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Rivers back then.

Simon Archer

Simon Archer

Senior Member & Supporter
I was having a bit of a reminisce today, about my fishing from my twenties up to now, (I'm 57) I cast my mind back to my match days on the upper Trent and on occasion, the Dove. I fished a few Dove matches, and the fishing was unbelievable. Big Chub, and plenty of them. The odd Barbel thrown in too. Where did those fish come from, and how long was the fishing like that ?? Was the fishing always good on the Dove ??

I remember the upper Trent being similar, lots of decent Chub and Barbel. Big matches, Derby summer league. Drennan super league matches. Lots of pegs you could guarantee a good days fishing from. Again, I can't remember the Trent ever being devoid of bigger fish back then. I've fished the stick and feeder at Swarkestone quite a bit recently, but I never see any decent fish anymore. There's very big Barbel, but no 2-3-4lbs Chub that seemed to be in most swins back then. The matches down there nowadays are won with good weights of fish, but mainly small fish.

Will rivers ever again have a good head of the larger stamp fish we used to see back then, or am I looking through rose tinted spectacles ??
 
Simon Archer said:
I was having a bit of a reminisce today, about my fishing from my twenties up to now, (I'm 57) I cast my mind back to my match days on the upper Trent and on occasion, the Dove. I fished a few Dove matches, and the fishing was unbelievable. Big Chub, and plenty of them. The odd Barbel thrown in too. Where did those fish come from, and how long was the fishing like that ?? Was the fishing always good on the Dove ??

I remember the upper Trent being similar, lots of decent Chub and Barbel. Big matches, Derby summer league. Drennan super league matches. Lots of pegs you could guarantee a good days fishing from. Again, I can't remember the Trent ever being devoid of bigger fish back then. I've fished the stick and feeder at Swarkestone quite a bit recently, but I never see any decent fish anymore. There's very big Barbel, but no 2-3-4lbs Chub that seemed to be in most swins back then. The matches down there nowadays are won with good weights of fish, but mainly small fish.

Will rivers ever again have a good head of the larger stamp fish we used to see back then, or am I looking through rose tinted spectacles ??
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HI Simon, apologies for starting the "silly season" early! Your post makes an interesting observation.
I'm based in Norfolk. Years ago match anglers would bag up with hundreds of pounds of bream from rivers like the Yare with some real clonkers amongst them.
Everyone remembers the huge pike that were caught from the Broads fairly regularly.
What's happened to these fish? With no scientific evidence of this, my "gut feeling" is pollution, in its broadest sense. I just think that rivers throughout the UK don't have the bigger fish they once had and the only common denominator is pollution.
Be interesting to hear others views.
 
Well I'm 57 as well Simon and I've fished the Trent all my life, match fishing regularly up until around 2009. I however used to go on the middle river and sometimes the tidal. I have seen many massive changes in the sizes of the fish, populations and types of fish present. Going back to the 70s, roach and gudgeon, good fishing but not great. 80s, massive chub explosion (I caught barbel for the first time as well) and big catches of fish but few large specimens. 90s and along with the arrival of huge flocks of cormorants, a collapse in fish numbers, especially small fish. This was catastrophic for the big shoals of silver bream present as they were ideal food for cormorants, being small size and slow moving. I remember fishing matches in the late 90s, in summer, when there were large numbers of blanks and low weights. This meant that there was plenty of food for the remaining fish stocks so, of course, they grew bigger and bigger. On to the 2000s and the fishing gradually improved. Now, the middle river is a fantastic fishery. Big barbel,chub, bream and lots of them. I think it is the best in my lifetime. I know the upper Trent is different and difficult, but don't really understand why. Do the predators find it easier to catch fish in the shallower water?

Around 4 years ago I decided to concentrate my fishing mainly on barbel on the middle Trent. It is so amazing at the moment but I know it won't last forever. There will be be more changes to my favourite river, of that I can be sure.
 
Here's a picture of a net of fish I caught back in 2014, around the time I started back fishing.

IMG_0445.JPG


....and here's one from a few swims upstream two years ago.

IMG_2486 (2).JPG

Now, I'm not the greatest angler ever, so that may have something to do with it, but same methods on both occasions (stickfloat - Bronze maggots) Lots of bites and fish, but the fish don't appear to have grown on much, and very few Chub in there.
 
I would also add that John Bailey writes a weekly column in the EDP (Eastern Daily Press) and has been banging on for ages about the loss of big (2lb +) roach from the Wensum. This river also had a good head of barbel, the last big one was munched by an otter. Barbel haven't been seen in the river for a few years now, although some local anglers believe there is a small population still surviving. I fish all the local rivers regularly and it is no longer a rarity to see an otter or two. Cormorants are also a common sight, as the Broads rivers are close to the North Sea coast.
Fish populations are under attack from various sources, but I am convinced that run-off from agricultural fertiliser is the biggest culprit.
There will be pockets that go against the trend, but overall I agree that the really big rod bending monsters are becoming rarer.
Sadly, this is why some anglers resort to fishing for "grown on" carp in puddles, fish that have been commercially bred and fed to satisfy the needs of anglers wanting to catch a big 'un. Personally I am delighted if I catch a 1lb+ roach or a 2lb perch in a river situation.
 
