Fish questions at the end...

Don't often get a fantastic variety of birds on my river walks, but today was a good day. Great early morning birdsong. The usual mallards, moorhen, goosanders and the odd cormorant and one heron were present, but a couple of kingfishers were flashing up and down the river, one pausing long enough in a far bank tree to dive in, unsuccessfully, after a minnow. Didn't take the camera, Damn!

Walking further down there was a common sandpiper waggling up and down on the edge of a mid river gravel bar. Closest I have ever got to one, at about 15 yards. And only the third I have ever seen. Walking further downstream a dipper suddenly showed itself and flew away onto an old tyre that was sticking out of the river. It remained there for 20 minutes.. ...but then its mate arrived, stopped briefly on an exposed rock before flying and jumping right into a shallow gravel run, where it spent a few minutes feeding, disappearing and re-appearing from below the surface. Brilliant.
It then flew to a shallow area very near the bank and gave itself a good bath...very confusing as it had just spent the previous 10 minutes in the water! Quite an avian blonde moment.
It then returned to the centre of the river to feed and I soon lost sight of it as it went underwater. Thought it had re-appeared, but no, the splashing was some fish spawning in the fast gravel run. Grayling perhaps? Too small for chub. I started to move closer to get an ID, but a heron appeared from nowhere, and landed just a couple of yards from the fish. Dippers and fish promptly disappeared....followed by the heron a minute later. A very pleasing couple of hours.

But a question: is this the time of year for grayling to spawn? I admit to not knowing when they get all matey. Do they spawn with the coarse fish, or with the trout?

Come to think of it, anyone know when Wels Catfish spawn?


I am hoping to get some good pics of various fish in the rivers spawning this year. Any species. If anyone spots any, I would be grateful for a P.M. provided that you don't mind my knowing where you have seen them spawning. If it is near to your ultra secret barbel spot, then of course keep it secret, I don't want to know. Cheers.

P.S. Bloody hell. It's raining!

hi jayzs. here is some info.......Despite being a salmonid the grayling does not share the same spawning time as other species within this group. Whereas salmon and trout spawn in the winter months, the grayling does not spawn until mid to late April. The grayling season starts around mid June but considering that the fish may still be recovering from spawning any that are caught whilst the angler is trout fishing should be carefully returned. By the summer the fish will have returned to full fitness and shoals of small fish at around the 1lb mark can be found in many areas of the system. Once a shoal is located the fish will rise to the dry fly but most are taken on a weighted nymph fished upstream. billy..

Originally Posted by billyfish

By the summer the fish will have returned to full fitness and shoals of small fish at around the 1lb mark can be found in many areas of the system. billy..

Wow, and all this time I have been thinking that a one pound grayling was quite a fair one!

Cheers Billy.

hi john,
some cat info for you .....Spawning: Little is know about the natural spawning of the wels. Each female can produce several million eggs, yet survival is very poor, probably as a result of cannibalism. Spawning takes place at night in June and July when the fish move into shallow weedy water. Growth: Catfish grow incredibly quickly in warm water and can reach a metre in length in only five years and two metres in ten. In the cooler climate of the British Isles catfish grow much more slowly and can take ten years to reach twenty pounds and perhaps another ten years to reach thirty pounds. The main limiting factor in the UK appears to be a lack of suitable food, evidenced by their fast growth in lakes containing large numbers of invertebrates. Little is known about the maximum age of catfish. Certainly, fish approaching forty years of age are known in the UK, although it is said that the fish can live for up to one hundred years. It is likely to take us a considerable time to find out!



cheers

kev.

Cheers Kev. I did a bit more research and in Germany, warm water raising has achieved 32 Kg in 5 years. Impressive. Can't see those sort of sizes being reached on an invertebrate diet though Kev.

The Ebro fish went in as small fish in 1978, and reports suggested 100Kg fish were present after some 20 years ( says the CCG).

Mind the CCG also says a female lays 100,000 eggs and only 10% of the fry survive. Isn't that 10,000 then...per female per year? I must ask the CCG why we are not now knee deep in the buggers.
Apparently the males guard the fry, until they decide to leave home to go vandalise the lake ;-)

I now have this picture of some 5 year old, tiddler net in hand, spotting a large shoal of little fry, not seeing a 200 pound camouflaged male cat lurking in the nearest weedbed......

haha yes then screaming ........but dad its meeeeeeee as he's sucked into the vortex.............as dad then spits out the little guys net with a belch and an ooops sorry son but sh1t happens ! lol