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Interesting Article

Martin Gregory

Martin Gregory

Senior Member
In this weeks Angling Times.

According to The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the flow and run off on UK rivers this year broke all records with huge volumes of water pushing through our waterways.

Hardly news but, some fishery experts say that this will lead to conditions where barbel, chub and carp pile on weight, partly due to the removal of silt and debris from river beds, which paves the way for high protein naturals to thrive.

There's a fair bit more to the article but that's about the crux of it. Bruno Broughton is quoted as saying that with less competition from small fish (which didn't fare too well in floods) the prospects for specimen humters in 2013 look great.

Roll on I say:)
 
According to the article, coarse fish are very resilient and although this years fry may have suffered, in the short term given the huge amount of spawn they produce, they should bounce back very quickly.
 
The weather seems to only have two settings at the moment, drought and flood, with nothing in between :(
 
Are you telling me that after spending 30 years making my mind up on which ones to buy....my new rods are shortly not going to be up to the job :eek:

I bleedin knew I shouldn't have rushed into things :mad:

Cheers, Dave.

:D
 
Quote: "this will lead to conditions where barbel, chub and carp pile on weight, partly due to the removal of silt and debris from river beds, which paves the way for high protein naturals to thrive."

Come on there...It is common sense that the so called 'high protein naturals' (macro invertebrates - Food for fish etc) which also live in the silt, debris, weed, gravel, margins, etc would have been washed away as well! Together with annual 'Weedcutting' and dredging of the riverbeds that takes place on UK rivers every year... for flood defence reasons, the EA destroy most of the 'high protein naturals' (macro invertebrates - Food for fish etc), in the first place, so really it is a bit of unknowledgable hype i'm afraid.
In reality, the macro invertebrates that survive, would have to re-colonise areas, breed and multiply which will take years to recover the original population numbers!
 
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Quote. "According to the article, coarse fish are very resilient and although this years fry may have suffered, in the short term given the huge amount of spawn they produce, they should bounce back very quickly."
Not quite true!....The survival rate of fish eggs laid is minimal in the wild, due to predation and other environmental factors, with only a small percentage developing to fry, maturity and adulthood.
 
So in a nutshell - low n clear = good for fry recruitment, high n coloured = good for big fish captures. 50:50 this season so we get the best of both worlds! :D

Dave - the new rods will be spot on this week, useless the next, repeat . . . .
should have got a twin top . . . .
 
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