still water barbel - depressing news.

[Guest Ian Welch]

Originally posted by Alan Pearce:

Ian, we should be encouraging more anglers to fish the rivers but by stocking 'river' species into still waters will have the opposite effect. Why not instead look to increase the barbel population in some stretches of river thereby making it easier for the less experienced angler, whilst at the same time offering them 'the river experience'. Would that not prove a better idea.

 

Surprisingly I agree with just about everything BM, Graham, trent and Alan have just said !

 

Subject to EA consent I shall be making substantial introductions of barbel to our river fisheries this winter Alan, primarily at Fishers Green where there still appears to be a major recruitment problem. I also have a project, alluded to earlier, to carry out a major barbel stocking of another river.

 

Graham will doubtless say that this will not 'right' what I have done at our lake at Burghfield but I can assure you that I am doing all I can to improve our rivers and to get anglers fishing them. Not just RMC stretches either - I sit on the EA Kennet Fishery Action Plan Group and am actively doing my bit to improve the quality of that entire river.

 

I do, however, have to wear two hats as part of my job and make provision for those anglers who have different requirements but if time shows that I made a mistake at Burghfield I will be the first to admit it and to learn from it.

[Guest pete falloon]

Alan

 

I think your idea is a good one - for instance the EA stocked the upper lea round our way with lots of small barbel and chub, which provide excellent, free sport for youngsters. I know Ian is making his livelihood, but commercialism is one of the problems angling faces right now. There is simply too much tackle on sale, and to much 'glamour' if you like. Looking along the bank or in a tackle shop, any newcomer could be forgiven for thinking you need to take a second mortgage out to start fishing.

 

It shouldn't be about that - it should be about meeting the challenge, as Graham says, and keeping things simple for newcomers to understand.

 

We only have to hope that in the end newcomers fishing seeking bite-a-chuck fisheries will at least give 'natural' fishing a chance.

 

As I said before, the first step has to be scientific investigation. We simply have to know more about the effects of stillwater habitats on barbel. The results of this work then needs to be put to some kind of referendum in the angling community, like the salmon and freshwater fisheries review.

 

It is one thing scientists finding out there are great economic benefits to growing GM crops, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is what people want. I'm not going into the agriculture issue, it's just an example!

[Guest Alan Pearce]

Ian, as a bit of an aside have you thought about coaching / training sessions on some of your rivers and more natural still water fisheries. There are some great teachers in the PAA who I know would be more than pleased to assist.

 

Alan.

[Guest Graham E]

Good post Ian!

[Guest Ian Welch]

We are there already Alan ! Ray Walton, Fred Crouch, Martin Bowler and myself (amongst others) will be teaching up at Fishers Green this summer and I have good links with PAA coaches Martin Porter and Lee Pullen too.

 

Graham - Olive Branch time methinks - A pint in the Waggon and Horses after a morning on St Pat's next month to prove I am not as dark as I am sometimes painted?

[Guest lyn]

My, my, we have been busy while I’ve been away! Yes Phil I have been away for a few days & not avoiding your question. Nearly didn’t make my first BS AGM due to my 5yr old causing me a scare on Friday morning, resulting in an emergency trip to the doctors.

 

So apart from spending a short time catching up with this thread last night, I have not been logged on.

 

I have had emails, numerous conversations with different people over this thread/issue, a lot has been bought to my attention that I was unaware of. There was a day, in the distant past that I just used to go fishing & didn’t get involved in any of this. As they say ‘times change’ & you have to change with them! You have kept this thread going without to much B&B well apart from Ian calling us all ‘charlatans!’ (Mind you as far as I’m concerned that is quite polite to some of the things he has called me! lol There have been a lot of constructive remarks & hopefully those that want to can work on them.

 

Phil, I understand that you are a scientist, it would be nice to know in which subject. I also understand that you were with the SACG, although I do not know in what capacity i.e. just a member or on the committee. I hope that if you are a biologist of some kind that you are now on the newly formed SAA committee as groups like that, well any angling group needs people with your expertise. Hopefully the SAA river section will be looking into this issue.

 

As you are aware, well I presume you are, that any scientific evidence supporting a case against still water barbel is inconclusive. If a full test had been carried out & it had proven that barbel do not belong in still waters, then this practise would have been stopped by the EA. Therefore our feelings are more moral than scientific. Is that the answer you are looking for? If not, please elaborate on the question.

 

With regards to the EA, perhaps it is them that we should be targeting! If they did not over produce barbel, in that they have a surplus to river requirements, then they wouldn’t be selling them to commercial fisheries like RMC. (I know, it has already been mentioned that there are other suppliers.) As their policy is NOT to stock indigenous species into rivers then perhaps we should ask why they stock them into stillwaters. (I am going to look into this one but it will take a lot of time.)

 

If you look at it all logically & economically a full scientific survey would have too be carried out over several years & on several waters at the same time to get a comparison. Who is going to spend that sort of money? Who has got that sort of money other than someone like the EA? At the end of the day who really cares apart from barbel anglers?

