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Matt Hayes reckons rivers are had it - your views

To be honest Dave this is such a silly hobby that any unusual peccadillo anglers have is entirely up to them, I am not making any criticism, it is just that some aspects are not for me.
To be honest I would fight for their right to fish as they wish!

You are right in what you say about anglers in general, we should stick together and fight our corner, we have more than enough groups that fail to help our cause adequately, or are out to get us.

If we were to unit our strengths we would probably match the RSPB!
Then the world WOULD be a different place.
 
Exactly right in my opinion Keith. We are supposedly the biggest participant sport in the country, and yet we probably have the smallest, least powerful representation to government of all. I would think even tiddlywinks has better support from it's members than angling. And why? Could it be because so many anglers spend so much of their time buffing up their egos and fighting amongst themselves that they can't bury old enmities deep enough to support any representative body that pops up?

Cheers, Dave.
 
so called names!

instead of the bickering,why dont we ask the tackle manufacturors to speak out as they are the ones that will lose out the most,weve supported them for years and what have they ever done for us ,the customer!:(
 
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It's very much a case of each to their own..................I fished commercials for a while when I got back into fishing after a bit of a break.......'Getting a Bend In The Rod' there re-kindled my enthusiasm for fishing. My main problem with these fisheries is that they many stocked to a level akin to a Battery Hen Shed !!!! Quite why people would want to catch 'Puddle Pigs' over some well conditioned Tench, Bream, Perch etc. Baffles me !
The difficult territory with fishing the 'Specimen' lakes is that to me it is no different to people fishing say Adams Mill in the past, or maybe certain stretches of rivers such as the Kennet, Loddon or Dove for example where MOST are targetting known and very often named fish !!!! Is that any worse than fishing for a 'Known' big carp ? A while ago on my local River Marden, a tiny stream really, there were maybe 3 fish in a short stretch that went to double figures, I caught 2 of those fish and in the end began to question my pursuit of them...........The river no longer contains a good head of Barbel and in a way that is sad, but along with the Bristol Avon, the demise of the Barbel in these rivers has opened my mind to fishing for other species, to the point where a nice Dace from a small stream or a good Chub on light float gear actually floats my boat much more. I was brought up catching fish like this and have re-discovered a child-like enthusiasm for trotting for anything that swims (well Dace in particular). My fishing companions have begun to embrace this too.............
SO the rivers are not dead for me, I've just moved the goalposts.
I'm sure that Otter Predation is to blame for the demise of many Barbel fisheries, but lets not forget that MOST rivers do not count Barbel as an indigenous species ! I'm sure that some rivers had an unsustainable population and many of the bigger fish were coming to the end of their lifespan. Natural recruitment will have suffered due to the conditions we have endured over the last few seasons. Cormorant predation is a serious issue for many of our other species !!! Lets not put Barbel on a pedistal, all indigenous fish are essential to the eco system in some way and the predation of these wonderful and just as beautiful fish should be as much of an issue as that of Barbel or Carp.
Just as a final thought, my Grand Father warned the committee and local anglers that the stocking of a large quantity of Bream in the Bristol Avon in Chippenham would ruin the Roach fishing and guess what ? It did !!! Maybe events in the coming years will re-dress the balance in SOME rivers to a much more natural level ?
Just my thoughts and by no means a pop at anyone or to be taken as THE Answer...........I'm open to everyones point of view and will respect them......
 
Paul Matthews said:
It's very much a case of each to their own..................I fished commercials for a while when I got back into fishing after a bit of a break.......'Getting a Bend In The Rod' there re-kindled my enthusiasm for fishing. My main problem with these fisheries is that they many stocked to a level akin to a Battery Hen Shed !!!! Quite why people would want to catch 'Puddle Pigs' over some well conditioned Tench, Bream, Perch etc. Baffles me !
The difficult territory with fishing the 'Specimen' lakes is that to me it is no different to people fishing say Adams Mill in the past, or maybe certain stretches of rivers such as the Kennet, Loddon or Dove for example where MOST are targetting known and very often named fish !!!! Is that any worse than fishing for a 'Known' big carp ? A while ago on my local River Marden, a tiny stream really, there were maybe 3 fish in a short stretch that went to double figures, I caught 2 of those fish and in the end began to question my pursuit of them...........The river no longer contains a good head of Barbel and in a way that is sad, but along with the Bristol Avon, the demise of the Barbel in these rivers has opened my mind to fishing for other species, to the point where a nice Dace from a small stream or a good Chub on light float gear actually floats my boat much more. I was brought up catching fish like this and have re-discovered a child-like enthusiasm for trotting for anything that swims (well Dace in particular). My fishing companions have begun to embrace this too.............
SO the rivers are not dead for me, I've just moved the goalposts.
I'm sure that Otter Predation is to blame for the demise of many Barbel fisheries, but lets not forget that MOST rivers do not count Barbel as an indigenous species ! I'm sure that some rivers had an unsustainable population and many of the bigger fish were coming to the end of their lifespan. Natural recruitment will have suffered due to the conditions we have endured over the last few seasons. Cormorant predation is a serious issue for many of our other species !!! Lets not put Barbel on a pedistal, all indigenous fish are essential to the eco system in some way and the predation of these wonderful and just as beautiful fish should be as much of an issue as that of Barbel or Carp.
Just as a final thought, my Grand Father warned the committee and local anglers that the stocking of a large quantity of Bream in the Bristol Avon in Chippenham would ruin the Roach fishing and guess what ? It did !!! Maybe events in the coming years will re-dress the balance in SOME rivers to a much more natural level ?
Just my thoughts and by no means a pop at anyone or to be taken as THE Answer...........I'm open to everyones point of view and will respect them......
Click to expand...

