Question Time

[joffmiester]

Talking to some great river Anglers this week and a question that puzzed me . A simple question yet it's got loads of answers but which is right .
If you fish natural rivers we all know about hemp being the bait for this time of year. yet over the past couple of seasons hemp on some rivers whether its all i don't know you can know catch right up to christmas and i dare say after if conditions are right. yet the Trent you can catch on the good old maggot all day long the same on the upper trent .put a maggot on at Evesham you can't buy a roach the same is right about the river soar . The river soar used to be a caster river yes you can catch fish but you can't get the roach queing up like you can hemp ????
The question is is this down to angling pressure or not, is it down to the changing weather or is it just a cycle we are going through. will the trent become a hemp dominated river[yes i know you can catch on hemp now but maggot competes well against hemp where as other venues it doesn't ]I'M just interested in hearing from some views off the site as we have loads of hemp loves on here

[NoCarpPlease]

what do RR, PJ and TM think?

I'm no expert on hemp (although I've won a lot more on it over the years than ChopwormHero would believe :-) ) but seems to me to be a combination of
angler ability and confidence in the bait
flow
colour
roach population size distribution (and therefore competition)

and even on the Trent I've seen a hemp angler catch well in to double figures whilst those fishing maggot/ caster around them struggle for 5 pounds .... at Shardlow and Devon mouth.
But take saturday on the Weaver - large roach population and looked ideal for it - yet none of us made it work!
Equally the Thames around Oxford screams hemp - yet it's usually maggot or caster that wins.

[bill yards]

Just to throw the works into the spanner (I do lots of things backerds) I was only told whilst doing a feature on the Nene, somewhere near Oundle that iwas not advisable to take hemp until the turn of the year. It only had be a plus temperature, even 1 degree would do it and you would catch.
Another phenomenon with the hemp is on the T&M Canal at Middlewich you could nearly always catch straight from the off on hemp.
On some canal pegs today you can get literally hundreds of bites on hemp and the rare occasions you hook one they are too tiny to be true.

Must be sumat to do with the venues because they all react in a different way.
My thoughts for what they are worth

[CHOPWORM HERO]

I think there are loads of theorys, yet the facts are the rivers are very clear most of the time due to changes in the way water is now treated etc. Also a lot of hemp now goes in the rivers (night fishing speci boys as well as our matches) and to be fair a lot more anglers fish hemp !
Look at the soar, once virtually black due to the dye, trent and avon carrying colour all the time due to the power stations and the sewage level. Its so different now, alot more weed and loads of insect life especially little black snails just have a look in the river at Evesham and the tidal its full of them. Roach as they get bigger increase their crustacean diet up to 70% (stamp roach) so I have no reason to doubt these form part of it. Hemp and tares fit in with all this as do the berries that fall off the tree's. In the hot spell's its hard to beat when roach are feeding. However roach like any fish have off days, maybe too high a pressure or even venue pressure !!!
I do believe some parts of the thames do not respond so well to the bait but i have caught on it and know of others who have caught on tares at medley so maybe its a confidence thing, not sure
As for Evesham, it appears now You can only catch roach in summer on hemp, tares, bloodworm and joker.
In winter, bread and hemp when the rivers good and worms when it's up.
Roach gave up on maggots a few years ago. I can only think this is due to angling pressure and the baits mentioned are / look more natural. The river is also alot clearer in normal conditions as the weed will testify in certain areas. Again an increase in crustaceans.
It's a big subject

[joffmiester]

great answer choppy interesting i too have seen the black snails rothley brook is full which makes me think they are in abundance and breeding well. on a little downer i've also seen a increase in crayfish in the brook too . Our waterways are briming with life yet 12 months ago we all thought the fish stocks would be hit hard because of the flooding .