We have not pike fished Rutland for a few years, and when we did we had to use lures of at least 6" in length. I notice now that smaller lures can be used, and there are clips on youtube of anglers catching a lot of zander on small soft plastics. Does Rutland now have a much bigger population of zan...

I think I got the wrong idea about the salmon study. I think they are tagging adult fish on their return from the sea to see which rivers they go up. Autumnwatch last night told us again that Atlantic salmon are in trouble, but did not tell us why. The tagged salmon that was named after Chris Packha...

Here we go; one more time......................Inland cormorants are nothing to do with overfishing at the coast! Sinensis cormorants are freshwater birds that have only existed in the UK since the 1980s, (confirmed by the British Trust for Ornithology). Some of our own native coastal cormorants hav...

Conclusive enough for me.

The RSPB are revising their policy to campaign against organised shoots of game birds. They are unhappy with what they see as the anti-conservation side of organised shoots; burning moorland, the use of lead shot (sounds familiar!), and the increase of predators due to the release of 50 million non-...

Using the government website as best I could, it showed over 900 roach present in 1992 at the section of river I was looking at. That number had fallen to 30 roach in 2004. All I know is that I used to be able to catch 5 or 6 pike a session, and now I can't catch one.
The fish are not there.

I don't know. I couldn't find what I wanted on the government site. A paranoid person may think that the author of the State of Nature Report does not want the general public to know how low freshwater fish stocks are in the UK, because it might lead to calls for action against predators. Slightly u...

Got a reply from the founder of the State of Nature report explaining that fish numbers are not included because surveys are patchy and regional and there is no comprehensive national data.

No I haven't. I agree that would be very useful.

Quick update. I took Jason's advice and did a FOI request to the EA. They directed me to the government site suggested by Eric. It is basically a massive spreadsheet, and not very user friendly. I looked at a section of river that I am interested in, and found that for several reasons it is not poss...