Like others writing in the Tame forum , I have also had half a dozen chub this week, and they were of a good average size, for which I was duly grateful. As an aside, I was very impressed with the scrap they all put up, obviously all were in good fettle.

But I find it worrying that when trotting, with small baits, I do not seem to catch any fish in the "ounces" range. Especially during the winter. Talking chub mainly here. Is there a problem? Do small chub not feed in the winter? Taking it further, I don't seem to catch many of them in the Goyt or Tame at any time of year, even high Summer. Maybe only a dozen or so small chub and dace over the last couple of years. Are they simply not there? Why not? Do we have a major problem looming in a couple of years, as the older fish die off ( or as they simply give up all hope after being caught for the 6th time this year) ?

I cannot put it down to water quality, for the Mersey does have numbers of microchub and some dace too...although they too seem to disappear in Winter.
Perhaps Tank, Billy etc might have some useful input? After all this might just be down to my incompetence.

Hi Jayze I haven't had any chance to do any trotting this winter due to injured arm so cant comment on that side of the fishing but from past experience Ive found that the chublets are like the minnows you dont see many in the winter
But also i just dont think there are as many fish in the river now than there was in the past, the reason i dont know but maybe cormorants taking the breeding size fish or just bad breeding years, There have been reports of a of small chublets and grayling being caught in the Goyt so lets hope the Tame has the same success
I can remember not many years back the river being full of chublets lets just hope the fish have had a good breeding season last year or like you i fear for the years ahead
I think we will have to wait till the new season to find out.

Thanks for that Billy. My problem is that, having only been back into fishing for a couple of seasons, I don't know much about the local rivers' history. Last time I fished before this recent spell, was a very long time ago and then the local rivers were dead. No-one fished them as far as I know, that far back. No fish in them.
Interesting that the Tame had many small chub just a few years ago. I wonder if it is all down cormorants and goosanders, or maybe it was the very heavy floods of three years ago that did the damage. I don't consider pollution a likely cause, as we still have the bigger fish.
I do gain the impression that a lot of the Tame fish have migrated there from the Goyt. I did see a good sized fish swimming its way up a very shallow run near to the gas pipeline a couple of years ago. Back out of the water in the shallows, but I couldn't get near enough quickly, so as to be able to positively identify it. I now suspect it was a barbel though.
I have had grayling of a couple of ounces in the Goyt, but none less than maybe 6 or 7 ounces in the Tame. And in two years I have only had one roach from any of the three rivers, that being a small Mersey fish.