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spawning

Tony Byrne

Senior Member & Supporter
with these high temps were having do you think it might trigger some barbell in to spawning or is it still to early yet
 
Tony,

Too early yet. The lakes warm up much quicker than the rivers, which may have seen a slight increase but not the sort of increase that a few hot days can cause in a stillwater. It would need a prolonged spell of high daytime temperatures and warm nights to lift the river temps enough to trigger barbel spawning. Nevertheless, the current weather may at least mean that they spawn before July!

Dave
 
Watched pre-spawning behaviour throughout* the day yesterday on a Yorkshire river, barbel shoaling up within yards of the spawning gravels in very encouraging numbers (given that it's not a stretch known for many barbel). They seemed unable to resist basking in the open in the warm surface water, even at mid-day and even though they were right next to one of the deepest places on the river, some flashing, males following the odd larger female persistently in all kinds of strange directions, chub hanging around on the periphery.

I didn't sit there all day, but I kept going back to see how many I could spot cos it was easily my most successful fish-spotting expedition, ever. When the sun was high, no polaroids even needed as i had a high vantage point.
 
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might go for a walk along the river to see if anything is happening
 
Watched pre-spawning behaviour throughout* the day yesterday on a Yorkshire river, barbel shoaling up within yards of the spawning gravels in very encouraging numbers (given that it's not a stretch known for many barbel). They seemed unable to resist basking in the open in the warm surface water, even at mid-day and even though they were right next to one of the deepest places on the river, some flashing, males following the odd larger female persistently in all kinds of strange directions, chub hanging around on the periphery.

I didn't sit there all day, but I kept going back to see how many I could spot cos it was easily my most successful fish-spotting expedition, ever. When the sun was high, no polaroids even needed as i had a high vantage point.

+1 on the Swale - quite bizarre really as that damn common seal was hunting within feet of them, but didn't seem to bother them - stay in the shallows fish!
 
Apparently quite a few people gave up their
+1 on the Swale - quite bizarre really as that damn common seal was hunting within feet of them, but didn't seem to bother them - stay in the shallows fish!

I hear that quite a number of people from various organisations spent their bank holiday in boats / scuba gear / waders with a massive net, to try to finally catch Sammy before the spawning starts ... but he gave them the slip every time ... they'll be trying again next weekend I believe.

And this is all cos of the flippin' canoeists putting in a way through Linton weir for the fat b*stard.
 
I heard a slightly different version Graham. Apparently there were a number of divers from the BDMLR but only 1 net and no scuba gear.
It sees the net and swims back under them?? Not professing to any kind of expert but would have though at least a couple with tanks on acting as ' sweepers' behind the boats? Also not helped by a lot of commotion on the bridge which spooked it as the net was in the shallows. Just hope it gets done soon but they'll have to have a re-think.
 
There were reps from EA,BDMR, and Leeds anglers I believe. The bridge had a net strung across on both spans on the down stream side. Two small boats and a couple of divers who were in full gear in the river then attempted to drive the seal down stream towards the nets. They got to within about twenty yards of the bridge and decided the seal had doubled back on them. They then gave up this was about 2pm, about half an hour later the seal was swimming up and down the Caravan site length. Hope they return, it needs to be caught.
 
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