Nomadic fish?

[Zerkalo]

Just how nomadic do you think fish are in rivers? Do they move about at this time of year especially?

I've been told about the Severn, Roach will migrate the deeper and slower stretches at this time, whereas Dace are more likely to stay put?

I'm also thinking primarily about the weir I fish on the Worcs Stour, a small river. There are 'riffles' at the end of the pool that makes it seems like it would be difficult for the fish to cross unless in flood, but it seems to me that they do anyway. I once thought because of these riffles and the small nature of the river that the fish would be pretty much full time residents of the pool.

To my surprise, this year at various points it has been full of small fish, mostly Chublets, that come and then disappear. I'm sure that when they're not showing they have simply left the pool. Likewise with the Barbel that have moved in recently, I'm sure they must have just found the pool from working their way along the river and the more common Chub in the pool do the same.

Thoughts?

 

[tipitinmick]

I was shocked to find that Barbel can travel up to a mile in 48 hours. I was always under the impression that they stayed within a couple of pegs of where you catch them. Roach have always been nomadic. Driven by water temperature.

 

[Zerkalo]

My brother in law is fascinated by eels (maybe something to do with being a Londoner) and tells me they used to have quite a short journey from the Sargasso Sea but as the plates have moved over time they now have a right trek. Prehistoric looking things they are, they've been about for years.

 

[tipitinmick]

I think it could have been the EA not sure but, one of the governing bodies put a tracker on an eel. It toddled off to the Sargasso Sea but, on its return journey got eaten by a seal somewhere off the east coast of Scotland I believe. ??

 

[Sam Vimes]

To some extent, it depends on the river in question and the species of fish. However, few fish are entirely static in a specific part of a river. Dace and grayling are noted for seasonal migrations, upstream in the summer and back down for winter. Chub and barbel will travel upstream to spawn only to steadily drop back down post spawning. Radio tagged barbel have been proven to move many miles through a river system in a matter of days.
Conversely, some species, or individual fish, barely move from a specific location.

 

[Zerkalo]

One thing I've noticed on the Stour is the fish seem to shoal up. When the small Chublets arrive, small Dace and Roach show too. And when the Barbel arrived, they did so in numbers rather than a lone fish.

 

[squimp]

Known fish on some of the rivers I fish move 10’s of miles.

That includes going through locks or fish passes to avoid weirs....

 

[Zerkalo]

That's a point. They wouldn't be able to get upstream past this weir? I should try fishing other stretches of it where it's not a weir to see what fish it holds but have tried the BAA stretch above it once with no success and the dayticket stretch that Clive Branson fished downstream no longer has a sign advertising tickets from the cottage.

 

[Freesolo82]

Fish will go where they are pulled by there senses and river carp will often move through locks or tumble over
flooded weirs, some of the distances they move and speed they can do it are incredible.

 

[Zerkalo]

Here's the best video I have of this weir in flood, though it has been worse, I can see fish going downstream but not up over the weir as it's a bit of a drop. Can't really see from this angle though. From that I'd expect this to be the furthest upstream to hold a decent head and explains why the upstream BAA stretch doesn't seem as productive as some of the downstream stretches I'm told are decent fishing. Although I'm also told there are actually quite a few fish upstream too. It's quite close to it's source in the Clent Hills so I imagine this is the furthest up a lot of fish get.


View attachment IMG_2086.m4v

 

[Zerkalo]

This is the river Stour downstream with a lot of water on. It usually looks a lot smaller than this.



I'd love to see a top angler like Clive Branson fish the weir I fish.

 

[160642fishing]

Known fish on some of the rivers I fish move 10’s of miles.

That includes going through locks or fish passes to avoid weirs....

In the early eighties Anglian Water put some bream they had netted out of Grafham Water into the the Great Ouse at Huntingdon,I caught a tagged one at Earith in the tidal stretch which is a good ten miles downstream with two locks in between inside a week.

 

[Freesolo82]

This is a good video which helps with the understanding of carp behavior in rivers

Its a really enjoyable watch even for a non carp angler like myself

 

[emmaemma]

I was reading an article a couple of weeks ago about the distance Ide travel from the lakes in Holland to the spawning grounds In the rivers. They were travelling 80km in 2 days. They know this because some of the fish are chipped and as they pass through various points in the rivers they get clocked.

 

[Silverfisher]

I do find fish migrations fascinating. With the roach here on the Thames the first couple weeks of the season they must be in post spawning quarters somewhere as you rarely find that many but then from early July to late October they tend to be everywhere until floods and frosts send them to their winter quarters. Dace by comparison tend to appear right from the start of the season but still disappear around the same sort of time and perch head to winter quarters earlier maybe when they lose the ambush points of the weed. Bream are almost different every year.

 

[Simon R]

The dace on the Tees are notoriously migratory - every year they drop down the river looking for deeper water as soon as the first frosts occur.
Back when the river was tidal pollution prevented them from going much further than Yarm so they'd pack into that part of the river.
Catches of 30-40lb were not uncommon on decent tides - one side of the river was (and still is) free fishing and would often need to arrive a couple of hours before sunrise to secure a peg - no fun in December.

Since the construction of the barrage the dace have another three or four miles of river to colonise and you'd expect them to keep moving downstream until the barrage prevented them going any further - problem is the water around the barrage is relatively shallow (10-12 feet down the middle) so they don't normally swim that far. The very deepest water is around the Ingleby Barwick roadbridge - when that was built the caissons went down 12m - allowing a bit of freeboard that's still around 30 feet deep.
The shoals never seem to settle in one place for long though, moving back and forth from the dolomite at Bowesfield up to Archers and the pipebridge and the only way of knowing where they are is to check out the previous weeks match results and hope they haven't strayed too far.

Simon

 

[JayD]

Years ago, I remember fishing a match on the Nidd, and a guy coming up the bank doing a survey on tagged barbel, and asking if we had caught any. I'd three, and he showed me the small numbered tags each one had, just behind the dorsal fin. I asked if he could tell where they had been tagged, and was told that it was on the Ouse at Nether Poppleton, about 25-30 miles downstream. This annual migration to their spawning grounds was cut short several years later, when they build a badly designed gauging weir at Skip Bridge. It took a few years of protests to get it redesigned so the fish could once again reach their spawning beds.

John.

 

[Robwooly]

Dace are one of the earliest fish to breed, on the small rivers down here they can be guaranteed to be shoaling up in certain spots having travelled from many miles downstream. Whole areas can be devoid of them but if you know where they are it can be one after the other in February. Fortunately being small and breeding early means they are well away from nefarious activities when they get jiggy and are often the apex fish on many urban streams now as a result

 

[Zerkalo]

Reason I mentioned the Dace was discussing the Severn, it was mentioned that around Bewdley is still solid with Dace over winter but the Roach move downstream to places like Stourport.

 

[nickg]

This is the river Stour downstream with a lot of water on. It usually looks a lot smaller than this.



I'd love to see a top angler like Clive Branson fish the weir I fish.

Id love to see them fishing the rochdale canal near me and see what they find...