Low water and Wasps Stings
September 21, 2009
Another week goes by and we have just two weeks left after last. We are now running into a new problem, the water is too low!! The typical response of a salmon angler, waters to low or it’s to high, to coloured or to clear – never happy! We concentrated on detailed quantitative surveys last week. We started on Long Preston Beck near the confluence with the Ribble, then gathering info far up to the upper catchment.
Tuesday the trust’s 4×4 was in for an MOT, which thank fully it passed with flying colours. After that we headed to Waddington to undertake a detailed survey, we found great results as with last year, including 2 brook Lamprey which is double what we found last year. One was a Juvenile and the other an Adult. The way to determine the difference is that the Juvenile have no eyes, where as the adults are eyed. The Juveniles are also Brown in colour, where as the adults are silvery. Juveniles before maturing into adults are also bigger than than the adults, this is because once matured the Brook Lamprey does not feed, a little like the Atlantic salmon!
Wednesday we undertook survey on the Trust’s habitat schemes on Rathmel beck and the rest of the subcatchment. We had some fantastic results, but unfortunately we found a serious pollution. We found the pollution by spotting long stringy fungus in the beg, and a sweet fermenting/rotting smell. We rang it straight through to the EA hotline and within an hour a local EA pollution officer came out on site and identified the source of the pollution. This is now being dealt with by the EA. This is a great result, for a dreadful find. The EA officer (Neil Finch) said that it was in fact a quite serious silage liquor leak into the beck and much praise should be given to the EA for sourcing it and putting a stop to it so quickly.
Thursday we surveyed Tems beck in three locations, finding White Clawed crayfish and top Trout populations, however very few salmon fry. Later on we headed to Bashall to undertake a couple of surveys. There was a definite improvement from last year with both salmon and trout fry present, as well as some sizable brown trout. However this beck is still far below parr.
Friday we headed to stock beck near the confluence with the Ribble. I started the morning setting the stop nets, as I was setting the stop net I spotted a wasp nest right above my head. I carefully freed my stop net and moved away steadily but quickly, just as I thought I was clear I got stung right in the back of the head! I then pegged it as when a wasp stings it releases Pheromones which attract other wasps to defend the nest. Once I was clear I had to sit down for a while as the throbbing in my head was making me a little dizzy. We got the survey done, and then I decided to call it a day, well apart from some paperwork. Although the sting is gone, I’m still carrying the lump which is a little itchy!
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