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New record

Congrats to the captor. I'm interested in knowing when he caught it. All the flooding of late. This week the pressure has been very high.
 
I’m very happy for the guys, they work hard for the results out of that fishery. It is by no means easy and while there is a handful of fish ranging from 18-22lb there is miles of river lea below the weir for them to patrol. Let’s not forget., fishers green gets a lot of bait in it and they do head down there too.

The issue is there’s not much else getting caught. There’s something like 5 or 6 very big but very old barbel swimming around on borrowed time and that seems to make up the bulk of the barbel population in the lower Lea.
 
Just for you damian
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A lucky and, I don’t doubt very skilful angler, has just caught what looks to be (once ratified) the new record for our favourite species. This got me thinking last night back to a time over 4 1/2 decades ago when I first started fishing the H Avon and D Stour. I had not long caught my first few barbel and had a very lofty PB of 8 lb 9 ozs much to the chagrin of my fishing mates at the time. We had spent the day on the Royalty and fishing was slow going so we took a walk up the Parlour pool and below the chain at the outlet three of us witnessed a stunning barbel swim downstream.

This was the last day of our expedition and, as always, we always finished with a Chinese meal and significant amounts of alcohol. After we had finished the meal we talked about this fish and how big it actually was. Three of the guys reckoned it was pushing the record (13 lb 12 oz at the time) I thought it might go 14 but Mark who had been quiet up to that point said “it was sixteen if it was an ounce !” We all laughed and took the micky suggesting he was pissed but he was adamant.

Fast forward to today and only Mark and I are left still fishing. We have both had a couple over fifteen now and still fish regularly together aiming for a sixteen. How times change ! When I remind him of that conversation these days he just says “I told you” . So the question is this: what will people be discussing on this forum in twenty or even forty years time on a thread such as this ? Will they be talking about the latest thirty with a new record of 32 lb 1 oz waiting to be ratified ?

My congratulations to James , god I love this pastime !

Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all.

Steve
 
Chris Guy said:
There has been a string of very large fish caught down there over the last few days. I've been spending a lot of time staying down there since June 2022, and see the Lea FB page featuring these big girls. You never see smaller fish featured, say in the 4-10 lb bracket.
When these big girls die, there's precious little that will fill that void, apart from some clonking chub.
I regularly walk the Fisher's Green stretch, and it is a beautiful length of river, but it's fish density is very low. Walking along there you'd expect to see shoals of roach and dace, but there are precious few. And unlike the Great Ouse, the local EA wing, don't appear to be stocking with fish of any description. Which I find strange.
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Hi Chris, do you know what is happening with the breeding/restocking programme ( similar to the Avon Roach project ) that Barbara's daughter's boyfriend started up there several yeas back ?
 
Not sure about the stocking at KW but the EA still stock FG. I think the last time was 500 small barbel a few weeks back. Probably the main issue for those little guys will be surviving the cormorants which are prolific in that area.
 
Daniel Jeffery said:
Not sure about the stocking at KW but the EA still stock FG. I think the last time was 500 small barbel a few weeks back. Probably the main issue for those little guys will be surviving the cormorants which are prolific in that area.
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What's blatantly plain is that general recruitment of common species, like roach, perch, dace and gudgeon is very poor. In the summer months the river generally runs crystal clear, and you hardly see any fish. I've seen fish where the river joins the flood relief channel, but along the beautifully natural stretch leading up to Fisher's Green, nothing. Where you'd expect to see fish gliding in and out of the streamer weed. I know there are fish there, as I see a few anglers, but they mostly fish for the few lumps that are there. You can trot maggots all day and not have the float dip once.
Yep, I see Cormorants working the river, and plenty of Little Egrets. These little birds are very common now and we shouldn't underestimate the impact they have on our fisheries, they are experts at fashion the shallows.
 
Dave Bartell said:
Hi Chris, do you know what is happening with the breeding/restocking programme ( similar to the Avon Roach project ) that Barbara's daughter's boyfriend started up there several yeas back ?
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I think the project failed for a few reasons I don’t know the full story so its not my story to tell it’s Andy’s and Loretta’s
 
Chris Guy said:
What's blatantly plain is that general recruitment of common species, like roach, perch, dace and gudgeon is very poor. In the summer months the river generally runs crystal clear, and you hardly see any fish. I've seen fish where the river joins the flood relief channel, but along the beautifully natural stretch leading up to Fisher's Green, nothing. Where you'd expect to see fish gliding in and out of the streamer weed. I know there are fish there, as I see a few anglers, but they mostly fish for the few lumps that are there. You can trot maggots all day and not have the float dip once.
Yep, I see Cormorants working the river, and plenty of Little Egrets. These little birds are very common now and we shouldn't underestimate the impact they have on our fisheries, they are experts at fashion the shallows.
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Yep totally agree. I’ve fished FG seven times this season and had one tiny chub, one small perch and a huge crayfish (I had my phone out looking up Thermidor recipes it was that big). Earlier in the year (Sept I think) I saw a large shoal of fingerling chub just down from the Bailey bridge. On the next trip I saw two cormorants tag-teaming them next to the willows on the straight opposite the substation. They completely annihilated them. A shame as it’s a beautiful stretch of river and I love fishing it despite the blanks.
 
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