Angling Clubs Chip In For Barbel
The week ending the 3rd April saw the introduction of some 160 young Barbel along the reaches of the lower and middle River Loddon. The consultative thought it was a good idea to bolster stocks of juvenile fish as well as carrying out various habitat projects to improve recruitment and survival. Angling clubs controlling fishing rights on various stretches of the river were contacted through attendance at the LFCC meetings, by email or through others to gauge interest in the project. The clubs that came forward, all proposed a budget and it was decided that each club would stock a proportion of those fish that were available. The barbel were between 12" - 15" in length and will hopefully go on to further the recruitment of barbel along the reaches of the Loddon.
The clubs involved and the rough stocking locations were, Southlake AC - Riverside Park, Twyford & District FC - Lower Loddon, Charvil, Wokingham BC - Dinton Pastures, Farnham AC - Stanford End , Swallowfield FC - Loddon, Swallowfield Park.
A big thank you to Simon Bartlam for seeing this project through to fruition and to all of the clubs taking part and contributing. The pictures below are of the barbel just before stocking. The barbel that went into the Swallowfield stretch were also die marked with a single blue spot for potential traceability and data collection in future years. A short video of this can be seen here
