Is it me or Has River Fishing Generally Declined?

[The bad one]

The Trent can’t be compared today as it was in the past, it’s match hay-days 60, 70 early 80s, as it was an artificial river then, in so much as, the river temperature was always several C higher than it should be. Kept that way by the discharged warm Power Station water. It has with the closure of most, returned to what it should be naturally. And with that return to natural waters temperatures the silver fish will have started to migrate during the winter months to winter haunts, as they did historically pre the construction of the power stations.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

I think threads like this are really interesting. So much angling knowledge is lost in the mists of time as to how rivers have changed over the years or what they were once capable of producing. I for one find it fascinating to see how waters have changed - whether river or lake. I fished a lake in recent years that was once famous for tench in the 1960s but has been written off for several decades now - true that it is no longer prolific, but it is now just "kept quiet"!.

On rivers i fished in my youth several are now unrecognisable from the photos i took say 30-35 years ago. They are now completely overgrown and there are full grown trees where there were once grassy banks. Many are so much narrower, silted and shallower now that they could barely conceivably hold fish at all.

 

[bennygesserit]

Don't the EA take surveys as part of their remit , surely this would be an indication , of sorts , as to the state of any waterway.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

Don't the EA take surveys as part of their remit , surely this would be an indication , of sorts , as to the state of any waterway.

I think their surveys are bit "hiss and miss" and on larger rivers even more so, but my main observation is that the EA may collect vast amounts of information but it is rarely analysed or presented meaningfully (in a comprehensive manner) to the public.

At best you may discover that waterbody X has changed from class c to class b (usually matching the water management targets for waterbody X) say over the last five years, but with little more knowledge than that (eg fish species composition, sizes, growth, age structure etc) unless you are very good at digging or requesting further information (or it is a flagship study/survey)..

 

[maverick 7]

The Trent can’t be compared today as it was in the past, it’s match hay-days 60, 70 early 80s, as it was an artificial river then, in so much as, the river temperature was always several C higher than it should be. Kept that way by the discharged warm Power Station water. It has with the closure of most, returned to what it should be naturally. And with that return to natural waters temperatures the silver fish will have started to migrate during the winter months to winter haunts, as they did historically pre the construction of the power stations.

When I was younger, I was always made to understand that the immediate area of water adjacent to Power Stations was often warmer than the rest of the river but I was never informed that they kept ALL the river warm...which is basically what you're suggesting....and I really can't imagine they did either.

I really can't see that having the effect we are seeing today.....Don't you think it could be more obvious ...like not as many anglers on the banks as they used to be...No anglers = less food and less food = less fish..as somebody has so correctly pointed out on this thread already.

If the Power Stations had such an influence on the downturn of the Trent....Then what do you think caused the downturn on rivers that never had any Power Stations?

Just a thought.....

Maverick

 

[nicepix]

I fish the middle Wharfe regularly. On the sections I fish there has been a sharp fall in barbel catches over the last five years. Chub catches have fallen as well.

There was a meeting a few years ago, attended by the EA, Angling Trust and various clubs to discuss the problem.

http://www.wetherbydistrictanglingclub.co.uk/River Wharfe Anglers Association Meeting.pdf

I've got a copy of the EA#s Evidence pack for the Middle Wharfe. Significant water management issues include heavy metal pollution in the Wharfe (related to the old mining areas on the moors ), and the effect of reservoirs (both water extraction and irregular compensation water flows) on the river.

Can't argue with that. I fished for barbel on the the Linton Bridge down to Newton Kyme stretch for over thirty years and didn't notice any particular swing one way or the other. But I tended to target grayling in winter from around 2005 onwards and didn't do any barbel fishing up there as the Dearne was nearer and offered a different challenge.

I hope they sort the problem as it is a lovely river.

 

[The bad one]

When I was younger, I was always made to understand that the immediate area of water adjacent to Power Stations was often warmer than the rest of the river but I was never informed that they kept ALL the river warm...which is basically what you're suggesting....and I really can't imagine they did either.

I really can't see that having the effect we are seeing today.....Don't you think it could be more obvious ...like not as many anglers on the banks as they used to be...No anglers = less food and less food = less fish..as somebody has so correctly pointed out on this thread already.

If the Power Stations had such an influence on the downturn of the Trent....Then what do you think caused the downturn on rivers that never had any Power Stations?

Just a thought.....

