British records increasing .

[Dave H]

With only a handful of fishing trips after many many years i was astounded to find how much the record weights had grown for each weight exception maybe being Pike.

 

I held the barbel record for a very very short time and to see it upped by 5lb is astonishing!!

 

Why is this. is it really down to carp anglers stuffing tons of boilies into the water?

Is it we have just improved our tactics to catch them. Could you seperate a certain species and say 'That' is why Tench has increased or we have just found them?

some have to of been improved by the amount of boilies but predators such as the Perch?

 

http://www.fishingposts.com/fishspecies.htm

 

 

[Steve Walker]

Of course it is in the nature of records to increase over time, but there are other factors which could in some cases be relevant - changing climate, changing water quality, presence of alien species like crayfish, effects of changing patterns of predation, number of fisheries containing relevant species and number of anglers fishing for them, supplementary feeding by anglers, introduction of fast growing partially domesticated varieties, etc.

 

It would be interesting to plot historical record weights against time to see whether they have really been accelerating of late.

[Steve Burke]

When this subject has come up in the past I've pointed out the same as Steve - there are quite a number of factors. It's most likely that it's a combination of many of these factors that has led to the jump in record weights.

 

For instance signal crayfish in the waters that now contain them certainly seem to have increased the weights of some species.

 

HNV baits will definitely have made a difference too, but not as much as is commonly believed. Bait is most important in waters that are overstocked, although that's a great many these days. I know of many waters that receive very little such bait (and in some cases none whatsoever!) where weights are much higher than they used to be. The waters I created at Wingham receive very little bait and yet our biggest bream are well over the old record weight, and we have average weights of carp and tench that would have been unbelievable not so long ago.

 

I suspect that one of the main factors is enrichment of our waters with nitrates and phosphates from farming etc. The timing is certainly right.

 

Additionally, if you look at the species whose records have jumped up the most (barbel, bream, carp and tench), the common factor is that in Mr Crabtree's time they would all have been considered summer species. Climate change, in particular a longer growing season, may well therefore have had a significant impact.

[Dave H]

Yes its quite incredible how with just about everything that lives or grows is effected by the effects of the likes of the gulf stream each year but global warming too. I know in my business chicks are being born so much earlier than they used to be. The sad thing is they are born in warm weather and then a huge cold snap and they die. There is hardly a season anymore where i think Winter is just a extention of autumn and summer an extension of spring .... Shame as i have always loved the seasons

[Dales]

I agree with everything that the Steve's have posted and the combination of all these things play an important part.

 

I do feel that the enviroments that now exist for fish must have some impact, we have more managed fisheries and control over stock. Carp fisheries spring to mind not the ones that heavy stocking policies but the low stock fisheries. Lots of waters are now engineered to have a few fish with little competition from nuisance species and low angling pressure. Steve B knows more then most about the importance of keeping angling pressure low.

 

Some of the pits on the St Ives Lakes fit the bill and often produce some huge fish Bream & Zander catchs being notable but the complex produces good fish of many other species aswell. We also now have fisheries with controled species with most of the unwanted species being removed again often carp fisheries but these waters do tend to throw up big coarse fish aswell. Pike on trout waters are another good example where conditions seem ideal to produce bigger then average fish.

 

The same sort of situation can occur on rivers, they may not be managed as in stocking policy but through various issues such as the presence of crays it can create an unnatural balance/unique enviroment. The river Lea springs to mind, known for it's large Chub, for a number or reasons you have a situation of just a few big fish living in water with a stock of mainly predators. So if you catch they tend to be bigger then average fish. Would the Chub/Barbel and Bream have got so big if the river did not suufer with it's problems.

 

The removal of the close season on still waters has also helped to inflat most peoples PB's, being able to target fish when they are at their biggest has made a difference but lets not forget that there is generaly something wrong or right about record fish depending on your point of view. They are not the norm and so I think these fish have something else about them that makes them records but being in the ideal enviroment helps them attain that maximum size.

