Fish

henchy3rd

Settler
Apr 16, 2012
612
424
Derby
I’ve also never heard of fished lines due to beaver presence here although they do effect other animal life (usually land animals that lose habitat to the beaver ponds or depend on the same trees the beaver eat)

Interesting though regarding the flooding: they usually cause floods here.
Yes they do course floods,it’s their natural behaviour.
The issue in the uk is slowing the rise of floods which reek havoc & destruction to all life.( I’m sure I had this discussion before somewhere)
A woodsman/ yurt & roundhouse builder friend of mine who never had much to say had a idea from the medieval period, ‘twas simple & said it would work..fashion natural Wattle fences & stick them where the water is known to speed up, that’ll do the job is all he said?( probably benefit the fish too)
Maybe that’s worth a go if not temporary for a few years..similar reason,same results.. we haven’t had beavers since the 16th century, so no beavers, no controversy.
But what if it worked?
I’ll say no more.
 

Robson Valley

On a new journey
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,669
McBride, BC
Beaver (Castor canadensis) are highly destructive forest "rats" here. Besides the wholesale destruction of large patches of standing forest and all the values which go with that, they totally destroy flowing water habitat (fact) . The replacement is a stagnant pond of turds for mosquitoes. Good bye, trout.

That's the aspect which annoys me the most: the habitat destruction.
Further, there is an antagonistic interaction with rural life styles. That you can argue both ways.

Beaver use the roads as artificial dams. All that needs doing is to plug the culvert under the road bed. It's interesting to drive by and look at all the different devices meant to prevent the beavers from doing the blockage. Next the road bed saturates and a jiggle sets the whole thing off down some mountain side!

I live so far from the city that fur trapping (sustained yield) is conducted on licensed trap lines by license-holding trappers. It's common knowledge who they are, they don't make a point of it and I have yet to hear any honest and valid objection.
 
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Winnet

Forager
Oct 5, 2011
231
69
Aberdeen
Beaver (Castor canadensis) are highly destructive forest "rats" here. Besides the wholesale destruction of large patches of standing forest and all the values which go with that, they totally destroy flowing water habitat (fact) . The replacement is a stagnant pond of turds for mosquitoes. Good bye, trout.

That's the aspect which annoys me the most: the habitat destruction.
Further, there is an antagonistic interaction with rural life styles. That you can argue both ways.

Beaver use the roads as artificial dams. All that needs doing is to plug the culvert under the road bed. It's interesting to drive by and look at all the different devices meant to prevent the beavers from doing the blockage. Next the road bed saturates and a jiggle sets the whole thing off down some mountain side!

I live so far from the city that fur trapping (sustained yield) is conducted on licensed trap lines by license-holding trappers. It's common knowledge who they are, they don't make a point of it and I have yet to hear any honest and valid objection.
Just wondering how much of that is down to man's intrusion upon nature. Beavers are just doing what they do and what nature intends them to do. Presumably if there was more predators around nature would control the beavers better.

I know I Scotland one of the thoughts on the flooding is, if it is created further upstream it prevents the flooding lower down. Age old one where man interferes with nature and usually nature doesn't follow the script.

G

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Robson Valley

On a new journey
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,669
McBride, BC
We have lots of mountain tributary rivers to the Fraser. You can fish in season anywhere you can get to the water. There's quite a mythology about the fishing success in the Holmes River, for example. In 20 years in there, I have never seen anyone catch anything.
The tribs all have salmon runs that you can go and watch.
No fishing for them, much too far upstream and they are crapped out, ready to spawn, anyway.
 
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Silverclaws2

Nomad
Dec 30, 2019
287
155
57
Devon
A bit of a bizarre one here.
Three years ago I decided to start fishing off the back of my boat.
One of the first fish I hooked was a massive pike.(it really was that big).
I’ve been led to believe that fish are incapable of feeling pain because their brains aren’t complex enough for what ever reason?
If that’s the case, then why did this pike make small squealing noises when I had to use some pliers/forceps to remove the embedded hook from deep down?
just to add, it must of been out of the water for five or six minutes.
I felt rotten & never fished since that day as it slowly slinked off Into the water.
I am of the opinion all animals can feel pain regardless of what scientists that don't yet know everything say on the matter, to use that ' all animals can feel pain ' to govern my dealings with them.

Where of fishing, I used to fish but don't anymore because I am not longer in such a dire financial position so as to be forced to fish for food for myself to consider the act of fishing for food as hunting.

As was it always was whenever I landed anything, before even attempting to remove the hook whilst the fish was drowning in air I stuck my fingers down it's throat and broke it's neck.

One day it was another fisherman watched me doing this to ask why for me to tell him the Japanese of whom most would agree are masters at fish preparation believe a caught fish must not suffer needlessly as a fish left to drown in air or be clumsily clubbed unconscious to drown in air shoots the body with adrenaline of which taints the meat, as no way was I going to tell him I felt for the animals I caught.

Anyway later that day when I had caught enough Atlantic Mackeral to see me through the week, the guy I was talking to earlier was hauling in a great big Pollack, to land it, to on seeing me ask me to demonstrate on that monster, To find not two fingers but all four to render the same action effortlessly done. The next I saw the guy he said he'd been doing what I had shown him, he didn't say whether the meat was better, to consider he might be doing it for the same reasons I was.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,120
68
Florida
Just wondering how much of that is down to man's intrusion upon nature. Beavers are just doing what they do and what nature intends them to do. Presumably if there was more predators around nature would control the beavers better.

I know I Scotland one of the thoughts on the flooding is, if it is created further upstream it prevents the flooding lower down. Age old one where man interferes with nature and usually nature doesn't follow the script.

G

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
It would seem logical that natural predators would control the beavers. However we really don’t have any shortage of those either. Bears and alligators both prey on beavers and I believe in RV’s area the puma also do. The bears will actually swim out to the beaver lodge and tear it apart to gat to them. Not sure if coyote prey on them or not. In any case, when you reimtroduce the beaver are you going to also reintroduce the predators?
 
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Robson Valley

On a new journey
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,669
McBride, BC
I want to go fishing this summer. I think that I can walk well enough to find a place to fling some bait and sit in a lawn chair, waiting for a bite. I don't even care what I catch. It's a fact that 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water. They don't live where there's no food.
My custom rods lay in a rack that I see every time I go into my hoppy shop basement room. I took out all my Hardy Marquis reels and spools just the other day. There's something about the quality built into English fishing tackle. The clutch and the brakes still work just fine in my Abu. I miss fooling with that stuff.

The trappers do the best job of beaver management. They want a sustained yield on their trap line for years. Just outside the city, two Rottweiler dogs decided to kill a beaver. They wouldn't quit. I saw them at the Vet's clinic, he quit counting after the first 1,000 stitches. What sorry messes but the owner insisted that they be repaired.
 

Winnet

Forager
Oct 5, 2011
231
69
Aberdeen
It would seem logical that natural predators would control the beavers. However we really don’t have any shortage of those either. Bears and alligators both prey on beavers and I believe in RV’s area the puma also do. The bears will actually swim out to the beaver lodge and tear it apart to gat to them. Not sure if coyote prey on them or not. In any case, when you reimtroduce the beaver are you going to also reintroduce the predators?
There has been talk about reintroducing lynx but not sure what the plan is.

G

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