AVON ROACH

a perfect roach fisher's dawn

“There’s more to fishing than catching fish” … a cliché I know but never truer than when fishing with friends …

… and this year I’ve had my fill of friends catching more than me! Take Boxing Day for instance.

surely there's got to be a two pounder here 

I started before dawn, picked the swim where I was convinced there’d be a big roach waiting for me, got bored watching a float wandering around the slack water eddy and went off to do some proper trotting.

I’d convinced my mate Trevor Harrop that we’d catch a big roach, in spite of heavily coloured flood water with ice covered puddles after a heavy overnight frost - so he sensibly turned up after lunch, drinks Stuarts’ tea, talked the hind legs off all the donkeys in the field then at my suggestion, drops a bit of bread into the hot swim I had baited earlier and promptly pulls out a 2lb roach. Who needs enemies when you have friends like Trevor.

Trev with his jammy two pound roach

So my New Years Resolution is to put my friends in the worst swims with rubbish bait and then show them how it should be done. In truth, I was absolutely delighted for Trev. because as my wife Sue said, “he doesn’t often catch anything”!

Now lets stop the leg pulling and say how richly deserved that roach was – and if you doubt me, just have a look at Trev and Budgie’s Avon Roach Project Blog. You only just get an impression of how much work, dedication and sheer bloody mindedness goes into the success that they are achieving and we should all be eternally grateful that at least a few people are actually getting on and doing something to help provide us with some roach fishing in the future instead of just whingeing and suggesting it’s a waste of time. Just read on and be inspired - http://www.avonroachproject.blogspot.co.uk/

And while we are handing out the plaudits, lets not forget the support for the project from the EA or the work of several of us that were concerned at the dramatic decline of roach and the critical loss of many of our rivers’ much lauded balance of nature between predators and prey.

the predatory pike becomes the prey © Stewart Canham

Lots of writing and petitions by us and the Angling Trust actually won us some Government concessions on the laws governing cormorant controls. We can now more effectively protect our fisheries and hopefully, in time, our wildlife will recover from the tragedy of unsustainable predation. The campaign was a triumph but is only the start of our attempt to enhance wildlife.

cute and cuddly - no! © Jane Adams

With more fish in our rivers, the problems of widespread predation by otters will ease, for at present they are running wild, killing lots of birds, even grebes and several of the brood of swans shown below. They destroy fisheries and even raid people’s gardens like urban foxes.

the last of our garden's golden orfe

trying to explain to Ellie the problems our rivers are facing

I banged on about this to the BBC in a series of programmes about Britain’s wildlife and I was even more disappointed than most when almost all my concerns were edited out – again. Sadly it seems that the media just don’t want to accept the truth about some of the issues over our wildlife problems, especially if it involves our much loved, ‘playful’ otters.

one of Britain's favourite mammals © Stewart Canham

I’m very fond of otters, they are one of my favourite animals because I have spent years filming them for the BBC. I would hate to see them come to any harm, but when they are so hungry that they are having to eat minnows less than an inch long and twenty were killed recently on Dorset’s roads in just three months, you have to find solutions … one of which is to create better fish habitat on rivers and protect them from all the threats such as pollution. Otters have recovered but they need more to eat if the success is not to be short lived.

the River Stour otters at Blandford are still producing cubs

OK, rant over, now I want to celebrate a year out there with the wildlife and my friends, even those that catch more than me. Some readers might feel that the catching of fish is not in their best interests but without anglers to protect them and their homes, our world would be a poorer place. I love fish like I do birds and all we anglers do if we get lucky is get to touch and admire them, then carefully return them to live another day, just as BTO bird ringers do with our blackbirds and robins [and something I used to do as well]. By catching birds we learn a lot about their lives and survival and the same goes for catching fish. They are all wildlife and we need to discover more about the challenges they face in this rapidly changing world.

This post has gone on long enough so I’ll put this ‘out there’ and write another piece about my friends, fishing and wildlife in a little while ... so please watch this space.

I returned to Britford on Saturday - three roach, lots of dace and wildlife to admire - what a lovely day

OUR RIVERS IN CRISIS

                       

young otters are both cute and trouble with a capital T - c. Stewart Canham

a wonderful place for wildlife ... before otter

It’s dawn and our naughty little otter has just returned to the scene of the crime, her wet footprints leading away from the pond by our cottage, trashed even worse this time because there were only half a dozen minnows that had survived for her to hunt since the last attack. If that is all she can find to eat it is symptomatic of deeper ills and I certainly worry for her future and that of the rest of our rivers wildlife.

... and after ... the trashed and fishless remains

We used to be privileged to receive regular visits to our garden from kingfishers. They found a minnow banquet waiting for them, especially valuable when the river was a raging flood but what now? If kingfishers don’t eat for three days, they die. They have already suffered a 30% decline this past year.

Paintings by Rodger McPhail from our 'Catching the Impossible' book

male and female minnows in breeding garb

God help us if we believe what the media tell us about how good our rivers are now … and even worse if we believe that otters provide a ‘litmus test’ of the health of a river as told us by the BBC among others. I was taught that predator numbers are controlled by the abundance of their prey. So with otters having to hunt minnows in garden ponds and ten otters having been killed on Dorset’s roads in just three months before Christmas, I believe that this not only indicates an increase in hungry otters but a lack of suitable prey … and if you release captive otters into a river system, does that make the river healthy? No, I don't think so either.