Really good post Paul and you neatly sum up my preference for rivers over lakes and, critically, why I intend doing more with the float next season. As a boy I started out on the marden (no barbel back then as I recall) and enjoyed some great mixed bags trotting worm, including some very big roach. Saying all that, fishing is fishing and if I had more time I would be injecting far more variety into mine. It's just with limited time, I need to invest it in the type of fishing that I enjoy most.
 
I think Keith has some good points but.......raw sewage is NOT the problem. Raw sewage can, if in a large enough quantity removes oxygen from the water and cause fish kills. See the upper Trent a couple of years ago (caused by industrial pollutants). A healthy eco system would remove the raw sewage naturally unless it is in huge volumes. Storm drains overflow and sewage goes in, always has, we used to catch loads of fish. Rivers in Europe and elsewhere raw sewage is simply discharged and the rivers are full of life! There is less untreated sewage now than ever, the problem is the treatment. I am old enough to remember the 70's and 80's. Before the EA. I would throw some maggots in a coloured river and the dace would boil on the surface. Underneath were huge shoals of roach and chub. Now a tap water clear river is devoid of fish and other life; seen many voles recently? This is not cormorants, this is an EA that exists for themselves and relies on self publicity fooling everyone all the time. A clear river is NOT necessarily a clean river and releasing a few salmon par is meaningless. Put some chub and roach back! Unfortunately the publicity generated by the easy way out of a few salmon par and a clear, 'clean' water fools the public.
 
Bloodee hell, I am never going to start another thread:eek:

I feel like I have started a riot:p

Think I will go underground ;)
 
spot on jon, i can see this as a catch 22,, if the rivers do decline as stated above, that means then most river anglers will turn to still waters as mentioned above that means clubs still waters will be really put under pressure, 24/7 people will get narked off because they will be too many anglers trying to fish a venue that could possibly mean clubs may have to organise a rota system so that everyone gets a change to fish, but you may only get to fish once a month, ????? these are just a few problems that can oocur, then club membership will go down, and so on, spiral ??????
 
nick, its nice to know, that we all like to air our veiw, lol but its good that we all get involved in these little debate,
 
I actually grew up without a river to fish, the local ones were all polluted or trout streams. Bolton Anglers was all either Canal or other stillwaters. Still had a few thousand members more than many clubs down here have now and everyone got on comfortably!!
 
just wondered, are we the only country in the E U, suffering from fish decline, throught otters, minks, birds etc etc or is it a cross europe, and if so what are the doing about it, ??????
 
David Gauntlett said:
Yep...its all your fault Nick. Hang your head in shame :D:D

Cheers, Dave.
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I've been walking around since with my chin dragging the floor, head low, shamed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, nah, smiling to myself of course ;)

Good thread guys and as Eddie says it's good to air our own personal views, still cannot find that black widow pult though :eek:
 
Eddie Farrell said:
just wondered, are we the only country in the E U, suffering from fish decline, throught otters, minks, birds etc etc or is it a cross europe, and if so what are the doing about it, ??????
Click to expand...

No Eddie, we are not, I read recently that other European countries, have suffered serious predation from cormorants but not otters, think we may well be the only ones suffering from that. If I remember right the country concerned introduced a culling program to keep the numbers of cormorants down.
Obvious thing to do really !
 
I reckon Matt Hayes and alike steal a lot of their 'ground breaking theories' from forums just like this one. Seems funny to me that the papers are full of old news made up of topics discussed in depth by real anglers, whilst some shiny faced media dolly boy gets the recognition for bringing it to the broader public eye.
 
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