Relationship between chub and barbel.

It seems many rivers that are good barbel rivers are also good chub rivers or vica versa. Is it just coincidence, they thrive in the same environment.
Do they compete and when a rivers barbel population declines the chub population benefits?

I am no fisheries scientist, but although adult fish may have similar habitat requirements (usually flowing water, gravelly bed etc) i suspect they use it differently and so do not compete directly. Chub are mid-water interceptors of food items, even surface feeders at times, whereas barbel grub around on the bed as "bottom-dwellers" (great term, something Rik Mayall would have been proud of).

You often see some rivers start off with a chub explosion only to give way to barbel a few years later. I remember the Swale at Topcliffe some 40 years ago.....it seemed that all you could get was chub, chub and more chub...not that we ever complained they was always stonking fish.

We had loads and loads over 5lb and quite a few over 6lb too...and with some nice roach and bream too....but then maybe 7 or 8 years later (if my memory serves me) you could hardly catch a chub it seemed to be barbel for quite a while...some 10 maybe 12 years later before we started seeing chub in their numbers again....it's strange how these things keep changing.

Yes, I think chub and barbel cope with each other quite well......as chub on the block says.....chub control the mid water and the barbel see to the food that gets through....maybe not quite like that ...but you know what I mean.

Maverick

markg said:

It seems many rivers that are good barbel rivers are also good chub rivers or vica versa. Is it just coincidence, they thrive in the same environment.

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Chub live and thrive quite happily in rivers, streams, canals and stillwaters and are often found in places with silty beds as well as places with gravel beds; however apart from the odd puddle where Barbel have been stocked artificially or the odd place where they have been washed into stillwaters by floods or where there are backwaters directly connected to a stream or river; I know of few (if any) Barbel that occur naturally in anything else but well oxygenated and less silty flowing rivers and streams, whereas chub are quite happy and thrive in most types of water.

On my local stream you can catch Chub in virtually every swim however the Barbel are a little more choosy as to the swims they frequent and stretches with silty bottoms are usually (but not always) totally devoid of Barbel.

Keith

chub_on_the_block said:

I am no fisheries scientist, but although adult fish may have similar habitat requirements (usually flowing water, gravelly bed etc) i suspect they use it differently and so do not compete directly. Chub are mid-water interceptors of food items, even surface feeders at times, whereas barbel grub around on the bed as "bottom-dwellers" (great term, something Rik Mayall would have been proud of).

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Not bad for a none fisheries scientist that Chub They "Occupy different niches” are the words you were looking for, which they do and so you are correct in what you wrote

Ok, thanks for that, the reason I was asking this question was because of a wrong line of thinking on my part.
Many years ago the River Rother in East Sussex was twice stocked with Barbel. I was only told this but, I believe they were quite substantial stockings (I like a substantial stocking myself, pardon me, a Christmas one that is !). They were never seen again as far as I know, no one has ever caught one. This did not surprise me really as I thought the river is unsuitable for Barbel but, then I was thinking it is a good Chub river( I believe it held the record once). So, I was reasoning that as it seems on many rivers Chub and Barbel coexist very well on many rivers, if its good for Chub, why not Barbel.

However, I can see that Chub are far more catholic in there requirements whereas Barbel are a lot more particular so, it would not hold that just because a river is a good Chub river it does not mean it would also be a good for Barbel.

Mind you I do wonder if those Barbel have survived somewhere. A lot of this river does not get fished much in the out of way places but, it is predominately silty.

Cheers and a Happy Christmas to all members, past and present.

markg said:

Many years ago the River Rother in East Sussex was twice stocked with Barbel. I was only told this but, I believe they were quite substantial stockings (I like a substantial stocking myself, pardon me, a Christmas one that is !). They were never seen again as far as I know, no one has ever caught one.

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A practice that continues even today with small Barbel being stocked into totally unsuitable rivers, they do not survive or breed in them whereas Chub will live in a muddy puddle and do well.

Food, population figures & suitable breeding area's or even sharing a similar pollution threshold might contain some way (but not all) to that answer, river bedrock's ph buffering capabilities (acid vs alkaline) or being felsic/. for example river beds that containing calcium and limestone are more able to neutralise sulphuric and nitric acid depositions than a thin layer of sand or gravel with a granite base could be key to long term fish survival.

I have often wondered how far the Barbel will go to make use of the Chub's cautious nature when suspicion is perhaps high due to strange bait, smells or sounds etc (that kiss of death that the large Chub of the day gives to a swim), or if the geological separation between east and west river systems in England plays a more important part than we are yet to realize.

Where ever Chub can maintain a population it has been said to me so can Barbel, but push come to shove I would imagine there must be a point where by one species will have a better advantage over the other when faced with increasing pressures, resting on some variable or another we know at least that Chub can feed during colder winters, that is just one advantage on a rudimentary like trump card scale.

The only thing I can add is that I'm glad the two share a close relationship (at least in my local waters) as the Chub has often proved a consolation "par excellence" when trying to target Barbel and getting nothing.