RSPB's Mike Clarke with Minister Richard Benyon

the updated version - not much has happened!

will politicians ever look after our freshwater ecosystems?

water gives life to all, including us!

There are so many challenges in our freshwater environment and the RSPB knows that. Admirably, they combined forces with the S&TA and Angling Trust, along with many other NGO’s to produce the impressive “Blueprint for Water” in the hope that our government would protect this vital resource more seriously. It would be good if the RSPB joined with anglers as we try to solve the problems, not compete with us over a lethal fish-eating bird. 

some birders find them attractive

dramatic decline of roach in our local River Stour

We have shed-loads of scientific evidence proving that cormorants are contributing to the loss of balance in our freshwater ecosystems, so denying they are a major part of the problem is making a solution far more difficult. Their numbers in Europe have increased rapidly since the 1980's and EU research has counted at least 500,000 [some say 2 million], their highest number for more than150yrs. They have reached epidemic proportions and we need to act now.

simply too many eating too much c. Stewart Canham

Matthew Wright, Guy Linley-Adams, Paul Knight, Janina Gray

changing anything for the better is a long process

Last year I was asked by the Salmon and Trout Association to make a film for them about their legal complaint to the European Court accusing the government of not looking after our rivers, particularly those fragile and very rare jewels flowing through the countryside, our chalk streams. As S&TA Chairman Richard Bronks suggested, "chalk streams - arguably rarer than the Amazon rainforests." 

Matthew Wright, TV and radio presenter and journalist in full flow

The film is attached below, ‘Our Rivers in Crisis’ but at risk of appearing to be overly pessimistic, I’ll list some of the threats that our rivers face, many of which appear in the 70+ pages of rigorously researched and tightly worded document, the challenge based on the intensely protected Hampshire Avon. The author is environmental lawyer Guy Linley-Adams.

-       Weather extremes leading to drought and floods.

AT's report on the dried up R.Teme

-       Abstraction leading to low flows.

brown trout cleaning silt from it's redd

-       Siltation follows, suffocating fish eggs.

-       Diffuse and spot pollution from agriculture and road run off,  killing fly life and even fish themselves. 

mayfly c. John Slader

-   Fly life has declined by 70% in many places

mayfly at sunset c. Danny Beath

-       Aquaculture an increasing threat.

Scottish sea trout survival threatened by sea lice

-      Southern salmon in serious decline.

increasingly rare despite protection c. John Slader

the 2012 smolt run down by about 50%

-       Threats from non-native invasions.

it's out there and spreading - bio-security required now!

killer shrimp a major threat c. EA

Himalayan balsam destroying river banks

killer mink

-       Signal crayfish explosion means significant loss of fish eggs.

red for danger c. Trevor Renals

-       Phosphates choke our rivers with algae.

more algae than ranunculus c. John Slader

-       Hormone disrupting chemicals create re-productive problems, in otters as well as fish.

rivers choked to death c. John Slader

-       and recently, blue-green algae causing the death of otters.

Paul Knight trying to convince the Minister Richard Benyon to act now!

We keep on being told that our rivers are cleaner than they’ve ever been, even by the BBC, but government research contradicts that statement by showing that only 20% of rivers are of ‘good ecological status’ and that 60% fail the Water Framework Directive, most due to lack of fish life.

R.Test trout but not a healthy sight c. John Slader

None of us like bad news and I know that nature, given the chance will recover remarkably well, but we have to face up to reality and work together to overcome the problems our rivers face. We should all support the work of the Salmon and Trout Associations’ scientific research [and no, they aren’t a load of toffs] but a small, professional and dedicated team gathering the essential facts that we need to support the fight. They could do so much more on behalf of all fishermen if they had more funding.

S&TA's CEO Paul Knight and scientist Janina Gray with Matthew Wright

One of the most critical omissions in angling’s fight to protect fisheries is the lack of scientific research and the facts that enable arguments to be won. Personally, I dream of the day when the S&TA have enough support to be able to produce far more fish science, rather as the British Trust for Ornithology and their army of volunteers, me among them, gather mountains of bird facts which the RSPB are able to use to support their campaigns. Trouble is, anglers are notorious for their apathy when it comes to giving anything back to the sport that they purport to love. 

What’s more, fish are far more difficult to research than birds so the truth of their declines is always going to be difficult to substantiate. We must hope that this recent S&TA initiative, produced at great expense, leads to the government being forced by the EU to uphold the law and actually provide the funding to save our rivers.

suffocated with algae c. John Slader

The much-maligned EA have done lots of wonderful work in our neck of the woods but they can’t fulfil all their objectives to improve our rivers if they don’t have the money to act, so it’s up to us as individuals to contribute to the cause by supporting our voluntary organisations. I know that these are difficult times but just a few quid now and then will make a big difference and provide us with a future not of despair but of hope. It’s the least we can do to save our fish and other wonderful freshwater wildlife.

great crested grebe by Rodger McPhail

spectacular strike action from my adventures in Scotland

OK, enough depressing words from me … here’s the film.