Maverick

Nop I’m not suggesting it was that, I’m telling you as scientific fact it was!
Really don’t care what you were told when you were younger, the scientific evidence collected by researchers over 9 year period says it was.
Langford TE did comparative studies of Thermal Effects in British Rivers in 1972 to 1981, which is discussed in the book, River Conservation and Management 2011 Wiley/Blackwell. US research also says the same, do a Google search there’s plenty of it.

In the 1970s early 80s there were 10 functioning power stations on the Trent and one on the Sour.
All were coal fired at that time and ranged in size from 200 –500 Mega Watt stations. Recent research on today’s CF stations put the water used for cooling for a 520 MW plant at 300 million gallons a day. Today’s plants are more thermo-efficient than yesterdays. But for arguments sake the average for the 10 plants was 350 MW the water usage per plant then would have been around 180 million per day per plant.
Given the vast quantities used by the 11 Trent/Sour plants it’s just laughable to suggest that amount of returned warmed water (water that can be between 2 -5 C above the ambient river temperature) to the river wouldn’t artificially raise the water temperature.
The raise Trent river temperatures of the 60,70,early 80s gave the river vast quantities of silver fish it had because they spawned every year successfully, probably up to 3 times a year because of it. Basic fishery management and husbandry this one, if you want fish to spawn regularly and successfully raise the bloody water temperature artificially. And that’s what the power stations did!
Stop the artificial source and fish return to a natural spawning and stocking level and the vagaries that comes with it.

As to the other river’s downturns, if you accept that’s what’s happened in general and I don’t per se. Try pollution, predation, abstraction, very poor spawning years over a long period, floods and fry washout and multitude of other reasons.

I really think you need to do some reading and learning on the subject of how river ecosystems work and the problems they face, before you rush in with statements like you have on this thread.

 

[bennygesserit]

Nop I’m not suggesting it was that, I’m telling you as scientific fact it was!
Really don’t care what you were told when you were younger, the scientific evidence collected by researchers over 9 year period says it was.
Langford TE did comparative studies of Thermal Effects in British Rivers in 1972 to 1981, which is discussed in the book, River Conservation and Management 2011 Wiley/Blackwell. US research also says the same, do a Google search there’s plenty of it.

In the 1970s early 80s there were 10 functioning power stations on the Trent and one on the Sour.
All were coal fired at that time and ranged in size from 200 –500 Mega Watt stations. Recent research on today’s CF stations put the water used for cooling for a 520 MW plant at 300 million gallons a day. Today’s plants are more thermo-efficient than yesterdays. But for arguments sake the average for the 10 plants was 350 MW the water usage per plant then would have been around 180 million per day per plant.
Given the vast quantities used by the 11 Trent/Sour plants it’s just laughable to suggest that amount of returned warmed water (water that can be between 2 -5 C above the ambient river temperature) to the river wouldn’t artificially raise the water temperature.
The raise Trent river temperatures of the 60,70,early 80s gave the river vast quantities of silver fish it had because they spawned every year successfully, probably up to 3 times a year because of it. Basic fishery management and husbandry this one, if you want fish to spawn regularly and successfully raise the bloody water temperature artificially. And that’s what the power stations did!
Stop the artificial source and fish return to a natural spawning and stocking level and the vagaries that comes with it.

As to the other river’s downturns, if you accept that’s what’s happened in general and I don’t per se. Try pollution, predation, abstraction, very poor spawning years over a long period, floods and fry washout and multitude of other reasons.

I really think you need to do some reading and learning on the subject of how river ecosystems work and the problems they face, before you rush in with statements like you have on this thread.

I don't dispute the effect of warmed water but surely it would be quite localised , lets say the effect extends 3 miles from the Power Station ( that's just a guess obviously and may not be accurate ) then that's less than 50 miles of a very long river that would be affected.

 

[binka]

I don't dispute the effect of warmed water but surely it would be quite localised , lets say the effect extends 3 miles from the Power Station ( that's just a guess obviously and may not be accurate ) then that's less than 50 miles of a very long river that would be affected.

I don't know for a fact Benny but I think it might be surprising just how much the power stations affected the overall temperature of the whole river, or at least significant lengths of it, when they were all at full strength.

During that time in the early mornings it often seemed that much of the Trent valley would be shrouded in what appeared to be a dense fog, at least in my area anyway and they were real pea soupers very early in the mornings and you would typically encounter this around eight to ten miles from the river when driving there... It was of course the effect of the warm water being discharged from the power stations and then cooling off as it made its way downriver.

This was even common during the summer months when the air was much drier.

