Rivers back then.

[Ady Brayshaw]

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 ??

When I first fished the Trent Simon, on the Clifton stretch (1981-82), chub were in abundance. Wandering to each tree and catching on luncheon meat. Happy days. Chub are certainly there in much smaller numbers as you say. However, imho the Trent in many ways is much improved. The barbel are there in numbers to a huge size, the chub less so , but much bigger. Same with the pike. I caught my first Trent 20 in about 94. Fairly rare fish back then but a lot more common now. Even 30's. Then there are the Zander. Not known about (to my knowledge) 30-40 years ago. Growing to a huge size. Specimen carp as well. Catfish! Overall, I prefer the river now from a specialists point of view.

 

[Ady Brayshaw]

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 .

There used to be huge salmon runs up the Yorkshire rivers up until the 30's. This is covered extensively in Bill Winship's new pike book. The government allowed the pollution for the war effort. Runs have been increasing now for years .

 

[Jim Ufton]

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.

Suspended??? There were plenty of floaters neil, not dog biscuits either,,,

 

[Julian Griffiths]

Remember reading articles in the various magazines, that boasted how clean our river's are these days. Yet the numbers of fish are probably at their lowest due to pollution in one form or another!
Yet back in the 80's 90's the rivers that were meant to be polluted held vast shoals silvers more than the so called cleaner rivers of today.

I vividly recall on the Windrush, the ditches even had big shoals of chub perch, roach moving up through them in high water. Not anymore!

I also heard so many anglers saying the hot summer of 76 helped see the successful recruitment of fish fry, that up until recently we've been lucky to catch.
The irony of this, is we've had some very hot season since & not seen the level of fish numbers, that were abound during the so called polluted era, when things were meant to of been bad.
I beleive things are far worse now than they were back then?
Certainly a more challenging environment with an ever increasing population of us lot, Farm chemicals, illegal discharges of sewerage into our waters....

 

[Mike Hodgkiss]

There used to be huge salmon runs up the Yorkshire rivers up until the 30's. This is covered extensively in Bill Winship's new pike book. The government allowed the pollution for the war effort. Runs have been increasing now for years .

Most of the pollution , certainly in the river Aire, was caused by discharges from the textile mills which pre date any influence the war had on effluent discharge . The lower Aire was noted as being devoid of fish life for most of the 19th century , things only improved in the late 20th century with the demise of the textile industry and improvement in sewage /waste water treatment .

 

[Ady Brayshaw]

Most of the pollution , certainly in the river Aire, was caused by discharges from the textile mills which pre date any influence the war had on effluent discharge . The lower Aire was noted as being devoid of fish life for most of the 19th century , things only improved in the late 20th century with the demise of the textile industry and improvement in sewage /waste water treatment .

Bill's book covers the Aire as well. The large salmon runs in which he was referencing were mostly up the Ouse and into the dales rivers. He mentions that the Aire is on the up.