thamesoddity

If I caught a barbel on a river like the itchen or test I'd consider killing it. However realistically this wouldn't make much difference to over all stocks. I'd love to see a no release policy on non-native barbel, coupled with an eradication policy!

Do you not think the demise could in fact be down to a lack of recruitment, due perhaps to changes in ecology that occurred before the otters arrived? And that the otters are simply highlighting an issue, as opposed to causing it?

Sounds like an amazing day's fishing. Well done.

Well done, it's a lovely looking common.

I've been trying a line called "stroft", it's one of the greatest hooklink materials i've ever used.

Could there be a Snakehead in the lake, illegally released from the pet trade? I believe they can survive our climate, and are capable of biting prey fish clean in half?

I hope that an equally large and well organised group of possibly illegal canoeists descend upon the same stretch as their match and ruin it.

Sounds like you're talking about dinton pastures lakes. the fishing is supposed to be good, plenty of carp, bream, tench etc. All to very large sizes. I think there's a 40lber in there, not sure though. It's council owned, heres a link: http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/parks/countryside/fishing/

I'd suggest investing in a fly fishing set up, you won't regret it.

the only problem is that it is impossible to know the exact starting conditions, i.e. the exact coordinates and conditions of the big bang.

An interesting idea based on a deterministic perspective. Pure theory, nothing else... ...Fish are simply complex biological things, governed by genes which dictate aspects such as size, natural wariness etc, and can in theory be entirely predictable in how they interact to minute changes in the local environment. So, if you were to map out the genome of your quarry and thoroughly study every genes' effect, you could in theory formulate a statistical model, of which the only variables would be the learned behaviors of the fish, which would be brought on my things like predation and angling pressure. So you could create a statistical model on which informed assumptions such as how likely a fish is to feed, where it will feed and what it will prefer as bait, and whether or not it will respond to camouflaged line. The genetics would even make a fish predisposed to wariness or feeding with seeming abandon. Also, providing a lake isn't stocked, the genome of your lake would be discrete, so you could (if you really had the time and motivation) work out the proportion of fish in the lake that will be likely to have these predispositions to wariness or strong feeding behavior. With this knowledge you could then surely devise an equation into which you simply type in variables such as temperature, light and date and be given an approximate probability of whether or not you'd catch or not... I've probably made a false assumption somewhere, so would be interested in seeing my theory ripped into by the biologists on the forum. One obvious problem is that it assumes that fish lack freewill, and the subsequent argument would be that humans lack free will as well, being also just a creature made up of genetic predispositions and cause and effect style learned behavior.

Going down the road of duality in quantum physics, how would you even know that there are any fish in the lake to begin with, all of the underwater element would be one big aquatic superposition. Schroedinger's tench?

You can form hypotheses based on anecdotal evidence though, and then seek to prove/disprove them. SO, I guess you could form a rough mathematical model of a scenario based on anecdotes, giving likely probabilities to events, mathematically predicting your outcome. I'm only an A-level science student, so I of course am lacking sufficient knowledge, but I don't see how you couldn't create a statistical model through anecdotes, it wouldn't be reliable, but it could function and would surely be a good start point?

Imagine the drudgery involved... saying that, I would love designing an equation, similar to the drake equation, that could model the probability of a stretch of river containing for instance a 3lb roach. Variables like Ph, predation, spawning habitat, average depth/flow, mean temperature, availability of weed, typical growth rates etc. Could be a fascinating way for specimen hunters to shortlist potential waters, although the flaw would be that you'd need to do gather a lot of experimental data and process it before putting it into the final equation, time that could have been better spent gathering anecdotal evidence using a rod and line... I think you'd need multiple anglers of varying skills repeating the experiment on a variety of waters, and then get an average from this wider study group, otherwise angling skill/watercraft could reduce the reliability of the experiment. Also, the angling pressure of the water could affect the results, i'd imagine that less pressured fish wouldn't be as fussy about line camouflage as pressured fish would be.

Did you catch a glimpse of the busy water voles vagabond?