Zander- I caught my first in 1974 , earning me 51st equal in the Angling Times Pike Championship - a real lunker of 1lb10 oz. Fishermen love scare stories and scapegoats, and I recall that for years , there was an outpouring of invective against the toothy critter from abroad eating all our fish . They seem to be more assimilated now ,and their spread has continued , if not yet to the Yorkshire Ouse system . I have anecdotal evidence of one from the Ure and EA evidence of one from the tidal Ouse. But I travelled down to the Grand Union a year or so ago to reacquaint myself - and for once, all went to plan and not only did I catch some ,they were bigger than 1- 10 too.
I see some echoes of the zander's Great Satan status in some of the loopier stuff about otters . I seem to recall that the notorious, toe curlingly dreadful petition had words to the effect that something's badly wrong if otters are being seen in town habitats..
WTAF? Are the petitioners similarly exercised about peregrines living on Salisbury cathedral , the roe deer opposite my house in a market town or Red Kites soaring over Leeds ?
Ranunculus - swans eat a bit too much of it sometimes but it comes back . A far bigger problem is the effect of climate change. Our Pennine spate rivers now flood more violently and frequently than ever before in my 50 odd years fishing them . Floods of 4- 5 metres are depressingly common and their increased occurrence has resulted in a near total loss of ranunculus from many stretches , with only pathetically small clumps hanging on. It is a great habitat for invertebrates and generally beneficial for a river's health . But now it is often bare stones and gravel , covered in filthy blanket weed during the increasingly frequent drought periods.
I bug sample on a North York Moors river - it is very rich , running over limestone and with a rich invert. population. A 3 minute kick sample will give up to 500-700 bugs (olives, shrimp, mayfly, heptagenids etc ) and yet , in the drought summer of 2018 , when flow was reduced to a trickle , I recorded precisely zero on one sampling trip. Not a leech, nothing . Which brings me up short when I think of that being replicated country - wide . Strange times we live in ...
