TEIFI TROUT C&R SEMINAR

[Diawlbach]

Teifi Trout Association will be hosting a seminar in partnership with the Institute of Fisheries Management on the issue of catch and release and forthcoming fishing legislation on Friday 13th January, 7.30 at “Coracles” in Cenarth. Rob Evans and Steve Barnard from the IFM will be giving illustrated talks on the above and Simon Evans from the Wye and Usk Foundation will give an account of the operation of their successful C&R programme. Mark Lloyd of the ACA will also have a quick word.
It should be a good evening, it’s free entry and there’s a well stocked bar (which isn’t free) Food in interval courtesy of the TTA. Hope you can make it, full details on the club Web site

www.tta-gamefishing.co.uk/html/club_news.html

[Sewinbasher]

It might interest you to know that a club that has a few miles of the Monnow has being doing a study on stocking and c&r over the past three years.

Although only three years worth of data is to hand there are some distinct conclusions to be drawn from analysing the members returns. Unusually this is a club where around 90% of members make a full detailed return each year detailing the size of each fish, the date of capture, the location on the fishery where caught and most important, a record of any dye marking on the fish.

We dye mark each year's stocking with a different mark for each year, in that way we can tell if any fish is a stockie and which year the fish was stocked.

We have encouraged c&r overall and particularly for unmarked (potentially wild) fish and the overall return rate is around 85% of all fish caught but virtually 100% of wild fish.

There have been three distinct results:

a) With almost all wild fish being returned for at least three years the percentage of wild fish taken has risen dramatically each year from a base of about 15% and in 2005 42% of all fish caught (382 out of 914) were wild against a fairly constant number of stocked fish from year to year.

b) Less than 3% of the catch is of stocked fish caught in seasons after that in which they were stocked.

c) The size of the largest fish reported and the overall number of what we would term large fish (16"+) each year has risen. Between 1958 and 1994 the largest fish reported was 1lb 12oz but since the start of encouraging c&r in 1994 the largest fish every season is now in excess of this and we have several fish of 16" or more every year with the largest usually in the 18 - 21" class and every one a wild fish.

I stress that on only three years data it is dangerous to be categoric but there is clearly something interesting going on. We have already changed the guidance to members to return fewer stockies as these will clearly not contribute to the ongoing population of trout and will eat the food resources that can be better used by the wild fish.

[leisuredgentleman]

Fascinating, SB. What do you think happens to the stockies between the years so that last year's are not caught?

By my reckoning you have caught 532 stockies, and returned all but 137 of them (15% of 914). Assuming this to be reasonably constant, year-on-year, a lot of these stockies are disappearing.

Do you think that they move out of your beat into adjacent beats - perhaps in search of 'home'? Whilst the natives are happy to remain where they were brought up? Or are they just not up to surviving the winter?

I have no knowledge to bring to this, just a fascination and an inquiring mind!

[Sewinbasher]

Leisured Gentleman,

Your figures are broadly correct and it does seem that a lot of stockies just disappear. Where do they go? This the dliemma.

What has helped a lot is that we now get all the other fishery managers on the river to mark their fish the same way each season so it is easy to tell a fish from a given year, irrespective of where they were stocked.

In previous years we were interested in the movement of fish after stocking and all the fisheries used different markings (we used different markings to differentiate at which point on our fishery the fish were put in) and this told us that after stocking our fish moved at least a mile and a half upstream and at least two and half miles downstream. We also got a few fish from upstream stockings, some as far as 10 miles upstream.

One slight problem is that the dye marks wear off any time from the second year onwards so there is a chance that some fish taken as "wild" might in fact be stocked fish where the dye mark has worn off however our stock fish look different to the native fish and many members are pretty accurate in determining the source of fish even if they are not marked.

We also do not know if any particular stockie is caught more than once but if they are it makes the number of fish that disappear even larger. Just for the record our annual stocking is of 700 11" - 13" fish, so a large proportion of the stockies are caught at least once each season.

The general belief is that fish either do not survive the winter but with the mild winters of late this seems a bit unlikely, or they move off our water completely.

One theory is that some head for the sea and come back as "sea trout". The Usk has recently seen a huge and sustained increase in the number of sea trout and although the EA have no firm idea about the reason, one might be that stocked browns are migrating down to at least the tide and coming back as "sea trout" or what were called "slob trout".

[leisuredgentleman]

>700

Thank you!

[Diawlbach]

[lakefisher]

Thanks for the info Colin.

Turned out to be a well attended, very interesting evening.

Cheers ... Tony

[Uskgrub]

Can someone please give bullet points of the conclusions drawn.
I would have attended but someone removed the railway line.
Uskgrub

[Diawlbach]

Thanks Tony and thanks for expressing your interest Uskgrub. The seminar was well attended, about seventy people from a number of local fishing clubs showed up. .

Our main concern as a game fishing club was that catch and release would be imposed on the Teifi following the fishery review coming up in 2008. Fortunately this looks as though it will be very unlikely to happen.

Mandatory catch and release on the Teifi is a remote possibility however, when the 2008 review is over the West Wales region as a whole could become forced to accept new legislation that may impose the practice due to failing rivers in the area and a culture of high exploitation of migratory fish by their anglers.

Figures over the last couple of decades show that the Teifi has been, and looks like remaining able to maintain a viable breeding population of salmon (in the jargon to reach its conservation limit ) without input from hatcheries.

Current C&R levels of salmon on the Teifi – over 70% of rod caught fish are killed – are similar to those on neighbouring rivers that don’t meet their conservation limits.

The EA would like to see the C&R levels rise to about 50% on the Teifi, C&R could be imposed elsewhere without voluntary action being undertaken by the clubs.

Some interesting stats, 80% of rod caught and released fish survived in one study, all gut hooked fish (small sample not statistically significant) released died in another study.

Bag limits on failing rivers do not act as a good conservation option, most anglers only catch (then kill) just one or two fish if they’re lucky. It’s the anglers that just kill one or two fish that account for the highest total number of fish killed in any rivers catch returns.

EA suggested the Teifi Trout Association might like to run a pilot scheme to monitor the efficacy of circle hooks in avoiding deep hooking. A little shuffling and studying of the floor followed that one.

The Wye and Usk foundation laid out a good case for restoring a failing river by a mix of habitat restoration and C&R without the use of hatcheries.

That’s about it. Like many of these events a hell of a lot of questions arise, for example, if the salmon stocks are as low as stated how is it that so many show given a good flood (2004 bonanza…..), why isn’t more done about seals/sheep dip/ avian predation/ poaching etc etc.

If anglers could show more restraint in the future the Teifi can become a truly exceptional fishery; had half of the fish which were killed last season been released then it would be likely that an additional two thousand fish would be running the river in 2008, it makes you think…….
Meanwhile, thanks to the hard work of its three main clubs, TTA, Llandysul and Tregaron the issue of sheep dip pollution is being addressed through legal action in partnership with the ACA , the first action of its kind in the UK. With a fair hearing this could be a landmark victory in the fight for clean water, it’s massively important to all anglers and we anxiously await the result of our prosecution.