river roding
hi all
i look after 2 1/2 miles for my club and the ea did stock barbel in the upper stretches and in the pollution of 2003, 30 or so were fished out dead weighing around 5lb even though they went in at a few ozs. no one or an organisation has been fined for this or several pollutions since. we have a few in our stretches however they are not up to colonising at the moment. we have a few potatoe growers upstream and they are allowed to take water all year round.i dont know why the ea dont enforce the building of reservoirs to harness the winter floods that happen every year now between oct and may. also in 2003 crayfish being more mobile over land made the 10 mile trip to our stretches. 3 species are in the river. our perch have benifitted growing very quickly but in the long term may suffer. there are carp 3 varieties including leathers and tench, pike, barbel perch,roach,rudd, chubb,dace,gudgeon,eels. there are no inbetween fish they are either small or a good size which is worrying.if we have another pollution of the 2003 scale which became diluted at our stretch i will be on the ea,s back everyday, one risers to a challenge however in essex they constantley fail to secure a prosecution.
andy bdac fishery officer mitchells farm river roding.