Why match weights have increased
For the greater part of our fishing lives veteran anglers like myself
were repeatedly advised that when stocking fish into waters it was important
to avoid putting too big a biomass, that is the total weight of fish,
into the fishery so that natural food stocks were adequate to let those
fish thrive.
In recent years though, where stillwaters are concerned, that idea seems
to have been entirely abandoned. In place of the natural fisheries that
held just a few big fish plus some more medium-sized fish and lots of
immature fry, our commercial stillwaters now hold tremendous stocks of
fish, and a total weight of fish that would once have been thought impossible
to maintain.
Perhaps the main reason for the transformation is the fact that many of
these fisheries are heavily fished nearly every day so that the free offerings
of foodstuffs and groundbaits that anglers throw in feed the fish. Where
once stillwaters were subject to a close season for a few months in springtime
anglers now fish all year round and keep the free food going in.
The fact that I will not fish during the old close season myself for reasons
of conscience does not affect the situation.
When I was a competitive angler club competitions were commonly won with
as little as four pounds weight, sometimes even less.
Now we read about average match catches being very high with some match
winners weighing 60, 70, or more pounds of fish after a few hours fishing,
and some fisheries boast of match record weights of well over 100lbs for
the winner.
Where trout fishing is concerned a similar situation exists. Though the
hordes of small wild brown in some remote Scottish lochs that rarely get
fished are so numerous that you can hardly cast your tackle in without
hooking a fish, because wild trout that see few anglers are silly creatures
and always hungry.
However, in the most common stillwater fisheries where freshly introduced
stock fish are relied upon to provide sport we have seen a revolution.
Where once re-stocking was done perhaps just once a year the trend was
for anglers to catch very easily for a short time after the new fish had
been released and for catches to then dwindle alarmingly for the rest
of the season.
Most fisheries now stock at frequent intervals without putting too many
in at once and this evens sport out throughout the year.
I believe that fishing hard all day and landing lots of trout that you
put back in the water does more harm to a fishery, and to the chances
of other anglers later on, than catching just a reasonable number to eat
and then ceasing to fish so intensively does.