How would you react if your river crashed into what seems like terminal decline?

Hi guys,it doesn't matter what causes the decline(or what you feel causes it),how would you feel or react,be sure it could happen,the Gt.Ouse above and below Bedford has had a massive decline in the quality of its fishing starting several years ago now,the Ivel around Biggleswade has seemingly plummeted in the last three years,this river has produced large numbers of 2lb plus chub since before my time,I believe as Phil Hackett has stated in another thread that agricultural practice has had the biggest impact on the river,everything else,otters,crayfish,cormorants etc are just nails in the coffin,how would you feel if the river you have spent a lifetime on looks as though its dying?

Well...

Mine practically did in the 90's, namely the Trent.

I would rate it currently as one of the best rivers in the country, silvers in abundance alongside zander, pike and other, non-waterborne predators and that's not to mention the barbel fishing.

In a nutshell it's cyclic.

But...

To answer your question on how I would and did at the time feel, I could only say...

Devastated!

Keep the faith though, nature is a resilient thing and when it can't go on in it's current form it simply re-invents itself in a sustainable form to match the new circumstances, we just have to adapt with it and be patient during the lulls when the transitions occur.

My biggest fear for our waterways is not so much the predators that we know about but the chemicals that we can't see...

It is cyclical but if the water quality is good, one dominant species get's replaced by another. When the lot collapses, there is a much more serious problem.

Endocrine disrupters? Agricultural pollution? Not easy to 'see' and very easy for the authorities to hide.

Stu

Sorry Whitty

I meant to add:

I'd be gutted.

Stu

Whity, I have never fished the Ivel at Biggleswade but I do walk the banks a lot as my grandchildren live close by. I also knew it by reputation from fishing mates in the 80s.
Since walking it and knowing its past reputation I have been quite sad at the look of the river. It seems silted up and has less and less flow. There are lots of crays in there as I have seen kids fishing for them and filling a bucket to take home to cook. Rather them than me.

It matters little on the whys and wherefores, it's always totally gutting when a river or stillwater you fish seems to drop off a cliff with regards to fish stocks. I've seen it over and over on various stillwaters and rivers that I'm very familiar with. In some instances, the effects have been genuinely terminal, in others simply cyclical, even if a certain factor pushed the water over the cliff. Many stillwaters have changed for no obvious reason, same for rivers. Some recover, some don't. Outside of an obviously catastrophic event, I believe it's rather dangerous to blame any single factor, especially with regards to rivers.

Where waters that can't be properly protected from predation are concerned, if there is a way back, it's often not to what it was previously. The balance of fish types and stocks invariably changes. I've seen my local river change several times over the years. It was once noted for dace fishing, then it was primarily chub with barbel as a back up. These days, I get the distinct impression that the zones of the river are changing. The trout/grayling zones seem to be extending further downstream as time passes. Chub and barbel being in shorter supply than ever and highly localized. Places that used to be quite reliable for a few chub and the odd barbel just don't produce. However, the very mobile dace shoals seem to be getting bigger again, but don't hang around in the higher reaches outside of late spring, summer and early autumn.

Ultimately, all the average angler can really do is make hay while the sun shines. Expecting a fishery, especially a more natural one, to remain constant over many years is simply not particularly realistic. When a change, that's less than totally catastrophic, occurs, all you can really do is adjust you expectations to the new reality that presents itself. Alternatively, you can look to new, hopefully better, waters to fish.

Its happened to a small river that I used to fish 2 sometimes 3 times a week, plenty of chub and barbel with lots of small fish that would be constantly pecking at your bait, at times of high water it would now and then turn some very strange colours but always returned to its usual clear (clear but probably not clean) self.

I could almost guarantee to catch fish every time I went until one season where there had been streamer weed with gaps in it the river became choked in places with the surface completely covered with the weed, swims that I had fished became unfishable but the fish were still there just in different places and could be found with a bit of exploring.

That was until a few years ago when there was a decline in the fishing one season to a complete lack of fish the next, prior to this cormorants started to work the river otters were seen along with carcasses of partially eaten dead fish along the quiet bits that were not often fished (the river was lightly fished anyway as it wasn't easy fishing the club was told but were not interested) perhaps the river was always on the edge of a catastrophe all the time that I fished it I don't know but what I do know is that the decline was sudden there wasn't a slow reduction of catches, it was my favourite river but I haven't been back and doubt that I will.

There is nothing that one angler can do particularly when the club that has the fishing isn't interested, I seem to remember a thread on here not to long ago about this river and the clubs disinterest, I really don't know the answer and worse those with the power to change things are as interested as the club, enjoy it while you can and move on is all I can suggest.

Both my two favourite rivers pretty well did. I never went back to one and the other ive dabbled with but its a totally different river now with completely different dominant species. It is cyclical but clearly if you are lucky enough to find a river thats peaking then make the most of it while it lasts.

Unfortunately certain things have upset the ecological balance so some rivers may never recover now which might, if left alone, have returned to something like their former glories. I think we all know the impact cormorants,otters, signals and abstraction have had and will continue to have while there isnt the will to address them or a practical solution.

Well if a river went into terminal decline then I would probably be gutted.

However in the case of the Ouse I would say its probably just a cycle. Didnt it go through a decline back in the 80s ? ...then it picked up and started to produce all the record Barbel now its going back in "decline" again. Not saying there isnt a problem of some sort but I suspect it will pick up again at some point in the future.