I think the multiple spawning conditions that Phil mentioned would also have had a significant effect on fish stocks in general whether those conditions were localised or general throughout the length of the river.

 

[Paul Boote]

I think threads like this are really interesting. So much angling knowledge is lost in the mists of time as to how rivers have changed over the years or what they were once capable of producing. I for one find it fascinating to see how waters have changed - whether river or lake. I fished a lake in recent years that was once famous for tench in the 1960s but has been written off for several decades now - true that it is no longer prolific, but it is now just "kept quiet"!.

On rivers i fished in my youth several are now unrecognisable from the photos i took say 30-35 years ago. They are now completely overgrown and there are full grown trees where there were once grassy banks. Many are so much narrower, silted and shallower now that they could barely conceivably hold fish at all.

Good post, chub.

I've been doing a bit of "Then and Now" stuff over the past decade or so, revisiting scenes of old triumph and disaster here in the South, from the river on which I started as a four and a half year-old, the Bucks-Middx Colne (river and its many pits) to the Wessex rivers (coarse and game fisheries), many of which I have "snaps" and some decent photos and slides of.

Swings and roundabouts: bits of a once mostly fishless river now haunted by hulking chub, barbel and carp; others whose quiet meadows, willow-hung banks and surrounding countryside have now been swallowed by roads, motorways, housing and industrial estates and retail and business parks, all of them pouring any fallen rain and God knows what in the way of chemicals straight into the waters, in places leaving them looking more like drains from which most life has been bleached out. Once famed, wild, clear-water tench and perch pits become pegged-up soupy carpy holes....

Some very good, some rather sad and bad, then. All change, nothing stays the same. Same as it ever as, I suppose, but we humans with our eyeblink lifespans find that change difficult and so do the fishy mental equivalent of that old Streisand song (but with "memories" correctly spelt, I hope).

http://youtu.be/fT-r-CzKfes

 

[maverick 7]

Nop I’m not suggesting it was that, I’m telling you as scientific fact it was!
Really don’t care what you were told when you were younger, the scientific evidence collected by researchers over 9 year period says it was.
Langford TE did comparative studies of Thermal Effects in British Rivers in 1972 to 1981, which is discussed in the book, River Conservation and Management 2011 Wiley/Blackwell. US research also says the same, do a Google search there’s plenty of it.

In the 1970s early 80s there were 10 functioning power stations on the Trent and one on the Sour.
All were coal fired at that time and ranged in size from 200 –500 Mega Watt stations. Recent research on today’s CF stations put the water used for cooling for a 520 MW plant at 300 million gallons a day. Today’s plants are more thermo-efficient than yesterdays. But for arguments sake the average for the 10 plants was 350 MW the water usage per plant then would have been around 180 million per day per plant.
Given the vast quantities used by the 11 Trent/Sour plants it’s just laughable to suggest that amount of returned warmed water (water that can be between 2 -5 C above the ambient river temperature) to the river wouldn’t artificially raise the water temperature.
The raise Trent river temperatures of the 60,70,early 80s gave the river vast quantities of silver fish it had because they spawned every year successfully, probably up to 3 times a year because of it. Basic fishery management and husbandry this one, if you want fish to spawn regularly and successfully raise the bloody water temperature artificially. And that’s what the power stations did!
Stop the artificial source and fish return to a natural spawning and stocking level and the vagaries that comes with it.

As to the other river’s downturns, if you accept that’s what’s happened in general and I don’t per se. Try pollution, predation, abstraction, very poor spawning years over a long period, floods and fry washout and multitude of other reasons.

I really think you need to do some reading and learning on the subject of how river ecosystems work and the problems they face, before you rush in with statements like you have on this thread.

Obviously, I am not as well versed as you are on this subject but don't you think you ought to consider the miniscule possibility that the the Trent might JUST perhaps have met the same fate as the other rivers you brushed over....ie abstraction, predation, bad spawning years, floods, fry washout and a multitude of other reasons.

As for your suggestion that I should read more about river eco systems "before I rush in with statements like I have in this thread"....oh purleeease.....I go fishing mate cos' I love it...love being on the river, love watching all the wildlife and if I catch a fish..all the better. I don't want, need or desire to study it in all it's scientific existence...my statements in this thread are easy to understand and all I was looking for was a few possible reasons....calm down buddy boy.

The title of this thread is a simple question that even you should be able to understand....why are you slagging me off...what have I said or done to you to deserve your hostility on this subject?

