You never see
all the fish in the river.
You might see a trout sipping a fly off the surface, a barbel skulking on the bottom, or a shoal of chub hanging in the current – biggest first so they get the most food – with maybe a jack pike watching through fronds of weed ready to dart out and snaffle the weak and the unready. Shoals of fry thread though these fish, darting away at the first sign of trouble.
But you’ll only see them if you know where to look, how to look, and actively look for them.
Even then, you’ll be very lucky to see that many species in a single visit to a river.
In fact, the only time you will see all the fish in a river is the time you wish you didn’t.
That because you’ll see them all when they’re dead.
Floating on the surface, their mouths gaping open in a death rictus, jostling each other as the relentless current still moves their lifeless bodies.
If you’re an angler, your first reactions will be surprise and shock.
Surprise that there are more fish in the river than you ever dreamt of – bigger than you dared dream, smaller than you ever saw before.
When you look a little bit longer you’ll notice other wildlife littering the riverbed – insects, snails, maybe even crayfish, freshwater oysters.
Then you’ll be shocked that the fish are forming a bloated, floating mat of death, moving along with the current in the water that provided food and shelter but then bought a sudden death.
A number of events can cause pollution like this, for example:
• Pesticides
• Slurry run-off
• Industrial discharge
• Fly tipping of noxious waste
So, faced with a situation like this, the first thing to do is to call the Environment Agency on 0800 807060
(you do have that number in your mobile don’t you?)
But what then? Nothing can bring that destroyed world back quickly – but the principle in law is, fortunately, that the Polluter Pays.
So – who are you going to call to find the polluter?
To provide the necessary specialist legal advice to make a claim for costs so that you can try to rebuild that environment?
The answer is Fish Legal, partnered with the Angling Trust, a not for profit organisation that fights pollution and other damage to the water environment throughout the UK. Fish Legal tries to stop this damage happening and fights for compensation for when it does.
It costs twenty quid a year to be a member of the Angling Trust and therefore to support Fish Legal. Every twenty quid is more than usually precious at the moment –but divide 20 by the number of times you go fishing every year to work out a true cost.
Think of that twenty quid as an insurance policy to keep enjoying your fishing.
You can find all the details on joining here:
The Angling Trust
After all – you don’t really want to see all the fish in the river do you?
(first published in the River Erewash Foundation newsletter)
All the fish in the river
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