COARSE FISH THAT CATCH THE TRAVEL BUG

HOW far do coarse fish really travel (see pages 6 and 7)?

Several years ago I was in conversation with an EA scientist who had radio-tagged chub on the middle Thames. During the day they travelled up to 50m – overnight as much as 7km! But how about real long-distance stuff?

I’m intrigued by the story of the tagged Norfolk pike that travelled over 100km (60 miles) in spring. Could this have been a spawning migration? I was once fishing a huge lake system in Sweden, and my guide said that every pike in the lake spawned in one bay, journeying miles to get there. Perhaps this is perfectly normal behaviour? After all, the Norfolk rivers and Broads are about as close as we get to a lough system.

Aside from pike and spawning behaviour, what about cyprinids? Several years ago a fish that once inhabited the famed Sonning Eye pit was caught twice at Kingston, 19 locks downstream. I’ve also been told that, this season, carp previously caught on the tidal Thames have been located more than 20 miles upstream.

How about a tidal Thames carp being caught from the Lea? I’ve had good info about that, so the fish had gone through the Pool of London all the way to where the Lea enters at Bow or, alternatively, into Limehouse Cut and up through the network of canals and back rivers there. A mystery!

What about the barbel that, at different times, was both the Hants Avon and Dorset Stour record? Those rivers both share an estuary – Christchurch Harbour – but the fish was caught from the Stour two weirs upriver!