Yes,god forbid the otters might continue to make a come back and start eating their natural food. Look to the damage humans have caused before blaming wildlife.

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RB,If you had read Mr Harris’s letter carefully instead of jumping to conclusions you would have noticed that he commented on the human damage,”water abstraction,fertilizers and pesticides have all done their share to demean our waters”.
I have fished the River Severn for over 30 years and the decline in fish stocks (especially dace,roach and chub) over the last 5 years has been dramatic and man has more than played his part in this by introducing non native species “ie mink” and by over fishing the seas thus forcing cormorants to seek their food in inland waters.
Like the vast majority of anglers I enjoy seeing otters in the river,they should be there,but RB if there are no fish for them to eat how much longer will we see them ?

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Having fished the Severn all my life, I have seen many changes in the stocks of fish. Eels are pretty much gone now along with other declining stocks that used to be abundant around 30 years ago. During this time I have seen a very big change in responsibilities and attitudes of anglers that use the severn. A little more respect for the waterway would do better, its your fishing spot for today but someone elses tomorrow.

I have been away from the counties fishing scene for the last 10 years, but I do remember that most of the water was owned by certain clubs, why are they not taking a bigger role in re-stocking the water?

I now fish the waters of Ontario where things are a little different. Conservation is at the forefront of the fishing program. There are two licenses here, a sportsman which allows you to take 5 fish per day for consumption and a conservation which allows you to take 2 per day for consumption. Both these licenses allow you to fish anywhere in the province of Ontario, there are no club owned waters except private fisheries. However there are clubs here that have conservation in mind and do raise fry for re-stocking. There are government grants for this which clubs can apply for. All the money raised from the sale of fishing licenses goes straight back into the conservation of wildlife.

Here conservation is part of everyone’s agenda and raising fish for our local waters is just done. As I said local clubs take it upon themselves to raise the fish stocks and introduce them into the rivers and lakes. Our local club released over a half million fish last year including salmon, trout and walleye.

Not everything is rosey here too, we do have invasive species such as lamprey, nasty little buggers that attach themselves to the fish and feed. We have issues with government funding that sometimes gets cut. But people here make a noise when this happens and it gets pretty intense.

Back to the Severn: I do miss fishing this river, and all you guys are right when you say that something needs to be done. But unless you do it yourself or make an extremely loud noise, nothing gets done.

Rob, Andy, KB, Dave h and David, you all have a passion for fishing and one truly for the Severn, get together make some noise and start breeding fish for re-stocking, go for it, you have my support.

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