Carp in Small Rivers ?

[Steve Walker]

Barbel are certainly native to the UK, but they aren't native to the westward flowing river systems. The salmon anglers on the Wye & Usk get very grumpy about them! There are a lot of them now in the Mersey system, but it's hard to resent that when we basically wiped out those rivers in the past with pollution.

[BobH]

Is it behind that tree?

 

No it's in the fallen tree, lots of Maggots draw out the Barbel, but the Carp often get to the bait first !1

 

Bob

[BobH]

Not sure there really is an answer - I mean, you could just as easily get broken by them when fishing for roach. To take any other view would mean accepting that once carp are in a water, the only acceptable type of fishing is carp fishing. Even stillwaters deliberately stocked with carp tend not to take that hardline view. I think if someone is responsible for river carp trailing hooklengths, it's the person who put them in there or allowed them to get in there.

 

Steve,

 

I believe most of the Carp in the Upper Lea come from flooded lakes along the length of the Lea, it's difficult at times to find the river in flood conditions !!

 

Of course there is no answer and the EA would never think of removing the river Carp, but they have a duty of care to all fish species.

 

Down here in the balmy South the Carp feed all year, I had a couple just before Christmas.

 

The Lea Navigation has some huge Carp in it that have found their way out of lakes, but at least on the canal you have room to play them

 

Bob

Edited January 18, 2015 by BobH

[Tigger]

Barbel are certainly native to the UK, but they aren't native to the westward flowing river systems. The salmon anglers on the Wye & Usk get very grumpy about them! There are a lot of them now in the Mersey system, but it's hard to resent that when we basically wiped out those rivers in the past with pollution.

 

 

Yeah Steve, i've heard that also but being honest i'm sceptical about that theory. I mean lets face it that idea is based on barbel being present in the Rhine which the easterly flowing rivers ran into and since there are barbel present in the Rhine they say they must have been present in those rivers also. Who really knows as it's quite a while since there was no channel and France and the uk where joined together, so it's just a theory in my opinion anyhow .

[BobH]

One thing is for sure, Barbel have been in the Thames and it's tributary's for ever !!

 

Carp have not and they are a real PITA

 

Bob

[lutra]

Yeah Steve, i've heard that also but being honest i'm sceptical about that theory. I mean lets face it that idea is based on barbel being present in the Rhine which the easterly flowing rivers ran into and since there are barbel present in the Rhine they say they must have been present in those rivers also. Who really knows as it's quite a while since there was no channel and France and the uk where joined together, so it's just a theory in my opinion anyhow .

I'm not sure when barbel found their way in to more southerly westward flowing rivers Ian, but its still well in living memory that there wasn't any here in the northwest.

 

Not only can you be fairly sure the last ice age pretty much sterilized most of our northern rivers, it will have made a lot of them from scratch. So no barbel, chub, dace, roach,.................... and deffo no carp.

[Steve Walker]

Bob - yeah, stocking lakes in flood prone areas is what I meant by "allowed them to get in there". Lots of stocked lakes very close to flood prone Thames tributaries round here too.

[Tigger]

 

I'm not sure when barbel found their way in to more southerly westward flowing rivers Ian, but its still well in living memory that there wasn't any here in the northwest.

 

Not only can you be fairly sure the last ice age pretty much sterilized most of our northern rivers, it will have made a lot of them from scratch. So no barbel, chub, dace, roach,.................... and deffo no carp.

 

 

 

OK Brian, but which ice age are we talking about ? At least once, the whole of GB and northern France was covered with an ice sheet, sometimes the sheet extended all over Europe so there was no easterly flowing rivers back then. Then don't forget those easterly flowing rivers didn't go into the Danube they flowed into the English channel that was created in one of the earths upheavals.

Paelentologists are still investigating these early periods in history.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Tigger

[Ken L]

Don't forget that both the Thames and the Trent flowed out into Doggerland where they joined up with the Rhine.

As the ice retreated, fish migrated northwards and up these tributaries (hence barbell in the east flowing rivers) until the sea level rose and cut them off.

[lutra]

The last ice age.

 

Something along the lines of as the ice melted and retreated north it flooded them tykes (and some southerners) and mixed up all their fish with foreign ones (let the barbel in) before the weight of water got to much and burst its way out making the English channel.

 

So all these foreign fish are the tykes (gozzers) fault.