You take fishing far too seriously....it's just a hobby....that's all....just a hobby matey....it's not ANYTHING serious.

....well, not for most of us anyway.

PS...do you mean the River SOAR in your thread ...only I have never heard of the River Sour and you have mentioned it twice in your thread?

Maverick

---------- Post added at 03:19 ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 ----------

I don't dispute the effect of warmed water but surely it would be quite localised , lets say the effect extends 3 miles from the Power Station ( that's just a guess obviously and may not be accurate ) then that's less than 50 miles of a very long river that would be affected.

My sentiments entirely Benny....despite the "evidence"....I simply cannot believe that these Power Stations kept ALL the river warm....It certainly wasn't believed by many anglers when the Trent was at it's best.....As I have already said....a lot of the anglers then used to think the areas in which the PS's were located...was the place where the water was warm...especially in winter.

I remember times in the Trent during the winter when the water was absolutely freezing cold...and definitely no warmer than any other river at that time......not sure how that works.

Maverick

 

[silvers]

Maverick 7 -please don't be quite so sensiitive ... I was being somewhat tongue in cheek with my opening line.

I'd suggest that match results are one decent baromoter of how a river is doing, certainly more reliable than single angler returns who always sit on the hot pegs. As Sam Vimes stated earlier - the die-hard river matchmen are pretty skilled anglers, whether they're after large or small fish.

As I reported earlier - Chub populations have been on the wane for over 20 years on all of the rivers that I fish, and Barbel have also tipped over in to declining numbers on all bar perhaps the Wye. These "facts" are pretty evident from both personal results and long term match results.

The Div 1 national ran from Shelford down to Laughterton on the tidal, and there were loads of fish all through. Of course there were poorer areas, but on average it was better than any national ever. double pegs will have helped that a bit.

 

[Paul Boote]

Also probably best to remember the Trent's several heydays. That the famous 19th Century Heyday fished by "Trent Otter" Martin, F.W.K. Wallis and the like was a very patchy, stretch-specific one even "back in the day". Not for nothing that Wallis and a good many other Nottingham and Trent men appeared on the banks of the Royalty in the early 1930s, not merely there to get themselves a bit of the latest big barbel action, but because they considered the Trent to be a mere polluted shadow of what it once was. I had this at first hand from a man who fished with Wallis on the Avon then, Gordon Edwards, who told me much about his Avon Days (early 1930s to the mid 1950s, full-time daily in spring, summer and autumn) and allowed me to read his extensive and now apparently tragically lost fishing diaries.

In short, Wallis told an early 20s Gordon on the banks of the Royalty that the Trent was effed!

 

[Mark Wintle]

A lot of Midlands rivers, the Trent included, suffered terribly when the roach disease, columnaris, struck around about 1966-68. On the Fenland rivers like the Witham, Welland and Relief Channel it became bream or bust, and the 1969 Trent National was dire. The recovery was slow but there were significant signs of improvement by about 1973. Not long after perch disease struck as well, although on different waters.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

Not long after perch disease struck as well, although on different waters.

I remember all larger perch had open ulcers when i started fishing in about '74, and i rarely saw any larger than about 6oz, probably until the early 1980s. Like the massive chub that crop up everywhere these days, large perch are also relatively commonplace now. A completely different situation altogether to the 70s, but presumably they were also commonplace in the 50s or 60s - when Crabtree never had any problems finding a brace from a suitable looking "eddy", whether using worm or devon minnow.

 

[maverick 7]

Maverick 7 -please don't be quite so sensiitive ... I was being somewhat tongue in cheek with my opening line.

I'd suggest that match results are one decent baromoter of how a river is doing, certainly more reliable than single angler returns who always sit on the hot pegs. As Sam Vimes stated earlier - the die-hard river matchmen are pretty skilled anglers, whether they're after large or small fish.

As I reported earlier - Chub populations have been on the wane for over 20 years on all of the rivers that I fish, and Barbel have also tipped over in to declining numbers on all bar perhaps the Wye. These "facts" are pretty evident from both personal results and long term match results.

The Div 1 national ran from Shelford down to Laughterton on the tidal, and there were loads of fish all through. Of course there were poorer areas, but on average it was better than any national ever. double pegs will have helped that a bit.

OK Silvers....sorry if I came over like that....I didn't mean to.

At least we both agree on the most part of your post (I think) anyway. Sams earlier statement was spot on....my own father was one of those types himself...a great angler and a great matchman and could catch fish when everyone else was blanking...and I witnessed him do that many, many times....he was a real expert when it came to fishing. I am not saying he was in Bob Nudds or Ian Heaps class or anything like that but he was very highly respected in his own local circles.....