It is indisputable that our rivers today face multiple threats from pollution[in all its forms] , predation , and over abstraction ,however I am old enough[65] to remember when many rivers , particularly in the northern industrial areas of the UK were virtually devoid of any fish or indeed any life at all . My grandfather had a farm close to the river Aire in Bingley West Yorkshire As a nipper one day he took me down to the river , it was completely black and had no life in it at all ,nothing,you couldn't even allow farm animals to drink from it .In the 60's many similar rivers in the north [ Calder ,Don , Rother ,the list goes on ] were in exactly the same state . When we went fishing we either wet a line in the Leeds Liverpool canal which was fairly productive , or travelled to the upper reaches of the Aire . Today these same rivers have fairly healthy fish populations , even runs of Salmon ,clearly this is down to the demise of the heavy industries that polluted the rivers and better sewage treatment . Currently most rivers have some fish in them but are still at threat from mans abuse of the riverine environment ,we simply don't learn from history . The depressing thing is that it doesn't have to be like this but there seems little political will to change matters .
 
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I have said on here before that working in water treatment you realise the situation is pretty depressing!
So many analogies that one could use to highlight the plight of water treatment companies but if the climate continues to change as it has whilst populations still increase, it will get worse!
 
I wonder if those fish in my pictures are predated on to a point where very few of them survive past that size. With the water so clear nowadays, Cormorants and Pike have easier pickings than back when the river held some colour. Fish up to a pound are in abundance, so it's "fill your boots" time for predators. The next year class of fish comes along and reaches the same size, and the predators then clean them up the next season.

Could what's happening be that fish are breeding well, lots of fry survive and get up to the pound mark, they then get wiped out by predators every year. So the river looks like it's full of fish, which it is, but it's mainly small fish everyone is catching, and then it's just a cycle of the above again, with very few fish escaping the predation to grow on to become the 2-3-4lbs pound fish we used to see.
 
Masses of fry last two years on the Wye nr Ross.

This time last year scooped up hundreds in the net just to see what they were.
Looked like roach and dace. Yet trotting in the same area in Summer ((Ross) you'll catch very few roach and not too many dace.

Later last year in Autumn, I saw a shoal of dace, probably 4 to 8oz pass underneath my rod top non stop for around half an hour heading upstream. Almost a migration event
Guesstimate around 10,000 fish!!!!


Around 20 years ago, Ross was a hotspot for roach. Large bags of good fish quite common.

Trotting in Ross the last 5 years, I have probably managed 15 roach in total.

Yet now in Hereford nets of 20+ roach not uncommon.

I wonder if the lack of match anglers, feeding maggots etc. Now in Ross against the heavy match fishing in Hereford has altered things,?


If not......I have no idea
 
Graham Elliott said:
Masses of fry last two years on the Wye nr Ross.

This time last year scooped up hundreds in the net just to see what they were.
Looked like roach and dace. Yet trotting in the same area in Summer ((Ross) you'll catch very few roach and not too many dace.

Later last year in Autumn, I saw a shoal of dace, probably 4 to 8oz pass underneath my rod top non stop for around half an hour heading upstream. Almost a migration event
Guesstimate around 10,000 fish!!!!


Around 20 years ago, Ross was a hotspot for roach. Large bags of good fish quite common.

Trotting in Ross the last 5 years, I have probably managed 15 roach in total.

Yet now in Hereford nets of 20+ roach not uncommon.

I wonder if the lack of match anglers, feeding maggots etc. Now in Ross against the heavy match fishing in Hereford has altered things,?


If not......I have no idea
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Certainly something in it G, how many times have you stood in “the hot swim” and thought why is this the swim, it’s featureless, perhaps counter intuitive to received wisdom in that scenario I think it’s often the anglers creating the feature.
 
Regarding the pollution, it’s the difference in way they behave. Different compounds having different effects. Two glasses of water, one brown and one clear, the clear one could easily be the one that would kill you if drunk.
 
Simon Archer said:
Will rivers ever again have a good head of the larger stamp fish we used to see back then
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Yes and no.

Generally speaking fish populations are by nature cyclical, experiencing notable periods of boom and bust. Perhaps none more so than roach.

But fish populations are having to cope with a background of diffuse agricultural pollution, sustained point source pollution from water companies abusing storm discharge permits, climate change and an ever growing population which places pressures on abstraction.

The good news is, with the exception of climate change, we know how to sort all these issues out. All that is needed is the collective political will to do so.

Mike makes a valid point about some rivers being in a better condition than now than they were in the past. That is certainly true of the River Goyt. It was a running sewer in my childhood, you might be lucky to catch the odd stunted roach or skimmer, but the idea of catching barbel and grayling was inconceivable.

In the meantime just enjoy the good times on your river when you can, as even in the best of circumstances they probably won't last long.
 
The matches in burton have been made up mostly of chublets up to a pound this year, last few years its been roach and dace, i know water quality has been mentioned, but i remember the trent being stuffed of good roach when the river was full of crap, toilet roll tampons odd durex, the amount of bloodworm coming down out of the sewerage plants must have been unreal,
 
It was always the same in the Bristol Avon, Bath was full of big roach and sewage back then. And you are right Jim, suspended solids to put it delicately seemed to benefit coarse fish. But I guess it us better to have organic (pollution) than modern day chemical.
 
Neil Smart said:
It was always the same in the Bristol Avon, Bath was full of big roach and sewage back then. And you are right Jim, suspended solids to put it delicately seemed to benefit coarse fish. But I guess it us better to have organic (pollution) than modern day chemical.
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There was a study undertaken on the Wensum (I think?) that found a link between roach growth and orthophosphate (reactive phosphate). It found that as orthophosphate levels reduced (mainly due to phosphate stripping on WWTW's) this had the effect of reducing the growth of roach to specimen sizes. Conversely the reduction in phosphate seemed to favour the chub population.
 
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