The Trent Deteriorating?

[Guest Elton]

Received the following by email and thought that some of you fishing The Trent may like to comment. One thing I read somewhere was that cleaner rivers often mean less food at the bottom end of the food chain (with the obvious knock-on effect):

 

"Hello , my name is Steve, and I am concerned at the detoriation of the quality of the fishing on the river Trent, especially around the Newark area. I have been fishing these waters regularly over the

past 35 years and I have seen some very dramatic changes in the quality and the dominent species of fish over the years ,I am a member of a private club and have regularly caught good quality Chubb, Barbel, and Carp, but over the past 5 years I have seen a steady decline in all species of fish on the river, especially the Chubb it was a very prolific and regularly caught fish

and at one stage became a nuisance feeder when specimen fishing for the carp and barbel , but now the chubb seems to be well in decline and last year the river authorities re-stocked areas of the river with chubb. But I am catching the occasional chubb, never in any great numbers the shoals seem to be depleated and the fish coming out of the water seem very un-conditioned and

not fighting anywhere like their potential,I have regularly heard of how the Trent is getting cleaner, but if it is then do you know of what could be happening to the stocks of fish."

 

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[Guest TheDacer]

Having fished the Trent only once or twice, I can't really say as to it's form. But I get the impression that it has deteriorated from what I hear others say.

 

If it has, it has done so in much the same way as I believe the River Severn has. And for much the same reasons.

 

Interestingly, smaller rivers seem to be improving. I can think of a number of old muck streams which - a few years ago - were more or less devoid of any sort of life other than the Typhoid bacillus. Now, they are coming alive with the smaller fish and even the odd big 'un.

 

Maybe the "demise" of the big rivers is linked to the increased numbers of fish in these and other smaller streams?

 

Maybe the fish are backing up from the floods into these smaller rivers and finding them to be suitable permanent homes as opposed to temporary flood shelters?