 

My main concern when I first posted this thread was, if the smaller commercials see the likes of RMC stocking them, will follow suit? This is what frightens me.

 

Ian, I really can’t understand why, when you have some good river venues that you felt you had to put them in this ‘puddle’ You have the Blackwater running through your Yateley complex, why on earth didn’t you put them in there. There are barbel lower down so I can’t see it would have been a problem. Or is this perhaps your ‘forgotten river’?

 

 

I have read peoples opinions, throw him out, and boycott their waters! I am sorry but at the end of the day who is listening? All we can do, is those of us that do care on ‘moral grounds’ (OK Phil?) is not too fish at these places, keep our blacklist going that Keith started. Make people aware of where these fish are. There are a lot of people that post on here that like to fish commercial fisheries and there are those of us who care passionately about barbel. We are the ones that will continue to fight to put a stop to this & hopefully one day we will.

 

The BS spoke at great length about this on Saturday at their committee meeting.The outcome of which, as I understand it, will be made to members in the next newsletter.

As much as some of you may find this hard to believe, I do NOT know anything other than that. Other than, that the BS have NOT done a U-turn on their policy on the stocking of still water barbel.

 

lyn

 

 

[This message has been edited by lyn (edited 15 May 2001).]

[Guest Graham E]

No problem Ian, you can be my guest on the lower end and hopefully a few of my buddies can make it also.

Keith, Mike, Steve, Pete etc, of course you will get thrown in the deepest part! but it's the price you have to pay for having 2 brains (sorry 2 hats!)

Hopefully you will have the sensible one on.

 

Besides all this, it is important to recognize that the reason I and many others post is because WE care about the future of angling and the potential outcomes.

 

ps. I have a spot in mind that might produce that 16lb Thames fish.( or a real live 30lb river carp)

[Guest Spac-e-man aka eelangler]

Lyn,

 

Think you've hit the nail on the head with regards to targeting the EA over this issue. They are the only ones who can put an end to this practice by refusing to issue a section 30 for such a stocking.

 

I don't fish for barbel, but if I decided to have a go for them it certainly wouldn't be in a stillwater. My view is that it is fundamentally wrong to stock any fish into an unnatural or unsuitable environment.

 

TTFN

 

Spac-e-man

[Guest NICK ROSE]

Most of us have gone through the stage of catching small Roach,Perch,Dace, Bleak and thought it would be nice to catch a bigger version.

Maybe we should look on commercial fisherys as the nurserys of specimen anglers,just like the farm pond or canal was in my day.

You will always get the man who stays as a match angler and you will get the man who drops out of fishing and maybe the odd one comes through from this nursery will be a big fish man. He will be a 100% better angler than those instant speciman boys who can afford all the gear but know nowt about catching fish. When I was a lad ( now that is a wonderfull few words ) we went through an apprenticship from the humble Gudgeon to Roach,Perch,Barbel,Bream, then on to Carp, Pike, Zander, Chub and then on to the biggest challange a big Eel ( Sorry I could not resist that )

Maybe those lads around that hole in the ground will start thinking why don`t we try catching these fish in the rivers where they belong.

I know that is what happened to me and lets be honist with ourselves the best way to hook a kid is for him to catch anything on his/her first trip.

So sorry but long live the hole in the ground

and lets stop spending hours moralizing and get out and do something. How many of you try and promote river fishing to these lads,

none I suspect and I won`t try and tell you I do, cos I dont. I just think that people who spout of on the net day in day out do jack all to back up what they say.

No doubt you will all come back indignant and tell me of all the great work you do but I doubt you get to the ordinary fisherman who frequents the places you all hate like Ians match lake. Most of the anglers out there just want to catch fish and they dont give a toss what you think.

Yes Barbel belong in rivers so do Chub, Roach, Bream, Perch should be in lakes. Zander, Cats,orfe, Carp, Grass Carp and a multitude of others should be out of the country back to where they originated. The trouble is they are here in the rivers and the stillwaters, so try working with this fact and progress or just stop mouthing off and moralizing and just go fishing.

See ya all Nick

 

PS If you really want to make an impression then join a group or society that can change things and not one that gobs of week/in week/out about what they do but dont deliver. I bet the sad buggers who that was aimed at dont even realize it was about them.

All I can say is tight lines,

Luv you all

 

[This message has been edited by NICK ROSE (edited 16 May 2001).]

 

[This message has been edited by NICK ROSE (edited 16 May 2001).]

[Guest Ian Welch]

Originally posted by lyn:

You have the Blackwater running through your Yateley complex, why on earth didn’t you put them in there. There are barbel lower down so I can’t see it would have been a problem. Or is this perhaps your ‘forgotten river’?

 

The Blackwater is indeed our 'forgotten' river. In addition to the mile or so running through Yateley which is currently fished we own a further three to four miles of the river, not currently fished.

 

We are not looking to 'just' stock the Blackwater with barbel but, subject to EA approval, to carry out some major habitat improvement as part of a long-term restoration project.

 

Perhaps the Surrey region of the Barbel Society would care to volunteer to assist us with the work? It could be an excellent joint project between RMC Angling and the Barbel Society.