The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Jeremy Croxall wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:09 pm
... Still waiting for my op, Wednesday is my best guess? I am getting a bit fed up with being in Hospital just waiting. They wouldnt let me home because they want the leg to be immobile prior to surgery. Oh well we all have our crosses to bear and it could be a lot worse!

Have they got your leg raised?

When I did my ankle, they put the leg up on one of those ramps, stuck an ice bag on it, and said I must sleep with it like that for a few days, to get the swelling down.
Sleep? No chance.

The cocktail of Tramadol and Zopiclone did help, although with some weird hallucinations.

Hope you get sorted tomorrow, Jeremy!

Banksy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:05 pm

Jeremy Croxall wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:09 pm
... Still waiting for my op, Wednesday is my best guess? I am getting a bit fed up with being in Hospital just waiting. They wouldnt let me home because they want the leg to be immobile prior to surgery. Oh well we all have our crosses to bear and it could be a lot worse!

Have they got your leg raised?

When I did my ankle, they put the leg up on one of those ramps, stuck an ice bag on it, and said I must sleep with it like that for a few days, to get the swelling down.
Sleep? No chance.

The cocktail of Tramadol and Zopiclone did help, although with some weird hallucinations.

Hope you get sorted tomorrow, Jeremy!

It's raised on two pillows, the ramp created too much loading on the ankle and was painful so they took it away. Thanks for your good wishes!

Jeremy Croxall wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:37 am
Hang in there, I've signed you up for the TFF marathon run in April - plenty of time

Excellent, are you pushing my wheel chair Dave?
[/quote]

No, I'm towing it..... very fast

Hope all goes well Jeremy.

This Trent barbel thing is all beginning to concern me. Leaving aside the circus with its tents, noise and litter, here is something to think about:



Bob will have seen this elsewhere, but for the rest of you it is a graph showing the weight distribution of barbel caught by 3 people over a period of around 6 weeks in November and December this year on one stretch of the Trent. Notice anything odd?

Well out of 55 barbel only 1 was below 6lb (in fact there were only 2 below 8lb) and the most common weight class is the 10lb to 12lb one. We (for I was one of the 3) were not being selective and we weren't using anything special for bait. The worrying thing is that most of the most common weight class are nearing the end of their natural lifespan (Trent barbel grow fast and die young) and there is no evidence of smaller fish coming through to replace them. Now I know that some stretches of the river have healthy stocks of smaller barbel, but the graph implies that, on stretches like this one, once these bigger fish start to die off the barbel boom will come to an abrupt end. There will certainly be a chance of a new record coming from the river (which I think is what the piece posted above is implying) but the days of multiple catches of barbel will be a thing of the past.

A sad demise for a great barbel river perhaps?

That's really scary!

SeanM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:17 pm Hope all goes well Jeremy.

This Trent barbel thing is all beginning to concern me. Leaving aside the circus with its tents, noise and litter, here is something to think about:



Bob will have seen this elsewhere, but for the rest of you it is a graph showing the weight distribution of barbel caught by 3 people over a period of around 6 weeks in November and December this year on one stretch of the Trent. Notice anything odd?

Well out of 55 barbel only 1 was below 6lb (in fact there were only 2 below 8lb) and the most common weight class is the 10lb to 12lb one. We (for I was one of the 3) were not being selective and we weren't using anything special for bait. The worrying thing is that most of the most common weight class are nearing the end of their natural lifespan (Trent barbel grow fast and die young) and there is no evidence of smaller fish coming through to replace them. Now I know that some stretches of the river have healthy stocks of smaller barbel, but the graph implies that, on stretches like this one, once these bigger fish start to die off the barbel boom will come to an abrupt end. There will certainly be a chance of a new record coming from the river (which I think is what the piece posted above is implying) but the days of multiple catches of barbel will be a thing of the past.

A sad demise for a great barbel river perhaps?

On the face of it Sean that seems very concerning. However I don't believe that it is quite as bad as statistics would initially indicate.

As you know the statistics are based on the catches of 3 'Barbel Catchers Club' members. I was one of the samplers for a while. We are by nature fishing for the bigger specimens and our style of angling will certainly skew the results toward the bigger fish. Speaking for myself I am only fishing areas where I know there are big barbel in a small population. My catch numbers are relatively small but the average weight is high due to location and methods adopted. I cannot speak for you but I know that the other 2 samplers do tend to have a similar mindset, even if they catch a lot more than I do. Inherently we are 'specimen hunters' and we are all after that monster.

There is another BCC member who fishes a lot more than most and is very active, often referred to as Duracell. He catches a lot of barbel, probably more than anyone in the club. Now he just fishes for barbel and sets out just to catch them of any size. He plays the numbers game and it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up with well over 300 this season. His results run counter to those of the sample you refer to. At the last count he had caught 33 doubles, the biggest being 12.05. He has also caught 24 that were under 5lbs. Now that is an entirely more sustainable and healthy population of barbel for a river, the same one that we are fishing.

Because of our attitude, experience, swim reading, watercraft, bait selection, call it what you will, we will inevitably catch bigger specimens. I guess that is why we were invited to join the BCC in the first place. On the flip side I know chaps who fish our waters who have never caught a double, although not too many of those now.

In summary Sean I personally don't believe that the Trent is a busted flush yet and that there are more smaller barbel present than the survey is indicating. What I will agree with is that there is no better time to catch a really big one from the river, but that will not last forever. I for one reckon that it is the best river in the country and is in a better state than ever it was. But then, I am biased!

...........just to follow my last post.

Over the last 2 summers I have taken about 12 guests on the 'club' stretch. Often they haven't previously caught a barbel or had only had modest ones. I would guess that there have been 8 TFF members among that number and we have usually, not always, caught barbel. Because the aim of the day is to catch I will inevitably take them to a stretch/swim that I know usually holds a head of barbel. There is always a chance of a big one, but a bigger chance of just catching barbel of any size.

On those days the spread of fish caught has ranged from below 3lb to nearly 12lb. In my opinion that is more typical of the spread of population than that of 3 barbel 'specialists'.

This stretch is downstream of your lower NPS water Bob. I take your point about the NPS stretches on the old river, but on this stretch we haven't had to be selective and we've had similar results regardless of method or swim, although not every swim produces fish consistently. As you know I suggested we try to dig a bit deeper because it might throw some light on whether we have cause for concern.

Sorry Jeremy for going slightly off topic but I thought you might find it interesting!

SeanM wrote: ↑Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:30 pm This stretch is downstream of your lower NPS water Bob. I take your point about the NPS stretches on the old river, but on this stretch we haven't had to be selective and we've had similar results regardless of method or swim, although not every swim produces fish consistently. As you know I suggested we try to dig a bit deeper because it might throw some light on whether we have cause for concern.

Sorry Jeremy for going slightly off topic but I thought you might find it interesting!

Sorry to dredge up this old topic, thankfully Jeremy is well on the mend and at work, paying his taxes again to help keep me in the manner I deserve

As you may see elsewhere on TFF I fished the Trent yesterday, not in a specimen hunting way but just to catch fish. I selected a swim where I thought I may get a few tugs on my string and I caught 7 barbel. 2 were low 6's and the other 5 were 4's and 5's. I can therefore happily report that, certainly on that stretch of the river, the Trent seems to be very healthy.

The graph above only shows the Trent - but many other barbel rivers are very very similar!

No barbel in numbers of under 8lb fish or smaller.