforced torpid state??


Go steady


Paul
 
...and will the cold weather have had an influence on their natural foods too (killed them or put them to sleep)? Don't know how much cold water affects that either...
 
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Can't imagine that a short spell of cold like this would have much of an effect on the various natural foodstuff of the barbel, which evolved in far colder conditions. This winter may be unusual in recent years, but wasn't particularity unusual in the quite recent past. It may even be good for the rivers to actually go through a proper cold spell again.
Last years cold spell certainly led to a very good hatch of insect life on the Teme and its tributaries in the spring. I am no etymologist but I understand quite a lot of insect life (which makes up a large part of the natural food stuff of most fish) quite likes a spell of cold conditions.
I would hazard a view that the overall average rise in water temperature of the last 10 or so years may have been a contributing factor to the very large Barbel and Cub, whilst activly reducing overall recruitment. Colder weather generally would be good news, but given the continued rise in average temperatures is unlikely (unless the gulf stream gets switched off!)
 
Paul

My only experience is of 4 seasons ago - the last time we had a "proper" winter. And, by proper winter I mean from November to February it was primarily cold for long spells and there were 2 or 3 windows of mild weather that lasted 4-7 days.
From memory - I caught well on the Lower S in all of the mild spells but it takes a few days of warm air temperatures to get the water column warm enough to switch them back on in numbers. The only difference 4 years ago is that we didn't have all this snow lying around to melt and flow into the rivers. My betting would be that the first mild spell wouldn't turn them on unless it lasted close to a week - The Severn I am talking about where it takes some time for the water to make it all the way down the river.

As I said limited experience and no doubt depend greatly on the type of river.
 
Mind you Will, there is a down side. Last year the hatch was very early on some rivers, such as the Rea. This meant great early season fishing (especially good for me as this means as soon as I had to stop fishing the Teme I could go up the road and catch some nice wildies). However I have been told that a very early hatch of some insects can cause problems as once they lay their eggs a frost can damage them. This is just what happened last year a fly hatch in late March that would usually have occurred in April, followed by a spell of cold weather.
Insects are supposedly one of the best signs of environmental changes as each species is evolved for a very specific environment. A small environmental change can quickly wipe out a whole insect species (it will usually be replaced by a different species) so they should be a good indicator of both pollution incidents and the effects of climate change.
Linking your monitoring of the Teme's temperatures and condition on a daily basis with some of the work going on by the Riverfly people on insect life in the Teme would be very interesting.
Something perhaps for the BS to consider approaching the EA and other bodies on. I am sure the Severn Rivers Trust would be interested.
 
Mind you Will, there is a down side. Last year the hatch was very early on some rivers, such as the Rea. This meant great early season fishing (especially good for me as this means as soon as I had to stop fishing the Teme I could go up the road and catch some nice wildies). However I have been told that a very early hatch of some insects can cause problems as once they lay their eggs a frost can damage them. This is just what happened last year a fly hatch in late March that would usually have occurred in April, followed by a spell of cold weather.
Insects are supposedly one of the best signs of environmental changes as each species is evolved for a very specific environment. A small environmental change can quickly wipe out a whole insect species (it will usually be replaced by a different species) so they should be a good indicator of both pollution incidents and the effects of climate change.
Linking your monitoring of the Teme's temperatures and condition on a daily basis with some of the work going on by the Riverfly people on insect life in the Teme would be very interesting.
Something perhaps for the BS to consider approaching the EA and other bodies on. I am sure the Severn Rivers Trust would be interested.

I can't recall a year when i've seen so few insects around, haven't had to wash any off my windsreen, i've hardly seen any moths, and one venue i visit regularly where normally i'm plagued with mossies, i've seen hardly any at all ?
Plenty of Damsel flies around though.
Something is not right.

Ian.
 
I tend to agree with Graham. Along with the just above freezing snow melt there's going to be a a lot of salt coming through. Ideally I think we'll need a quite a few days of warmish rain to flush the lot through.

Dave
 
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