 

Also maybe anglers are now better, I know not a popular view with many AN members. Therefore I will put it another way, Maybe modern anglers are now more efficient at catching or trapping for those who prefer that term. I think we have more specialist anglers these days who deliberatly target big fish and put in lots of hours. Multiple day Session fishing is now common when I started out doing a night was a long session.

[Dave H]

I agree with everything that the Steve's have posted and the combination of all these things play an important part.

 

I do feel that the enviroments that now exist for fish must have some impact, we have more managed fisheries and control over stock. Carp fisheries spring to mind not the ones that heavy stocking policies but the low stock fisheries. Lots of waters are now engineered to have a few fish with little competition from nuisance species and low angling pressure. Steve B knows more then most about the importance of keeping angling pressure low.

 

Some of the pits on the St Ives Lakes fit the bill and often produce some huge fish Bream & Zander catchs being notable but the complex produces good fish of many other species aswell. We also now have fisheries with controled species with most of the unwanted species being removed again often carp fisheries but these waters do tend to throw up big coarse fish aswell. Pike on trout waters are another good example where conditions seem ideal to produce bigger then average fish.

 

The same sort of situation can occur on rivers, they may not be managed as in stocking policy but through various issues such as the presence of crays it can create an unnatural balance/unique enviroment. The river Lea springs to mind, known for it's large Chub, for a number or reasons you have a situation of just a few big fish living in water with a stock of mainly predators. So if you catch they tend to be bigger then average fish. Would the Chub/Barbel and Bream have got so big if the river did not suufer with it's problems.

 

The removal of the close season on still waters has also helped to inflat most peoples PB's, being able to target fish when they are at their biggest has made a difference but lets not forget that there is generaly something wrong or right about record fish depending on your point of view. They are not the norm and so I think these fish have something else about them that makes them records but being in the ideal enviroment helps them attain that maximum size.

 

Also maybe anglers are now better, I know not a popular view with many AN members. Therefore I will put it another way, Maybe modern anglers are now more efficient at catching or trapping for those who prefer that term. I think we have more specialist anglers these days who deliberatly target big fish and put in lots of hours. Multiple day Session fishing is now common when I started out doing a night was a long session.

I agree dale could it also be that there are less anglers now especially on rivers than there used to be leaving the specialist more space or even to target those swims. Many more youngsters now play the playstation rather than fishing i wonder if this plays another factor to it?. Showing my age as usual

[Dales]

Very good point about the rivers Dave and I think that is why rivers do attract specialist anglers. To be honest on some rivers you would need to be a specialist to be willing to put up with all the blanks.

[philocalist]

Just a slightly lateral thought - we're constantly hearing about the mass predation / removal of countless (smaller) fish from waterways by (primarily) the cormorant, numbered in their thousands. This (if true / accurate) represents the removal of an extremely large biomass that is no longer eating available foods - ergo more left for the remaining bigger fish to allow more rapid growth to heavier weights, no?

[Dales]

philocalist, your hypothesise is one put forward by a lot of anglers on the Lea to explain it's big fish. The big cormorant colony on Walthamstow Reservoiurs are blamed for removing a lot of the smaller fish from the Lea. The Crays which are legion feed on eggs and those eggs that survive long enough to hatch in to fry then get predated on by Perch and Jacks the main stay of the fish population in a lot of the Lea. Although the Pike do seem to be a dwindling population.

 

I think waters with such a heavy predator to prey ratio creates an unnatural enviroment that does seem to throw up some monster fish.

[Dave H]

 

 

If small fish are eaten by any mode and the predator gets bigger and bigger then surely there will become a point where like everything that’s old it will die. You then have a state of affairs of no or little middle weight fish so to speak because they were eaten at a younger age. Almost like a generation removed. The generation may now only being noticed in many places

Yes we know they have taken the smaller fish but are we only now realising the sense of balance they have created? Perhaps with almost a generation removed that all records will halt as those fish die and the next generation will get nowhere near the sizes we are looking at now or will be very soon .

Just a thought