Huge fish congregation as swum down Burwell Lode away from Burwell, Cambridgeshire into setting sun.

On 3 July 2026, getting into Burwell Lode at Burwell, it was strangely fishless, apart from very scared Perch, having suffered vegetation clearance, apart from in one short reach, which was absolutely packed with fish, all behaving in quite a stressed way. It seems that in this reach, under the pylon, the vegetation had been spared for safety reasons, providing an invaluable refugia for the fish. This is as we discovered the reach where the vegetation had been left, with busily feeding Bleak (Alburnus alburnus), Common Dace (Leuciscus leuciscus), Common Roach (Rutilus rutilus) and European Perch (Perca fluviatilis) the dominant species, with Silver Bream (Blicca bjoerkna) and the occasional Common Gudgeon (Gobio gobio), fish fry in the bankside macrophytes with the last remaining Yellow Water-lily (Nuphar lutea) in bloom. For a thread of 13 posts on what we saw in Burwell Lode see https://bsky.app/profile/numenini.bsk... or https://x.com/numenini/status/2079142.... (3 July 2026 GX011828 34 35 36)