WANTED! £100 reward for barbel catches!
MEMBERS of an angling club are being offered the chance to claim a £100 reward for catching a 3lb-plus barbel from the Great Ouse.
The cash incentive has been created by the committee at Buckinghamshire’s Olney and Clifton Fishing Association to encourage more people to go fishing and help establish a foothold for the species in the river around Olney.
The club’s match secretary and head bailiff, Ian Barnes, said:
“15 years ago barbel were common on the Great Ouse, but numbers have since dwindled.
“The EA has done a fantastic job reintroducing barbel into the river over the last few years and as a result, catches are now being recorded both upstream and downstream of our stretch at Olney.
“Barbel are the missing piece of the puzzle for our club, so hopefully this incentive will draw in a few more people.”
Members who successfully catch a 3lb-plus barbel can submit their claim by contacting Ian on 07761384822. An annual membership for OCFA costs just £25 from www.olneycliftonfishing.co.uk
15 years ago barbel were common on the Great Ouse, but numbers have since dwindled
Double-figure bream target achieved in Ouse haul - Steve Cowley
“This season I set myself the goal of catching a double-figure bream from the Great Ouse Relief Channel in Norfolk. As the hot summer days arrived, though, my mate Keith and I discovered the bream’s feeding windows had shrunk, but by changing our time of attack I managed to catch 100lb of slabs and smash my goal!
“Between opening day and our latest session we’ve enjoyed several trips, including two special occasions where I caught more than 200lb. On June 16 I had my best result and caught 21 bream, including a PB 9lb 2oz fish, for 240lb.
“As the trips rolled on I upped my bream best further and took fish of 9lb 6oz and 9lb 10oz in quick succession, but that double eluded me.
“Keith managed one, and I’d witnessed a carp angler catch one too, so the desire to achieve my goal grew stronger.
“At the start of the season we were catching throughout the day but that stopped when the hot weather arrived at the beginning of August.
“The heat had an effect, so we decided our next trip would be an overnighter. The Relief Channel is vast, and it was a good 450m slog to our pegs, but we were set up by 7pm.
“We both fished the same line at 45m to which 30 balls of Bait Tech Omen and Kult Carp groundbait and corn were fed.
“As darkness set in, the isotopes on our quivertips remained still and did so all night. We decided then to get some kip on our bedchairs and be up at 3am with hopes of catching.
“The move paid off, as between 5.30am and 8am the bream moved in and I recorded 11 big slabs on worm and corn cocktails.
“Each bite felt like striking into a brick wall as the fish were solid and fought hard in the flow.
“When bites dried up we checked our keepnets and weighed the heaviest bream. It turned out I’d caught two doubles at 10lb 2oz and 10lb 9oz, along with another belter at 9lb 14oz…mission accomplished.”
Steve Cowley – 10lb 9oz river Ouse bream
Hundreds of elvers found in Ouse fish pass
EELS are a critically-endangered species across Europe, so conservationists and anglers alike will be delighted at the discovery of hundreds of elvers last week in an eel pass on the River Great Ouse.
An Environment Agency fisheries officer made the find during a routine check at Brownshill Staunch at St Ives, Cambs, and collected them in a bucket for observation before they were released back into the river soon afterwards.
Most of the elvers were around 60mm long, but a handful of more mature 30cm-long examples were among them.
According to EA Fisheries Technical Specialist Kye Jerrom, eel passes are vital to the survival of the species on the Great Ouse.
“They allow elvers to swim around weirs and locks and migrate upstream in search of new habitat,” he says.
“The more rivers they can reach, the more the eels can be supported, so it’s a great way of conserving populations. Some of the eels that have used the Brownshill Staunch pass will be thinking about returning to the Sargasso Sea to spawn – that’s what our work is all about.”
Over the last 20 years the EA has built 38 eel and elver passes within the Great Ouse catchment area.
Hundreds of elvers from the pass, collected for study then released.