Trout in the Town:

Hi everyone, I have a few dates for your diaries for some of the SPRITE winter work schedule. 2nd Oct 2011– wild flower and grass seeding This is a really important job for a number of reasons. The root structure of grasses and plants stabilises soil banks reducing erosion, so preventing silt entering the water course. It also greatly increases diversity of the riparian habitat which will have a knock on benefit for all flora and fauna. I particularly want to try some seeding in the areas where the EA has previously stem injected the Japanese Knotweed. These bankside areas may well be vulnerable to winter floods, so it is vital that we stabilise these areas. Meet 9.30 – 12.30 by the Farfield Hotel, town end of Club Mill Roa . 30th Oct – general litter pick , The first of this winter's litter clean ups. PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE NOW Meet 9.30 – 12.30 AT LIVESEY STREET BRIDGE . 27th Nov – bird & bat box painting and installation We still have a number of bird and b...

Two of the new attendees at our " urban conclave " in February this year invited me back to their own urban river recently. The purpose of the visit was two-fold; first of all to do some " mayfly in the classroom " training and also to do a revisit to the site that I had provided a habitat report on last winter. As well as exploring opportunities for access to spawning tributaries, my hosts also kindly allowed me to fish their privately owned section. Sadly this piece of river suffers serious pollution spills every few years. These have included incidents that have wiped out all fish - including thousands of eels. In fact, the only fish to survive one such incident in 2009 were the handful of eels that managed to CLIMB OUT ONTO THE RIVERBANK and ball up in tree roots. Therefore, it was more an act of defiance to make our way up the river with fully rigged fly rods casting into numerous likely-looking spots in the vain hope of proving the water chemistry data wrong. ...