Where have all the gudgeon gone?

[1superken]

Its a strange one even canals that were full of Gudgeon when i was a kid no longer produce like they used to. It could well be some sort of virus like the perch disease that we,ve suffered in the past? I certainly dont subscribre to the carp theory as most of the canals im talkin about have very few, at least nowhere near enough in to make any difference to the Gudgeon population in fact Tommy Ruffe used to be common as well but i dont hear of them anymore neither . Like i say its a strange one i dont fish canals & such anymore but i keep my eyes on local reports & Gudgeon & Tommys seem a thing of the past .

[wayne baker]

Theres still gudgeon on in my local river,But their very localised and not widespread like they were say twenty years ago. Like someone else said the perch seem to be coming back in the rivers and this could be a factor. Or maybe water quality but im not sure if they are sensitive to this, I always imagined they were quite hardy little fellas. I can remember when i was a kid wading down the river with my green wellies on and having dozens of them swarming around my feet picking up all the food items i had disturbed.

[Anderoo]

The Wissey and Little Ouse used to be teeming with them 15-20 years ago, I know they all but disappeared but maybe they're coming back? I haven't fished either river properly for ages.

 

In recent years I've had one from the Thames (below a weirpool), one from the Windrush and one from the perch stream. They make me feel happy, like being a kid again

 

Same with Ruffe, they used to drive us mental when quivertipping for bream and roach on the Norfolk drains (swallow the hook and just sit there, not giving any indication). Hardly see them now. I caught a whopper last season from the perch stream, so big I actually thought it was a small brown perch for a while!

 

I really must start weighing my 'tiny PBs'.

[Chris Plumb]

Gudgeon are still pretty numerous on most parts of the Kennet I frequent - especially Speen. It might just be a cyclical thing. A few years back there was a dearth of silver fish in the Kennet - and everyone was blaming the Signals for egg eating! In the last couple of years though there has been a quite healthy population of dace, roach and chublets showing.....

 

 

C.

[arbocop]

Gudgeon are still pretty numerous on most parts of the Kennet I frequent - especially Speen. It might just be a cyclical thing. A few years back there was a dearth of silver fish in the Kennet - and everyone was blaming the Signals for egg eating! In the last couple of years though there has been a quite healthy population of dace, roach and chublets showing.....

 

 

C.

 

Agreed, the cycle of species abundance arrives in peaks and troughs. If (for example) gudgeon have two good breeding years followed by two bad ones and life cycle of a gudgeon is around five years, the peaks will be every 3 years. Mix into this the numbers of predators and competitors following similar peaks and troughs and you have a cycle - it's just very complex and largely unpredictable without loads of data and a PhD. I love gudgeon.

 

Also, bullheads - when was the last time you even spotted one of them? I used to feed one in a feeder stream every day - it was enormous - it would pop it's head out from under a rock to get a worm i dropped in. Then one day it was gone.

[Vagabond]

Plenty of gudgeon still in the Upper Medway, but the ruffe seem to have become scarce in the middle reaches.

 

In 2007 I was involved in a species hunt. Spent more hours after ruffe than almost anything else - did eventually catch one, the only one from a river I have seen for some years.

 

Commercial fisheries that stock zander seem to have a sprinkling of ruffe - probably introduced inadvertently at the same time.

 

Bullheads, stone loach, and wild trout still teem in those of my local streams that remain unpolluted.

Edited February 26, 2009 by Vagabond

[wayne baker]

The Roman river in Essex, Which is a tribuatury of the colne still has stone loach in abundance. I remember back in September last year on a nights lamping for rabbits having a look in the river with my head torch and having a grub about, I disturbed quite a few. I did not see any bullys though, Cant remember the last time i saw one. Which is strange as i thought they lived side by side.

Edited February 27, 2009 by wayne baker

[Houseplant]

This brings back memories of fishing the Thames around Windsor when I was a kid. Catches consisted largely of gudgeon and ruffe (plus the odd small perch of course). Can't remember the last time I caught either species .

[gozzer]

Back in the late 60s, (I can't remember the exact year), we had an outbreak of foot and mouth.

The fishing on many of the Yorkshire rivers was banned from Sept/October until near the end of the season, at the end of Feb. (Yorkshire had a closed season from Feb 27 'til June 1st).

Because of the loss of fishing time, the closed season was suspended that year, and we continued to fish the rivers.

When the season proper started again, we noticed a lack of small fish, especially gudgeon, ruffe, and roach.

Me being a naive teenager, (into match fishing and reliant on small fish for back up weights), got to thinking. I concluded that fishing through the closed season was in some way partially to blame. It wasn't until some time later, I realised that main reason, was the activities of the then River Board over the previous few seasons. They had done major bank works on many of the rivers. This included pulling out bankside trees, straightening some bends, shaping the banks to a 'dangerous' 45 degrees, and generally trying to canalise the rivers, to (allegedly) prevent flooding.

The major effect of these measures was, (apart from endangering lives) to deprive the fry from having 'nursery' areas, slacks, in which they could shoal and shelter from the increased flow.

This, and the ensuing 'roach disease' caused a fall in fry survival rates, which lasted for many years. Even when they stared to show again they were very localised, not spread out like before.

 

I think that the floods of recent years has had a similar effect on many rivers. I see plenty of fry midsummer, but the numbers that survive to the next year is smaller than I would expect. Add to this the effects of chemicals in the water, the waterside building, the introduction of invasive species that feed on the fry and eggs, and compete for food, and the obsession that a fishery producing large fish, proves that it's healthy. These things point (IMO) to a change in the species of fish we can expect to catch on the rivers in future. Especially the lower reaches where it's usually deeper, and with a more moderate flow.

 

John.

[Steve Walker]

Beware, there are some who want the damaging river engineering back:

 

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/FLOODALERT/

 

How about not building on flood plains? How about that?