River Adur, Sussex. DEAD

[Skridlov]

I've posted something about this previously but it seems worth starting a new thread as I have a fuller picture.

 

I've fished the Adur extensively over the last 8 years - both the tidal and non-tidal sections - and caught large numbers of many species as well as plenty of specimen fish. Over the last 3 years the level of catches has dropped dramatically. In 2011 I assumed that the cold wet summer was to blame; in 2012 I thought something similar was happening.

 

This year, having fished and walked all along the river I'd say that it contains almost NO fish any longer.

 

About a dozen sessions on various parts of the river without catching anything over a few ounces, and not many even of these. Not a single run on a Carp rod - or even a line bite for that matter. Walking the river and putting in loose feed shows almost no activity at all. I invited an old friend as a guest last week and we fished a section of the river at Sakeham. This stretch up to Wineham is usually teeming with at least small Rudd. My mate took a whip pole and walked most of the section to verify that the lack of activity was general. Not a bite between the two of us in 7 hours. This is just incredible.

 

Now I know how to fish, having been at it for about 55 years and I know this river pretty well. Looking at my photos of fish caught in the time I've been living back down in West Sussex it's hard to believe the variety and size of the catches I made for the first 5 years compared to the wet desert that is all that's now left.

 

For me this is a devastating development. I'm at an age where - like most of the anglers I meet who fish rivers rather than the open air aquariums which most lakes have become - being able to spend part of the year in a rural environment free of traffic noise and epidemic levels of humanity is a huge contributor to what quality of life I currently enjoy. Now that is gone.

 

As for the reasons? Well Cormorants probably aren't helping although I don't see Cormorants being able to eat the sizeable Carp, Tench and Bream with which the river used to be full. Pollution? There have certainly been some agricultural spills in recent years however the geography of the river - which has two (nominally) non-tidal sections with weirs and locks would tend to protect the river overall from localised pollution. But both branches appear to be dead. That said I caught a huge (>12lb) fluke Sea Trout at the beginning of the season and there are plenty of Mullet coming right up the tidal sections so the river isn't entirely toxic.

 

It's been suggested to me that East European poachers are a major source of the problem. Certainly I've been told that they have been caught with enormous gill nets around local commercials and that many deadlines are being found. I've been in tackle shops when people who don't strike me as sport anglers are buying "wire and beeg hook" at the beginning of the winter. Tasty, those Pike, I'm told.

 

I don't know what to think. I'm in correspondence with the E.A. amongst other interested parties but sometimes get the impression that they think I'm just having a couple of blank days. But I've done marine ecology courses and studied biological sciences up to degree level - not that that qualifies me any better than any other experienced angler.

 

There's a lot more to be said about this correspondence but I'll leave that until I see what reaction I get here. It's an internet forum so I fully anticipate the howls of denial, negativity and contradiction. But be assured, it really is this bad.

 

One thing is for sure, here in S.E. England almost everything connected with the "natural" world is in precipitous and unstoppable decline.

 

Roy

[Tigger]

Going off what you've said i'd say there's obviously some sort of pollution gone through or still going through unoticed by people. That's the problem with rivers, if the pollution goes through in a spate or during the night and isn't noticeable then by the time you realise something has happened it's to late and the pollution has flowed away down stream and into the sea leaving no proof of it ever happened appart from a lifeless river.

I personally wouldn't blame any form of wild creature for the lack in fish, they'd simply move off well before the river ever got so low in fish life.

[Skridlov]

This river has two branches. There are a pair of weirs below which the river is tidal (although on the bigger tides the flow is upstream over the weirs for a mile or so) like many Sussex rivers. On each of the upstream branches of the river there are a combination of locks (the western branch is actually part of a former canal system) and weirs. These effectively segregate sections of the river. I would have thought that this compartmentalisation would prevent pollution events having a global effect on the river.

 

The situation has not happened overnight. This year is the final stage of what I would say is a three to four year process. Which of course doesn't in itself preclude pollution as the source of the disaster. However previous pollution events have been relatively limited in effect and their results have been pretty obvious: ie dead fish. I have heard nothing about this even from the former fishery manager.

 

The E.A. seem to be completely oblivious. My angling club likewise. The problem is that most anglers these days are only interested in fishing for farmed fish from wooden platforms on outdoor aquariums. Tidal rivers are hard work and by comparison unproductive. Nobody really cares about the situation. Unfortunately I do.

