I'm not for stocking them either,but it's like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted,or maybe the Ribble is the centre of the angling universe,lol...how many years have cats been hooked on the Trent,i've read about it a long,long time ago now,ask anglers on the Coventry canal what they think of zander,in fact they are coming south fast on the Grand Union,Milton Keynes last I heard,the trouble with zander compared to cats however is they are shoal predators which when they spread are like a wave,takes years for them to even out,cats are territorial...
Catfish
- Thread starter sam vimes
- Start date
yes, there are definitely Zeds on the GUC at Milton Keynes ... Neale S had two on in our winter league match there last year.
But they definitely affect different waterways differently ... as you say the Cov Canal was obliterated when they first arrived. The grand Union at Hatton (warwick) still only has big bream in it .... 30 years after the Zander got there.
They’re all over the Warks Avon as well ... but some stretches have fished well throughout that time period. I caught one on maggot nearly 30 years ago at Stratford.
Have you ever seen evidence of Zander in the Ouse up at or above Bedford? Logically they should have been there years ago given the Fens...but I’ve never seen or heard of them!
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Rays post reminded me..the one time I would consider stocking a Wels would be on an enclosed water with a Crayfish problem. Crays are right up there as one of their preffered foods. Stick one in the water, let it munch its way through a zillion of them then fish it back out after.
Sure I read someone did that somewhere and it worked quite well..
sam vimes
Well-known member
I've no love for cats, but I can't get too aerated over them. I have zero say in their future in the UK, so they simply aren't worth worrying about. I rarely fish anywhere known to have stocks of them. If they are in a stillwater, they are property, so there's no dilemma over whether or not to kill them, unless the owner specifically requests it.
The way I fish, the chances of catching one in a river is ridiculously small, so no real dilemma there either. Even if I did land one on a river, I'd have no idea how to dispatch one humanely and would be unlikely to have anything to hand to effect a humane dispatch anyway. All in all, cats are largely a non-issue for me.
Over the years, I've seen two cats from stillwaters that have them legitimately. I've seen one big one doing a fair impression of a floating log (until it decided to swim upstream) on the Trent. I'm reasonably certain that I hooked one on the Trent. That was a fairly interesting experience, right up to the point of it being about to spool me.
The way I fish, the chances of catching one in a river is ridiculously small, so no real dilemma there either. Even if I did land one on a river, I'd have no idea how to dispatch one humanely and would be unlikely to have anything to hand to effect a humane dispatch anyway. All in all, cats are largely a non-issue for me.
Over the years, I've seen two cats from stillwaters that have them legitimately. I've seen one big one doing a fair impression of a floating log (until it decided to swim upstream) on the Trent. I'm reasonably certain that I hooked one on the Trent. That was a fairly interesting experience, right up to the point of it being about to spool me.