Hi all, i am in a club that has exclusive fishing rights on a medium sized river in ireland. It would be classified as an acid upland river, with typical insect life of such a river and excellent water quality. The river has a large nos of small brown, gets a small run of salmon and seatrout. Due to the small average size of the trout (size limit 8inches but not many caught) the club isthinking about a catch and release policy for a number of years on a section of the river. So my question is does it work? Has anybody/club experience of going catch and release? what there the results if any?

regards
franb

Yes, it works, and you can expect the size of the fish to increse dramatically over a few years spawn. One piece of advice, is that the policy must be implemented along the entire streach of the populated river, for best results, and not only the clubs section. It's pointless having a C&R policy in one area, only for ther fish to migrate upstream to a catch and kill area

I fish a large stretch of river, which is also acidic and full of wild brownies and I never, ever kill a fish or try to cause distress to them down there ( I only kill them if it's imperative ). I go as far as to sharpen my hooks and debarb them to create a quick and efficient catch and release method!
Always release the fish facing upstream as most of the oxygenated water will reach it's gills quicker and more efficiently this way, if they're taking a little longer than you thought to revive, gently rock them back and forth slightly to move the oxygen in the water through quicker and when they really start to fight to get free let them go facing upstream and parallel to the river bed so they don't charge straight into it (I've seen some people chuck them in and they just go full pelt into the bed and basically knock themselves out )
As far as wildlifes concerned, the hatches on an early morning and late evening are incredible and the water practically bubbles with fish

thanks for the post andreb, migration of fish upstream would be no problem, as it is much less fished and easier to police. Do you know of any clubs that did this we are going to have a EGM shortly to discuss and vote on it. I would like to have some clubs, facts to present at the meeting as i know that there are still a good few of the members who are still not convinced about it (mainly of an older generation although they are leaning towards it, they just need a little push). So examples of where it worked might tip the balance.

---------- Post added at 10:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ----------

Hi ed, thanks for the reply. The problem is not the method of release but rather getting all to release and convincing the member to vote in favour of a mandatory c'n'r policy

Yes it works beyond your wildest dreams! Check out the Derbyshire thread over the years.

richard

__________________
Who resides on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye and is lulled to sleep each night by the mutterings of a weir, dreaming that "When the rivers and their inhabitants come first, we ALL win..."

I will post a comprehensive detailed reply tommorrow morning, for all to see, about my club in cape Town (The Cape piscatorial society) Welcome to the Cape Piscatorial Society Web Site.
We implemented C&R about 12 years ago, and used the "Monnow" as one of the justification cases to our members. The advantages were remarkable.

thanks guys, I will check out your suggestions.

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that if you go 100% C&R in five years time you will still have an acid upland river with large numbers of small trout (and your small run of salmon and sea trout which may have been helped a bit by C&R). Some rivers just don't produce anything but small trout - never have and never will. Many of your small trout will actually be sea trout anyway, they get to about 8 inches, smolt and ****** off to sea


What does surprise me is that your members are killing trout of 8 inches. Not because I think they will grow into 3lb'ers but because by the time you've taken the head and guts off a fish that size you are left with about 2oz of flesh! Are the club members starving?


Andy

The clue is in the word "acidic". Such waters do not produce numbers of large fish - the occasional lump much bigger than the average, but that is all. You can C & R all you like, but the river, or any river for that matter, has a finite carrying capacity which is limited by the amount of food and habitat. You can improve the habitat so that there will be more fish around, but they won't be any bigger because the food isn't there to support them. Indeed, they may even be smaller. The range of invertebrates that inhabit acidic streams is somewhat less than in more alkaline waters. Less food equals smaller fish.

The nature of the stream that you describe might limit the potential for numbers of larger fish but on a river capable of supporting a decent population of brown trout C&R definitely works.

On the Monnow there has been a general move to C&R on the catchment (that's the key - it's useless to limit to small stretches) and the results have been startling.

On my club water the largest brown trout reported in 50 years was 1lb 12oz (let's say 16"). We introduced dye marking for stocked fish in 2003, asked members to return all unmarked fish and to keep only dye marked fish if indeed they wanted to take any fish at all. We had an increase of wild browns from 25% of the total catch to about 40% of the total catch the following year. In 2010 this hit a new record of 67% wild fish within a record total catch. We have been able to reduce stocking by more than 50% whilst seeing no reduction in catches and we have many more larger fish with 25 fish of 16" or greater and 8 of these over 17" in 2010. We have had several fish of over 20" reported in the period since C&R was introduced and the club has an overall C&R rate of close to 90% including obviously many of the stocked fish as no wild fish are killed (at least not deliberately).

Now the majority of stock fish are dye marked, C&R is practised almost everywhere on wild fish and the whole catchment is seeing good numbers of fish over 17" and up to 19" or even 20".

What is happening is simply that wild fish are given a chance to survive for a few more seasons and reflect this in achieving their potential for size. In one pool during the 2010 mayfly there were at least six fish of 16" or more rising at the same time - almost impossible to imagine pre-C&R.

This fish could not have been caught at all under the previous regime and yet it was caught again (and returned again) four days later. That's got to be a good thing for the river.

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary