Trout in the Town:

The last day of the grayling season saw another band of intrepids take to the river in order to catch up, fish and record the days findings to keep up the record of our river's stocks. The TEAM head out A great day out and evidence that, at least in sections of the river, sufficient grayling have survived the attentions of a large influx of goosander to keep going over another cold winter. We are lucky that there are good areas of cover on the river as well as the steep gradient of the river maintaining a wide variety of current speeds and depths. Dave "Cort nowt" W proving his forum nickname wrong again Goosander are beautiful birds, but freezing over of their normal feeding areas can put a great deal of pressure on dense winter shoals of river grayling. In rivers with a little less varied habitat, the impacts can be very severe and the presence of impassable weirs or other barriers reduce the chances of fish re-colonisation. Of course, the birds are able to fly betwee...

Friday February 25th through to Monday the 28th saw a massive payoff for over 2 years' worth of planning, design proposals, negotiation and persistance (not only on my part, but on the part of the Wandle Trust - in particular Bella Davies and Theo Pike). Members of the local E.A. fisheries team (including Tanya Houston) also pushed forward the important removal of several barriers to trout migration - which will soon see a fish pass added to a large weir to complement the lowering/removal of 3 other weirs. Finally, we had the go ahead to begin the creation of good quality spawning, juvenile and adult trout habitat patches in the upper reaches of the Carshalton arm of the River Wandle: the next step in returning truly wild self-sustaining trout populations since their demise in the polluted waters of the 1930s. Whilst seeking to arrange this year's "Trout in the Town Urban River Champion's Conclave" , the thought occurred that it would be incredibly fitting to sh...

Mayfly in the Classroom now has its own dedicated web-space. Everything you need to run these projects in your local schools and community groups should be found in the pages at Mayfly in the classroom Enjoy PG

The latest in a series of river restoration guidelines has been launched by the WTT. This latest installment focusses on guiding local community members in adopting and caring for their urban river reaches and have been developed by the TinTT programme manager based on the first two years of working with the first 8 UK chapters of TinTT. The guidelines are available for free download in low resolution here: URBAN RIVER RESTORATION GUIDELINES Here is the report on the first two years of the project including progress against objectives as well as lessons learnt: FINAL REPORT They will shortly be available to purchase at full resolution on CD from the online shop at THE WILD TROUT TRUST Enjoy. PG

Here on Facebook: SPRITE facebook group Enjoy PG

A little London Chalkstream near Sidcup which has been diligently looked after in recent years by Thames21's Ashe Hurst got another shot in the arm on Thursday and Friday last week. Two of the WTT's conservation officers (Andy Thomas and Paul Gaskell) did two days of specific habitat improvement works in order to train the Thames21 staff and volunteers (including local youngsters who have been excluded from schools). A variety of uses of woody debris, brash bundles, wire, stakes and metal pin fixings were used to promote localised scouring of the stream bed, sorting and cleaning of spawning gravels and submerged "brashy" cover for juvenile fish. The videos below show the increase in flow and change from "concreted" immobile gravels (with dark algal growth) to mobile and silt free (light coloured)particles at the pinch point created by an upstream "V" flow deflector The flows prior to the installation of the upstream V were much more sluggish and fa...

An example of some of the useful communication of highly relevant information that can be passed directly to grass roots participants just by contributing to an online specialist forum. Click the link below: http://www.flyforums.co.uk/826909-post86.html In summary - don't trim/remove debris that produces localised gravel scour: This trailing branch debris is cleaning and "sorting" gravel for spawning - note the brighter patch of gravel and don't tread on redds (trout "nests") containing eggs: Newly formed redd which will allow eggs to hatch and emerging tiny fish (alevins) to shelter in the gaps between the pebbles below the surface of the gravel bed Trout cutting a redd - photo Peter Henriksson