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....