Signals and Escapee Rainbows

May 11, 2009

Well as the title of this post suggests these were the Hot topics for last week! But first on a non-trust note – I have to admit to being tired and aching this morning as I did a training walk for an upcoming sponsored walk. Not another sponsored walk I hear you say, well this is a little more extreme than most! I have done this event once before along the South Downs, but this year there is one in Yorkshire. It’s 100km (that 62.5 miles to most of us), which is to be completed in under 24 hours, we are aiming for sub 20 hours! This is a non-stop walk which starts at 8 in the morning and we walk all day and most of the night to finish. It is quite simply the physically hardest thing I have ever done, and I am not sure why I’m doing it again! Yesterday was a nice short 21 miles walk from my house to the back of Pendle, up Pendle, down Pendle and up to the Nick of Pendle, over to Wisewell then back home. All in 5 hours 47 mins!! So I know everyone is asking you for money at the moment, but if you feel like supporting me, it would be much appreciated, any amount small or large penny’s or pounds would be much appreciated. You can send it to the office here, or fill in a form on line at http://www.justgiving.com/ontdales09, all funds are going to Oxfam. I am currently planning to do something similar for the Trust next year which would be the Ribble Way in 24 hours, so this is good training!

Right request for money over onto business! Monday I went out with Jason Pusley from the EA pollution team to undertake some more kick samples. We unfortunately found the worst Invertebrate result to date, which means serious pollution in this location. The EA will now be following this up. In the Afternoon, I headed off to do another targeted Kick Sample on Boyces Brook at Ribchester, we did find a problem, and as per usual all data has been passed to the EA who have in fact already followed it up!

Tuesday we spent part of the day searching for a suitable location for another off stream spawning channel on the Dunsop, we found a really good spot on the Brennand which we hope we may be able to create in the near future. This will really benefit from the new and soon to be introduced hands off flow on the Brennand and Whitendale. This is something our Trustees and several others fought very very hard for and achieved a fantastic result – it will certainly put many many more fish in our Rivers.

Wednesday we met with the leader on the Signal Crayfish “problem” from the EA. We met on site in the morning to look at our proposal and discuss methodology timings and amendments. It was very positive, and I certainly learnt a few things I didn’t know. But most importantly it looks like the proposal for this trial will now go ahead (subject to certain consents). If this works we maybe able to eliminate the Signal Crayfish Threat.

Last year I spoke to many anglers (whilst fishing myself) on the Hodder. One thing that kept cropping up was the numbers of Rainbows being caught. What was alarming was the size of some of them. One angler reported catching 10 in a day and on other days had caught double figure rainbows and Browns. This is another Pressure the Hodder does not need. For those of you who are wondering what the issues are:

1) Direct Predation – The rainbows will be voracious feeders eating fry and Parr
2) Competition – The bigger escapees will take up the best lies giving them the best cover from predation and also feeding
3) Indirect Predation – As part of the above competition our wild fish, will be more exposed to cormorants, minks, herons, and many other predators further denting the population. Also the Higher numbers of fish in the river will attract more predators further increasing this problem.
4) Behaviour at Spawning – There is some suggestion that the escapees during the spawning season will show increased levels of aggression leading to salmon and trout being pushed off there reads and spawning interrupted, this is quite a serious issue.

All of the above are not 100% concrete, and there has been some evidence to show that point 4) may not be the case, however some of them go without saying.

So this is a serious issue, we set up a meeting with the EA and the Owner of Stocks Fishery (Ben) on Thursday to go through our options. Ben gave us a great deal of background that was very informative and helped to formulate a way forward. We had been looking at the feasibility of an electronic fish screen on the Spillway to deter fish from go over. However Ben had evidence from previous work that only non-triploid fish (i.e. diploids) were going over the spillway in an attempt to spawn. He had believed he had tackled this problem by insisting on stocking with only triploids (a certificate can be provided by suppliers), unfortunately last year was a bad year for the production of triploids (accross the board) which meant a high percentage of supposed triploids were diploids. Combined with the high flows this maybe what caused the numerous catches in the Hodder last year (in fact I landed a 4.5lb Rainbow whilst fishing near Knowlmere). We managed to trash out a way forward, and Ben will now only stock with triploids, insisting on a certificate as proof which will be passed onto the EA, he also said he would not stock Blue Trout (they cannot be triploided. We will also look at installing a trap at the bottom of the Spillway to determine if this solves the problem. This is a very positive outcome, and thank Ben for his help with this problem if we can work with all our partners in this way we will resolve many more problems!

Posted by Charles Edward Poate | Filed Under Uncategorized 

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