no pike in worcs cut

[Anthony78]

Ok it's official, there are no pike in the worcester canal.

While walking back to my car on anothere fruitless lure session I bumped in to the local lock keeper who said that there hasn't been a pike caught to his knowledge for years.

And the reason:- Droitwich's natural salt streams. Most sea's around the uk contain a 3% salt content. these natural streams however contain 25% and find there way in to the canal. he did mention that there are monster chub to over 5lb massive perch and just about any other freshwater species you could think of.

So why does the salt effect the pike and not any of the other fish?

anybody have any ideas on this?

ant

[Chris Plumb]

Useless information time....Anglo Saxon's called a saltworks a wich hence any placename in England ending in 'wich' used to produce salt....

 

 

Chris

[Newt]

Since pike tolerate brackish water well, I'd have to say that if you have any 'fresh water' fish then the reason for no pike is not the salinity of the water.

 

And since the maximum amount of salt you can possibly dissolve in water at any normal temperatures is about 1 part salt to 9 parts (makes a saturated solution at room temperature) water, 25% salt in a stream just ain't a happening. You could heat the water to near boiling and get more salt to dissolve but when the water cooled, the excess would precipitate out.

[Peter Waller]

Maybe a wandering pair of rampant pike would address the problem!

[Chris Plumb]

What IS the deal with Pike and salinity? - aren't they prolific in the Baltic Sea? Not as saline as your average ocean I know but surely salty than most rivers over here?

 

Chris

[ste the piker]

Dead right chris plenty pike in the baltic, watch matt hayes show with mick brown and they caught load's of them.....

[Anthony78]

So it looks like this lock keeper friend of mine is telling me a load of cobblers. Any body got any ideas as to why there are no pike in the canal so I can put my mate right next time I see him. Seeing as the canal eventually finds it's way to the river severn it's not that they just haven't been introduced. Would be very interested to find out.

thanks

ant

[Nugg]

Yep Newt is right.

As far as the Worc/Birmingham canal is concerned I would think that any salinity would be well flushed out by the use of the Tardebigge flight of 36 locks, above Stoke/Droitwich, which as you can imagine puts a fair bit of water through the system.

The next thing one could think is that as there are a number of matches fished on this water, and that match fishermen, who are known for not liking Pike, have rid the water of them. I don't think that is the case though.

My experience of this water, dating back to the mid fifties at least, is that when it was in decline and with filthy green water and fish with fin fungus swimming around, there were no Plke in it then.

I wonder if anyone has heard of any higher up, like Kings Norton.

[tony jolley]

I have had pike at Kings Norton.

as well as chub at night but no eels. Zander are caught at kings norton as well, maybe the Zander culls by the B,W,B have also hurt the pike.

Maybe most the pike are night feeders.

[Nugg]

Thanks for that Tony.

I,m not familiar with how the locks run that high up, I can only assume they run away from Alvechurch toward Birmingham. Can you confirm that. If that is the case, I feel they would most likely be contained in that stretch, as the locks run toward Worcester from the Licky's.

There used to be lots of Eels at Worcester, don't know about recent times but I used to get plenty of 2/3 pounders out by the Arboretum, at night of course.

I feel sure I would have heard about at least one Pike coming out, no Zs either.

 

[ 03. May 2004, 11:01 PM: Message edited by: Nugg ]