All done
October 5, 2009
I am both happy and disappointed that the electro fishing season has finished. It is physically demanding and I was starting to feel quite fatigued, but at the same time I will miss being on the river everyday surveying the fish. That said I have already been reminded that spring is only 6 months away and then I will be at it all over again!
We started the week on Cam beck on of the two becks that join together to form the Ribble Proper. We found a few trout but no salmon. I believe this is to do with the size of beck combined with distance from the main river, this is something I will be looking into in more detail once my results have been gathered and analysed. We then finished off on Wigglesworth, Ged and Slipping Brook. Slipping brook turned out to be the most Fish Diverse site of the year, with Salmon, Trout, Eels, Lamprey, Stone loach, Bullhead, Minnows, and Chubb being present.
Tuesday we surveyed the main river above Horton, the site had mixed results but we hope to work with Manchester Anglers to improve the habitat, specifically to give more cover to salmonid juveniles. We also visited Settle to look at the Hydro project, our hope is that all in river work will be completed by the next high water. After Settle we decided to squeeze in a quick survey on West Bradford Brook, of which the results for trout were staggering, a very important trout spawning brook!
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we undertook our surveys to monitor the impact of American Signal Crayfish on salmonids. Interesting results, as suspected the ASC are having a negative impact on Bullheads and salmonids alike. In fact work from 2007 and 2008 has been submitted by Stephanie Peyar to a peer reviewed journal in the hope that it will be published, highlighting the negative impacts of this god awful invader. I will make sure when published the data is available here for all to see. One thing that I will highlight now relating to crayfish plague but also relevant to other fish diseases is; THE NEED TO DISINFECT BETWEEN CATCHMENTS, it doesn’t apply to just anglers, as walkers including their dogs can transfer the disease. A new out break of crayfish plague on the our signal site is now speeding up the demise of the Whiteclaws potentially accelerating the spread of ASC. The Whiteclaws have a hard enough time of it as it is so please between catchments disinfect! New populations of ASC are found all the time (to my horror) and you may think the beck you have been in has no ASC so no plague but you never know, and it is not worth the risk!
I’m sorry it is a short blog especially seeing I am planning a couple of weeks of now to recover so there won’t be any for a couple of weeks, but once I am re-charged I am sure I will have plenty of activities to report on!
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