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Lets hope these lad's keep at it.

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Yes, the blighters are everywhere in the colne valley, you wouldn't want to eat em.
 
We have a professional trapper working our length of the Colne, takes 60kg out at a time with his traps, from a stretch well under a mile long. Makes no difference whatsoever to the problem as far as fishing goes, they tear your bait to bits exactly same the day after he has been. It would seem once you have got the damned things...you have got them. End of :mad:

The fact that the Colne runs in and out of the Grand Union canal probably doesn't help.

Cheers, Dave.
 
I've found them worse this season Dave than last... I think they thrive even more in lower water conditions.

Off down there tonight for a bit... hoping for a clonker!
 
never ending problem

ea gave us information on the local lake as theres aproblem with crays,this lake is just about 3 acres in size,it needed 30 traps putting in every morning and then rebaiting every evening for three months all crays caught had to be destroyed on site( burnt) ,then the traps were to be reduced to appox 10 taps for the forseable future as you would never get rid of them just control the numbers, also you need a licence to trap the little ****s.
 
Met a professional trapper on the Kennet last week and he said they export 15 tons a year to Sweden and Finland.He showed me the trap and explained it to me.Trial and error over a number of years has produced the ultimate trap.Oily pacific mackerel in bait container that had to be suspended in the middle.A roof tile to weight the base,the openings were large but had been closed down by using lots of tye-wraps coming to a point.He said the traps you buy in the Uk are mostly scandinavian and target smaller crays,the bigger UK samples cannot enter these normal traps.He also said the trap has to run with the flow and they fish better during a certain part of the moon phase.The amount he caught proved his system worked.
 
The Kennet trapper certainly does keep the numbers. It is the only Thames Valley river I have fished where you can actually fish in peace! Just wish he would have a go at the Cherwell and Windrush!
 
?

does it vary from area to area as if they will give licences out,as the water I was on about they would only allow the licence to be issued to the forestry commission,and be controlled by them ,and none to be moved dead or alive from the bank, if they could be sold the money could help for restocking.
 
He works most of the Kennet but was trapping lower benyons,sounds like another lad John ,normal build about mid 40's.Good lad and took the time to explain his system,will be looking to put some of his knowledge into practice,if i can get a licence.
 
We've got them in the Hants Avon now. Not a major problem....yet...perhaps aided by the gravelly banks rather than their preferred mud. However, there is ample evidence of their presence in the areas where the banks are more to their liking and you can even catch them in your landing net in the edge on some sections!

We also have them in a couple of local Club lakes. Trapping seems to have little impact and the increasing numbers lead to increased turbidity which affects the weed growth and fishing.

Why did people think it was a good idea (and safe) to introduce these 'foreigners' to our waters?


Dave
 
The unfortunate thing is that for the idiots who thought they could make a living out trapping and harvesting the things it is, of course, a very good idea to have the rivers infested with them. :(:mad:
 
My thoughts exactly Ross...these things have been introduced to numerous waters deliberately all over the country...and as usual profit is the at the root of things. An example of this, which typically grew from tiny beginnings to become something of a disaster was one I witnessed first hand....because it happened within a few hundred yards of my front door.

When I first moved to Chesham in 1971/2, there were a couple of very small fields close to my home, separated by a public footpath, the larger of these was used used as grazing for horses. At the end furthest from the footpath in that larger field, a small test dig to discover the potential for gravel excavation had been carried out at some stage (in the late fifties/early sixties I believe)...but not taken further at that time. The result was a small pond which was soon inhabited by roach, tench and a very few small carp, fish introduced by local anglers to create a tiny fishery. By the time I arrived, it was very lightly fished, but the roach had now grown on...beautiful mint fish to well over a pound, possibly approaching the magical two pound mark. The tench were numerous, but not quite the specimen size achieved by the roach...I certainly never caught anything above five pounds. The carp too were hardly monsters, a double being a good fish....but fun on light tackle.

My short term memory loss prevents me from recalling things exactly, especially dates, but my best guess is that it was in the late eighties that a small local-ish private company bought the mineral excavation rights, and gravel extraction began in earnest (G.E can put me right on any muddled facts here...he is nowhere near as senile as me :D)

Several years later, a small lake of somewhere between one and two acres (guessing here again) existed in the larger field....and a pond of barely half an acre in the smaller field. Extraction was done and dusted, and the owner started to run the lake/s as a day ticket fishery. Then came the bad bit....his final fling was to add a seeding batch of the odious foreign crays to dredge (excuse the pun) the last ounce of profit from the water, by trapping and selling these to London restaurants. Sickeningly, to my knowledge this 'master plan' was never seriously pursued....probably too much hard work....but the damage had been done.

Unfortunately, the tiny historic chalk stream which gives the name to our town, the Chess, runs within perhaps thirty yards of these ponds, with one small branch of the river actually being fed by seepage from the smaller pond. The result was of course inevitable, the river now being infested with the damned things, and the native crays virtually (possibly by now completely) wiped out....certainly locally. Fishing the lakes now has the obvious drawbacks, though big carp are now present (one reaching 40+ at one stage). The roach population went down hill after the lake was enlarged, no doubt due to dual predation by the crays and the cormorants that visit....and the same for the tench, though a few larger samples do exist.

All in all, a prime example of profit being at the root of another piece of the jigsaw that is the ecological disaster these damned things have become...and having seen the futile attempts at eliminating them by trapping, I see no end to the problem any time soon...if ever. Damned shame...ecological vandalism in the name of profit. Why is it that that....and killing each other...seem to be two of the things that we are spectacularly good at? :(

Cheers, Dave.
 
Those lakes very near you david should be drained and cleared, that might get rid.
 
Steve Williams said:
What species are they coops?

Surely not the zander you keep telling me you are catching of Hanley castle?
Click to expand...

This is forwarded from "coops" so dont let me feel the come back im just the courier.

" Steve the invasive species are the boat anglers who moor up and poach other peoples waters, it seems that people in high positions feel it is perfectly acceptable to do as they please. As you are more than aware of you are not allowed to moor off private property, this includes anchoring off from the bank to the middle of the river where the riparian owner has the fishing rights. Yourself and Dilip Sarkar are both guilty of this.
As for telling you catch reports I tell you what you want to hear, besides you have other friends to keep you up to date. I am also more than let down by your attempt to not just poach where we have but to try and gazump the club, a pretty poor show all round for a secretary of a well run club. And that Im afraid is the end of the matter, don't text or phone me what friendship you thought we had is severed"
 
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