With regards to the Trent.....I understand it has just been voted River of the Year or something like that....I find that incredible unless of course the other rivers have been fishing even worse than the Trent....maybe the result you talked about Silvers helped win that accolade.

Maverick

---------- Post added at 10:13 ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 ----------

Also probably best to remember the Trent's several heydays. That the famous 19th Century Heyday fished by "Trent Otter" Martin, F.W.K. Wallis and the like was a very patchy, stretch-specific one even "back in the day". Not for nothing that Wallis and a good many other Nottingham and Trent men appeared on the banks of the Royalty in the early 1930s, not merely there to get themselves a bit of the latest big barbel action, but because they considered the Trent to be a mere polluted shadow of what it once was. I had this at first hand from a man who fished with Wallis on the Avon then, Gordon Edwards, who told me much about his Avon Days (early 1930s to the mid 1950s, full-time daily in spring, summer and autumn) and allowed me to read his extensive and now apparently tragically lost fishing diaries.

In short, Wallis told an early 20s Gordon on the banks of the Royalty that the Trent was effed!

Love listening to stuff like that Paul....my Dad told me hundreds of stories about his exploits and I always found them fascinating......I never realised fishing was at such a flow as early as the 30's.

Thanks for sharing that with us...very interesting.

Maverick

 

[symonh2000]

A couple of years ago the Fishing on my local River Windrush was dire. However it is showing some signs of picking back up again.

I have had some good Perch, trout, a Pike and a Double figure Barbel this season, and I have only fished it a handful of times and on short sessions at that.

 

[sam vimes]

With regards to the Trent.....I understand it has just been voted River of the Year or something like that....I find that incredible unless of course the other rivers have been fishing even worse than the Trent....maybe the result you talked about Silvers helped win that accolade.

That's why some are finding the doom and gloom you've had to say a little difficult to get their heads round. If a free UK wide teleport device were available to me, the Trent and Wye would be priority visits. The only other rivers I'd bother with, outside of my regular and irregular local ones, would be the southern chalk streams, simply because I've never fished them. In the real world, I'm never likely to.

 

[Paul Boote]

Two things are for certain: a trip to my maternal grandad's Burton upon Trent pub in the 1920s and '30s would a) reveal all about the then state of the Trent, and b) that Trent fishers were a jolly lot.

Grandad was a great Trent fisher with a Rod and Billiard Room of his own at the pub at which he threw regular "Anglers' Evening"s - get-togethers for the many members of local Works and Trent Angling clubs, all done over much bragging and Burton beer.

My old Ma told me many times that she and her many older sisters plus sole brother, would sit at the top of the stairs leading up the family's private rooms and listen to two bars full of fishers chatting and joking and reciting poems and eventually breaking into song during the latter stages of these fishing nights. This would have been when she was a little girl in the early 1930s. Oh to be a fly on the wall at one of those old "do"s!

 

[maverick 7]

That's why some are finding the doom and gloom you've had to say a little difficult to get their heads round. If a free UK wide teleport device were available to me, the Trent and Wye would be priority visits. The only other rivers I'd bother with, outside of my regular and irregular local ones, would be the southern chalk streams, simply because I've never fished them. In the real world, I'm never likely to.

I think "doom and gloom" is a bit extreme Sam........I am only asking the question. It could quite possibly be me then....and if it is ...that's OK, I can handle that...I would simply try to find what I am doing wrong.

However, despite what you say.....there also seems to be a fair number of replies on this thread more or less agreeing with me too...so they obviously don't see it as a "doom and gloom" claim more of a factual observation I suppose.

Like all other rivers Sam...you would need to know where to go on the Trent if you wanted to pay a visit because despite (again) what you have said there are parts of the Trent that is practically void of life...
....the Ukranian Camp stretch being a prime example even though at one time not too long ago it produced tons of chub...Unless it has massively improved in the last 3 or 4 years which was when I last fished it......you would be lucky to see any kind of fish there...and I have no idea why....which is a great pity because it is a really beautiful stretch of water.

If you fancy a visit to the Trent Sam.....and you don't have transport to do it....I would be only too happy to pick you up and take you there myself and we could both have a day on the Trent together....if you want to, you get to choose the venue too.

That's a genuine offer Sam.......let me know by PM if you want to go anytime.

Maverick