More obvious general factors, like over fishing by commercial boats through the second half of the 20th century aside; one of the big puzzles to me had always been, why the drop in Cod seemed to hit my area of Essex more than a lot of other UK marks? 
(spoiler alert........be prepared for a longgggg droning thread here 😄)
Not to say our beaches are devoid of them, people to this day do still land Codling from the beaches and piers around our coast (with some 'bumper years' for them even being reported); but talking to past generations of fisherman and looking at modern catch reports, its pretty clear that compared to the catches of yesteryear, Essex is by no means a realistic venue to choose to fish for them if you want to have a probable chance of landing one.
Here on the Thames for instance, the more decent sized Winter Cod used to be caught as far up as Thurrock (probably even further), in reasonable numbers, with Codling being a solid possibility all year round. In recent decades you'd of been lucky to hear of people landing a single small Codling (the new super-port and tunnel being a factor in even more recent times) but the Winter and Spring Run catches were dwindling well before then.
The more northern parts of Essex seemed to fair up slightly better (though places like Holderness, The Bristol Channel and the western half of the English Channel......and maybe Suffolk would be much much better by miles).
So whats the big deal with Essex? Particularly the South? Well you could say its down to North Sea stocks that have plummeted....clearly a factor.....but looking at the catches they get up north around Yorkshire and in places like Norway, it can't just be down to stocks alone.....you actually still get Cod in some decent number and size in these places (especially Norway)....many of those Cod in theory, should be migrating further South in better number, but they aren't. Maybe the reduced stocks only need to cover so much ground now to 'get their fill' before breeding? (unlike us humans, they might actually know when to stop 😦)
Other factors no doubt include......
When you look at the terrain we have here, Essex (and all of East Anglia) has always been known as one huge low lying area of marshland (we probably have the lowest elevation of most other places in the UK), marshland in itself is naturally acidic......its one huge anaerobic slab of rotting compost. Paired with the fact we have one of the biggest drainage points in the UK being the River Thames and we also have much wetter winters now (caused by the warmer temps), we must get a lot of extra acidity leech out into the estuary and off our marshy coastline in Winter when the Cod would otherwise be around more 🐟🐟.
I know that there many species that are very intolerant of these conditions.....Plaice for one seem to much favour beaches along chalky or rockier coasts that are more alkaline......and though you get fish like Bass, Flounder, Mullet and Eel that seem to tolerate it more, I remember reading that Cod do not like too much acidity (another reason why Norway must be such a Cod mecca, what with all that pristine PH neutral glacial water flowing out to sea). Essex also has some weird current here too, that could potentially 'concentrate the acidity in one place' as well as erode our marshy acid coast into the water......taking a look at the charts you can see what looks like a great tidal swirl off the south east coast.
![Image]()
One thing that hits home when you look into these things and try to fathom them out.........is that of the knock on effect of how we live............just imagine if each person halved their yearly Cod consumption from the local chippy (and not just the people here but in Europe and all over the world) as an added bonus I bet the prices would go down! 😅. And just imagine if every person halved all the products they bought on average each year in this 'throw away' society of ours.......it would virtually half our greenhouse gas output and half the climate change problem that causes all these issues.
Though its allowed some interesting warmer species to move further north, you have to ask yourself, how long will it be until there's no room left for the cold water species like our Cod? as the warm water creeps further north. I for one would love to see decent numbers of decent sized Cod return to the south east again. We live in hope 👍👍
Links:
Analysis: How UK winters are getting warmer and wetter - Carbon Brief
What Is Ocean Acidification?
Cod | British Sea Fishing
Atlantic cod - Wikipedia
Cod Migration: The Changing Tides of UK Fisheries (ecoweeb.org)
(spoiler alert........be prepared for a longgggg droning thread here 😄)Not to say our beaches are devoid of them, people to this day do still land Codling from the beaches and piers around our coast (with some 'bumper years' for them even being reported); but talking to past generations of fisherman and looking at modern catch reports, its pretty clear that compared to the catches of yesteryear, Essex is by no means a realistic venue to choose to fish for them if you want to have a probable chance of landing one.
Here on the Thames for instance, the more decent sized Winter Cod used to be caught as far up as Thurrock (probably even further), in reasonable numbers, with Codling being a solid possibility all year round. In recent decades you'd of been lucky to hear of people landing a single small Codling (the new super-port and tunnel being a factor in even more recent times) but the Winter and Spring Run catches were dwindling well before then.
The more northern parts of Essex seemed to fair up slightly better (though places like Holderness, The Bristol Channel and the western half of the English Channel......and maybe Suffolk would be much much better by miles).
So whats the big deal with Essex? Particularly the South? Well you could say its down to North Sea stocks that have plummeted....clearly a factor.....but looking at the catches they get up north around Yorkshire and in places like Norway, it can't just be down to stocks alone.....you actually still get Cod in some decent number and size in these places (especially Norway)....many of those Cod in theory, should be migrating further South in better number, but they aren't. Maybe the reduced stocks only need to cover so much ground now to 'get their fill' before breeding? (unlike us humans, they might actually know when to stop 😦)
Other factors no doubt include......
- rising sea temperatures meaning they don't have to travel as far south during winter to find warmer water to feed in before breeding BUT you still get them further south than Essex down at places like Chesil in good number and size in the Winter?
- climate change also effecting the tidal currents that they rely on (seems plausible, but I haven't found any info on this for Essex or the southern North Sea specifically yet......maybe someone else would have some info on this?)
When you look at the terrain we have here, Essex (and all of East Anglia) has always been known as one huge low lying area of marshland (we probably have the lowest elevation of most other places in the UK), marshland in itself is naturally acidic......its one huge anaerobic slab of rotting compost. Paired with the fact we have one of the biggest drainage points in the UK being the River Thames and we also have much wetter winters now (caused by the warmer temps), we must get a lot of extra acidity leech out into the estuary and off our marshy coastline in Winter when the Cod would otherwise be around more 🐟🐟.
I know that there many species that are very intolerant of these conditions.....Plaice for one seem to much favour beaches along chalky or rockier coasts that are more alkaline......and though you get fish like Bass, Flounder, Mullet and Eel that seem to tolerate it more, I remember reading that Cod do not like too much acidity (another reason why Norway must be such a Cod mecca, what with all that pristine PH neutral glacial water flowing out to sea). Essex also has some weird current here too, that could potentially 'concentrate the acidity in one place' as well as erode our marshy acid coast into the water......taking a look at the charts you can see what looks like a great tidal swirl off the south east coast.
One thing that hits home when you look into these things and try to fathom them out.........is that of the knock on effect of how we live............just imagine if each person halved their yearly Cod consumption from the local chippy (and not just the people here but in Europe and all over the world) as an added bonus I bet the prices would go down! 😅. And just imagine if every person halved all the products they bought on average each year in this 'throw away' society of ours.......it would virtually half our greenhouse gas output and half the climate change problem that causes all these issues.
Though its allowed some interesting warmer species to move further north, you have to ask yourself, how long will it be until there's no room left for the cold water species like our Cod? as the warm water creeps further north. I for one would love to see decent numbers of decent sized Cod return to the south east again. We live in hope 👍👍
Links:
Analysis: How UK winters are getting warmer and wetter - Carbon Brief
What Is Ocean Acidification?
Cod | British Sea Fishing
Atlantic cod - Wikipedia
Cod Migration: The Changing Tides of UK Fisheries (ecoweeb.org)