The streams I fished when I started have already passed this stage. Where we swam we now paddle at ankle depth. Dace disappeared years ago along with the large shoals of Roach it’s only the Chub that feed on the crayfish that appear to be on the increase. Any fry seem to just disappear none of the fished stocked a few years ago seem to have survived. In summer there is little flow in winter it’s run off as quickly as possible.
With the increase in population, house building and need for more and more water in the South of England it will one day be coming to a stream or river near you.

Philip said:

However in the case of the Ouse I would say its probably just a cycle. Didnt it go through a decline back in the 80s ? ...then it picked up and started to produce all the record Barbel

Click to expand...

I think it will be more and more difficult for rivers to recover from any cyclical downturns in fish populations, there wasn't the amount of problems to overcome years ago as there are now abstraction has increased massively more people in more homes means more diffuse pollution along with other well known problems, its my belief that things have gone to far and unless some of the current problems are addressed some rivers wont recover, I hope I am proved wrong and young anglers get to see it because I don't think it will happen during the time I have left on this earth.

With an ever increasing population things for sure will become harder and I up to quite recently would have agreed with you 100% ...how can it possibly get better with an increasing population ?

However something fairly recently changed my outlook somewhat and that was something I saw happen on a little river down in the South East that I fished as a kid. It was a brilliant little place back then..Gudgeon, Dace, even the odd wild brown trout...& all this within the M25, then it started to get hit with abstraction, at first it just got slower and muddier and eventually it was literally dead. Dry river bed in places were a bubbling brook once ran. I wont wax too lyrical as I am sure you get the picture - they messed it up good and proper. No way back for that I thought. However some 5-10 years ago on a whim I was in the area so went down there for a look and I could not believe it ...it did not just appear to be like its former self ...it actually looked better. Cant comment first hand on the stock as I didnt fish it but it sure looked like it was back and chatting to one or two locals it seemed that it was producing some really good fish of diverse species. I understand they had various action groups campaigning for it and they basically restored it.

How long it stays like that of course is another question but it gave me hope that things can be turned around in even the most crowded places if enough people put their minds to it.

I would adopt a positive "in denial" approach and seek out the last few remaining big fish that are left.

I think I have actually being doing this (with varying degrees of success) for nigh on 15 years now!

I would be - and have been - gutted when this happens. I cut my angling teeth on a little thames trib called the river ock, which ran through my then home town of Abingdon. Clear, relatively fast flowing water over clean gravel... chub, roach, dace, perch, pike, ruffe, the very occasional trout. As a kid, the close season didn't bother me because pretty much every stone over a certain size had a bullhead or a stone loach or if you were really lucky a dragonfly nymph underneath it, and sunny may afternoons would be spent knee-deep chasing these.

Now... muddy, slower-flowing, crayfish infested.... there's still fish there, but nothing like the numbers.

However, one tactic I'm trying to take on myself is to learn how to diversify. Not just my fishing venues, but also my methods. Lure fishing, dropshotting... these are very new to me, and taking them up recently I've rediscovered some of that early joy from fishing where success - any success - was a thing to really revel in (as opposed to just meeting the expectation). I haven't shelved my more established routes... so the quiver tipped bread or cheesepaste on the thames, which would usually have accounted for 100% of my winter fishing is still very much in the mix... its just not the ONLY thing I'm doing now. As well as the lure fishing, I've also been trying to do some trotting when I can. This diversification is then also opening up my interests to venues that I just wouldn't have considered previously. I'm even thinking about taking the lure gear over to a local club lake (where I usually wouldn't even think about fishing until the middle of april).

I've said it on other threads, but I think a lot of the deterioration of rivers happened a number of years ago, but as anglers we missed it because the first sign of that habitat degeneration was that an increasingly small number of adult fish hit specimen size and seemed to make the fisheries look amazing.

The Ouse was never as bad as it is today,at least not over the distance it is today,there was a possible two year blip late seventies I believe,where the big shoals of roach and dace gave way to massive shoals of gudgeon(in places),thereafter chub came through in large numbers and roach recovered,then the crayfish plague arrived and all fish decreased,today roach and dace have have made a meagre recovery,be it smallish fish,chub and barbel are relatively scarce,so much so that bites can be very difficult to get(let alone convert to fish on the bank),now the Ivel downstream of Biggleswade is falling like a stone,up until last season many chub were caught,anglers in the know were catching numbers of fish,with a winters fishing quite often ending up with 15-20 5lb plus fish,but still with fish from 2-4lbs,all are slumping,the perch that were numerous seem to be missing,small roach have appeared but not in massive numbers and I feel they are there because the chub and perch are not amongst the feed like they were to unsettle the smaller fish species,as for flow,the river like many others in the south anyway had poor rainfall until mid-november I believe,weed growth was heavy,flows were poor,in fact rivers were in danger of drying up,now the river looks good,fishing is not however.The only river I know that has good stocks of fish is the upper Lea,not that I fish it these days my mates tell me so,back in the day every river held good numbers of decent fish,the Kennet,Windrush,Thames,GtOuse,Ouzel,Ivel and many more,be assured I am gutted (so are many local anglers),but most of all I'm lost,rivers are the mainstay of my winter angling,sadly it looks as though that avenue of pleasure may be coming to a close....