The Pikers Pit

Hallo all
Emily winter has been awarded her degree on the bream and pike tagging project completed on the broads.It will soon be available to read on Bournemouth university's website,its a big read!
A lot of anglers helped in this project ,in particular forom regular Andy Carpenter.Andy was a life saver to the project ,and his skill in catching bream and pike was hugely important.Andy and Phil Grey caught more bream than anyone involved.
One interesting point re the 45 pike tagged electronically is that after 2 years only 23 remained detectable. This may surprise some people and all we can do is speculate on there disappearance.Emily's work may help in proving the importance of Hoveton broad ,not that any sane person would doubt its importance on evidence already collected, but it might help unnatural England understand why they should leave it alone.

Are the tags readable without catching the fish then John, as you say they were not detectable? Would thisaldo mean the tags we're not in the water/area? Quite allot of fish to dissapear

The tags have to pass a fixed position logger ,the fish doesn't have to be recaught.As long as its moving a certain distance between loggers it sets the loggers off.

So that's fairly worrying then? Be interesting to read about their movements and the sizes of fish that 'dissapeared'

Lots of variables,otters, mink,bad handling,fish theft ,salt tides ,shedding of transmitters,boat props,natural causes.It does seem a high per centage tho.

Well done Emily
Great to see a good result well earned from all the hours put in from all involved.
Emily was as committed to the project like us, apart from having the comforts of a hotel room,
Pleased all those days and nights afloat supplied enough data for her PHD.

Shame about the missing pike, but it’s something we’re yet to understand about natural loss.
We can only presume what happened to them. I’m sure with a little digging in the data files a pattern
May develop as to their last area they “pinged”. Be that area susceptible to salt or predation. Or they have stayed in an area
That supports them well without the need to travel.

All the best to Emily, I’m sure I this project although treated with ignorance by NE, will be taken as a step forward by science and ecologist’s around the world. Her future looks promising, just a shame that the UK Has no regard unlike the rest of Europe towards its fisheries.
Respect the Bream as snotty as they are, their a big part of our fisheries, and a key to the future of our fishing.

P.S I haven’t fished for them since

Interesting stuff ,do you know if the Bream loss/ undetectable
was on par with the Pike at around 50% ?.

Look forward to reading it.

Lee7499 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16 2021 13:42 -

Interesting stuff ,do you know if the Bream loss/ undetectable
was on par with the Pike at around 50% ?.

It was worse,181 tagged, 124 lost.

John Currie wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16 2021 15:06 -

Lee7499 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16 2021 13:42 -

Interesting stuff ,do you know if the Bream loss/ undetectable
was on par with the Pike at around 50% ?.

It was worse,181 tagged, 124 lost.

Jesus, they need to look for a trawler not an Otter to account for the missing fish.

I spoke to Emily this morning. There is a chance not all are missing, one pike hadn’t been recorded for a year so some may not be travelling. One area has fewer receivers, in that area fish have a lot of water to move around in, being positive they could be staying put without passing a receiver?
In all the fish I caught surprisingly two had transmitters fitted, one bream which was fitted a year earlier and one pike which had just been returned two days earlier which was good for us as it proved the Cut had healed well after the transmitter was inserted.

From my own experience, some areas do have more than there fair share of otters, but the chances of all of them getting eaten is slim, getting caught in salt surges would be my opinion. I’ve witnessed this happen very few remained on the surface the bream I netted were a 1-2 feet below the surface and the pike some were floating but most I saw poking their heads out of the water, if I missed them they didn’t always resurface.
Those I got back into fresh water didn’t always recover and sank rather than floated.

Still excellent research and hopefully a great benefit to the future of our fisheries.

Congratulations to Emily on getting her degree. I met her a couple of times whilst helping with the tagging and know shes worked hard for it.