Zander...yes or no ?

beer enigma

Probably inevitable that it will hit Irish rivers within the next 10 years.....initially caused major problems with fish stocks in England, but the balance is gradually coming back and now happily co-exist in rivers such as the Lower Severn....

In the long term plan of things....yes or no ?

Auldloon

Definite no. Alien species and all that goes with that.

wayne riley

pike were introduce into ireland in the 12th century, roach and dace in 1889. historical evidence indicates that the natural fish in irish waters were salmon, brown trout, char, pollan and eels. so we can assume all other species were introduced mostly from england by the normans and then by the owners of large estates. id say try zander out in a lake and monitor it 2 see if any damage is done 2 stocks of fish already in lake. as i would love 2 hav another predator fish 2 target. but dats my oppinion and im sure others will disagree:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

chiuleog as you can see nearly all fish in ireland were alien fish at some stage,
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

bitemybanger

The English tought it would be the end of the world and no more fishing but this wasnt the case, if zander were introduced here which they will, there would be very minimal effects like in the UK, nature always balances itself out. Scare tactics on Boards again:rolleyes:

ButcherOfNog

I'd rather see us properly protect our pike stocks than introduce another predator. I can't see how Zander would add anything to Angling in Ireland.

Popanddrop

I would like to see Zander introduced into some lakes in Ireland not all but some, thus increasing the predator species.

adonis

i think its a bad idea in general to introduce fish into lakes etc..
then you end up with a mix of all different kinds of fish and no actual defining characteristics of fishing in ireland - if you want zander - go to england - if you want cat fish - go to spain...

id also strongly agree with the butcher of nog - why would you want to fish for zander when you have pike?

emoKILLER

bitemybanger wrote: »

The English tought it would be the end of the world and no more fishing but this wasnt the case, if zander were introduced here which they will, there would be very minimal effects like in the UK, nature always balances itself out. Scare tactics on Boards again:rolleyes:

not really, they took over in the waters they were introduced into. Their numbers were and in some cases still are kept down by electro fishing. i cant see them coming into irish waters, who would be bothered? unless a fishery board introduces them, they wont survive as they will need numbers to reproduce. fisheries board may introduct them into small land locked lakes, but they will never introduce into the big course rivers like the shannon, inny etc.....

rant over!!!

coolwings

Zander is a competitor predator which will eat small pike and also other small fish that pike forage on.
If Zander are added to the ecosystem, we get fewer pike, and there will be fewer forage fish so the remaining pike grow slower.
Pike are bigger than Zander, stronger than Zander, superior sport fish to Zander.
Pike are fast growing in our climate.

Why would we reduce our pike fishing quality if we don't have to?

stevecrow74

Andip wrote: »

Probably inevitable that it will hit Irish rivers within the next 10 years.....initially caused major problems with fish stocks in England, but the balance is gradually coming back and now happily co-exist in rivers such as the Lower Severn....

In the long term plan of things....yes or no ?

the balance didnt gradually come back... dont know how old you are but i take it you dont remember the massive cull of zander in the 1980's, thousands of fish were taken to maintain a balance which still fluctuates to this day

beer enigma

stevecrow74 wrote: »

the balance didnt gradually come back... dont know how old you are but i take it you dont remember the massive cull of zander in the 1980's, thousands of fish were taken to maintain a balance which still fluctuates to this day

I was 16 in 1980 , so yes I do remember the cull, but culling has reduced dramatically since and there is a balance coming into place on certain rivers.

I do take your point & one of my fears is that the UK fisheries authorities are way more active than the Irish authorities & the import of Zander could have a far worse effect here.

adonis

personally i think our fishing is fine as it is...
why would you want to add fish to the system? there is a huge diversity there already.

demanufactured

Can you imagine the outcry from the WRFB , lol it would be hilarious.

Now that Zebra mussels are in the westen lakes its only a matter of time before they find something else to whine about.

Deagánach666

People throw fits over species like this It's not like we're introducing an alien species from another continent. The only Native fish in Ireland are Bullhead, líbín, stickleback, Salmon ids, Shads, Pollan, Sturgeon, Irish Pike and Eel. Zander is a European fish. Europe has the same fish species in every country. Look how England is. Many EU fish were introduced and its fine. So I think people go mad for no reason. Now I'm not saying to start releasing all EU species but I'm just saying calm down. And our huge pike will control most fish with ease.

I would support Stock lakes in Ireland like that are in England with Wel'scatfish, Zander, Barbel. Plus Zander doesn't get big. They rarely outgrow 10 pounds. The biggest ever was 20 pound. And that was from Germany. Irelands cold climate stop fish like Zander getting huge. Especially when we have the most successful predator as a native species. Wel'scatfish I'd also wouldn't be too worried about because climate and lacking of diverse bait fish we won't have a River Ebro situation.

So what I'm saying is yes to all of these, but in stock lakes preferably with supervision

twin_beacon

14 year old thread!

The anglers that really would be interested in fishing for Zander would be Pike anglers. I do a lot of Pike fishing, and I would have zero interest in fishing for Zander in a commercial fishery. I'd rather be Pike fishing on a wild venue! I would love to fish for Zander, but I would much prefer to travel to somewhere like Holland to fish for them. Same goes for Catfish, and Barbel.

Introducing a species purely for angling is bad idea, I guess the only species that has been introduced here for angling is Rainbow Trout? Carp and Tench were brought over by monks for food. Roach and dace were illegally introduced.