 

Roy

Edited September 14, 2013 by Skridlov

[wotnobivvy]

How about getting some samples from various stretches and getting them tested. Then you can confirm or deny pollution as a reason

[Skridlov]

How about getting some samples from various stretches and getting them tested. Then you can confirm or deny pollution as a reason

I'm pressing the E.A. and also pursuing some other avenues. I don't really feel like taking on their job and I can't really afford to either. But of course this needs doing. May be a bit late now.

Roy

[John Weddup]

Sorry this is short but I am on the bank.

 

My river stour in Suffolk has area,s very like you describe. It is the shallower stretches that used to be fantastic dace chub and roach heaven. Now devoid of fish. Obviously not pollution as downstream is healthy.

 

We do have the usual suspects eating things but I put the blame firmly with the EA. the controlling of floodwater is the problem. What used to take days after a rain to occur now happens in 24 hours washing the river through with such violence and in our case leaving controlling gates open to almost empty the sections of river.

 

John

[Ken L]

I don't know the river or the area but how much cover is there ?

Have the EA been hard at work ripping out trees an other obstructions in the name of flood aleviation ?

We had a lot of sustained flooding last year and fish can and do get washed out to sea.

[Skridlov]

Very briefly (not much time this evening) there hasn't been any major change to the river. There has been a problem, growing over the last couple of years that one of the weirs at the fork in the river is broken and is now leaking underwater to the extent that the level upstream in this section for about 2-3 miles before it meets an old lock has dropped by about 2 ft. When I fished this section on the first week of the season I was shocked that there was no fish activity at all and put it down to insufficient water (about 2 ft only.) There's an intermediate mini-weir about a mile up which has a board missing too.

 

Now last autumn I ran into a bunch of young persons from the EA at the fork. I buttonholed them and asked a few questions as I'd been told there was an active policy (EU derived) to eliminate or lower weirs in order that "migratory fish could get upstream". This was offensively, culpably ignorant. On every tide over about 5m at the coast (ie most of them) there is a back flow over these weirs up to 3 ft deep! Twice a day. The dimwit making this statement had probably spent about 30 minutes by the river in his life. Anyone local angler could have pointed out the reality. I've pointed this out repeatedly in correspondence with the E.A. but it just doesn't seem to register. Their careers obviously depend on implementing E.U. directives even if it lays the rivers to waste.

 

But no, I don't think that any type of engineering or landscaping has had a significant effect on the current disaster.

 

Roy

[viney]

You try to blame Eastern Europeans in your first post, I fail to see how a small population taking for the pot can wipe out a whole river, if this is the case then our rivers would have been devoid of life up until this century when taking coarse fish for the pot was no longer widespread. I guess there is no fishing left in Poland as they will have systematically wiped out their whole country of fish.

 

It is easy to blame ee's, cormorants, otters etc. But cormorants and otters are natural predators and EE's surely can't make that much of an impact.

[Skridlov]

This is a small river. Nothing would be easier than netting it. Two or three people could clear out large sections undisturbed without difficulty. Over a couple of years this would probably result in what we're now seeing. As for "for the pot", it's more a case of for the £££s I suspect. Maybe the people who are stripping the wiring from alongside our motorways and rail lines are actually rewiring their modest dwellings.

 

I sometimes walk down the Brighton marina arm and chat with some of the people who fish it regularly. The "free food" business is happening there too - people filling sacks with mackerel. It really p!55es off some of the local anglers. One of the local commercials recently found a huge length of net concealed in the hedgerow.

 

The same place has a licence to shoot Cormorants too. I have watched the population here grow enormously in the last decade. I walk the coast regularly and where I would once see half a dozen Cormorants I counted almost 70 last year. A local lake (not a commercial and I don't want to mention which one) has a population of fish which are ALL very large - it's shallow and 8 years ago you couldn't get a bait down past the Rudd to the Tench. In the last few years there are almost NO Rudd at all. It's effectively impossible to net this lake covertly.

 

I have friends from several parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I travel to the Czech Republic from time to time and have been to and fished in Latvia and Estonia. All of these regions have been depopulated of coarse fish because of the habit of eating them. There's a HUGE demand for Carp, particularly at Xmas in Poland above all. Since I started fishing in the late 50s we've always tried to look after our coarse fish population.

 

I have Georgian friends who tell me that their rivers are pretty well stripped. I was in Crete last year. Speaking to a couple of people who set nets on the south coast it became clear that there's nothing left. Even the Seagulls have left. Yet people have been living in and fishing the Med for millenia.

 

I would bet money that poaching is a component of the problem. Local angling shops have told me that they're hearing more and more about this happening. I've outlined above why I came, reluctantly, to the conclusion that poaching is likely to be at least a contributing factor..

 

Roy

Edited September 14, 2013 by Skridlov