A new one for the Catch Returns
- PeterBQH
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
I don't know if you realise how many different species of fish we have in our river, especially as we only record catches of Rainbows, Browns and Grayling. Of course at the moment we're not supposed to be catching anything except Rainbows and Browns, as all coarse fish are out of season.
I'll attempt a list of what we've seen:
Trout: Rainbows, Browns (both stocked), Wild Browns, allegedly the odd Sea Trout has been seen, but very rarely.
Grayling, Chub, Bream, Roach, Rudd, Ruffe, Gudgeon, Dace, Perch, Carp (Common and Mirror), Pike, Barbel, Minnow, Miller's Thumb, Stone Loach and Bullhead. Not sure if we've seen Tench.
Please mention any I've missed in a Comment.
You'll also note that we occasionally see Eels, and there have been several sightings of Brook Lamprey; see 'From the Riverbank' for a video of these spawning. Today I spotted a new one for me at least: a River Lamprey.
This one does look a bit odd. Sadly it had been injured, presumably by a predator, and the rear dorsal fin area shows wounds and is squashed and misshapen. It's hard to find a good picture of a River Lamprey to show you what it should look like. It's also a pretty poor picture anyway due to the reflections and my cheap camera phone.
I initially thought it was dead as it lay in a shallow ripply section below the footbridge at Harpers, and I also thought might be an Eel initially. I knew it wasnt a Brook Lamprey as it was almost 12" long.
The giveway that it was a Lamprey was that it's strange mouthparts were actually attached to a stone on the river-bed, and there are the breathing holes along the sides. The next picture shows these slightly better.
Not often you get to see one of these ancient creatures anywhere, and a shame it had been attacked, but nice to know we have these too.
Always keep your eyes peeled when walking along the river, as there's lots to see, including Kingfishers of course, and on Beat 2 you may see Mandarin Ducks, and lots of butterflies appearing now, and later, some great dragonflies including the Golden-Ringed Dragonfly which is huge, and not common in this area except on our river.
Tight Lines
PeterB
Being very pedantic, I've caught both common carp and mirror carp from the river, although the mirror carp is really just a strain or variety of common carp. I've heard the odd tale of tench being caught in lower beats of the Teise but not seen any photographic evidence!
Spotted a sea trout in late November in the year the season was extended because of Covid. River was high and coloured and I was about to give up and go home when I saw a bar of silver come clear out of the water at the bench pool on 3a which was I reckon a sea trout of 4-5lbs which prompted another hour of unsuccessful fishing.The only one I have seen although I do remember a blog entry which reported a member being broken by a large unidentified fish in the chain pool so could be mystery solved?