Bye Bye Mr Rudd :(

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

This has been bugging me for a few years. I watch a lot of the UK fishing programs with matt hayes, John wilson.....when they are fishing on rivers/lakes they sometimes mention the organisation that maintains the venue, and maintains the fish stocks.

Over the last few years, the amount of rudd I have been catching have been getting fewer and fewer, to the point where im excited to see a 4oz rudd on the hook, as I dont catch them that much any more. My local river is the river suck on the shannon system, great river for bream and pike, loads of roach, not too much rudd any more. 5 years ago i was catching a lot more. Ive looked into this a bit, when spawning, roach and rudd spawn in the same area, however roach have more eggs than the rudd, and the fact that there are a lot more roach than rudd in the river, the result is more rudd-roach hybrids than proper rudd.

Would it be a big job to restock the river with rudd? I know in the UK they would have more money to do this, as there are a lot more anglers, and they are willing to pay for good fishing (so am I).

Has anybody else noticed this?

sickpuppy

I fish exclusively on the suck too Frank and been many years since i did coarse fishing for roach etc
but i found i used get a nice number of rudd if i fished high in the water top 3 feet of the river around lillys or weeds.

If i went deep down roach nearly every time.
In comparison to england english anglers pay large fees for fishing certain waters and fisheries are better run there than here imo.

Im thinking that a balance would be found at some stage between species as there surface feeders they should have a different diet than there main competitors roach.

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

there was one great spot on the suck for rudd, I had 3-4 rudd near the 1lb mark there in 1 session before, in 2003 I think.. used to fish a float 3foot deep right next to a bunch of pads. There was days I hooked the odd rudd on the feeder too!

Guru Maith Agut

Yeah it's a sign of the times for many species in Ireland due to one thing and another Frank but I know of areas that still have a good rudd population however the introduction of roach has in no small part led to a change in other species due to hybridization. We now have large numbers of roach/bream hybrids that grow to a considerable size and I reckon are causing the bream to feed elsewhere as they would be just as likely to force shoals of bream away from feeding areas when there are such a large number of them, I speak from experience on this and have seen it happen in many waters around my area over the past ten years and more. The rudd have also been hybridized by the roach and again I would catch many roach/rudd hybrids in areas that had good rudd fishing for many years and these hybrids are also feeding in as much a rudd type pattern as a roach pattern and therefore are now vying for the rudds old feeding grounds. It may take many more decades but without new stocks of these fish being introduced to freshen things up again they will eventually die away and as I suggest due in no small part to the introduction of roach into our waters many moons ago.