Preparation, preparation, preparation…
November 30, 2009
In between school, and then university I did the usual student thing of getting myself a job to pay off the overdraft and or student loan. One such job which I did during summer holidays was the “prep” boy for a painter and decorator friend of the family. He always said that the most important thing with painting and decorating was to get the preparation right. I learnt that the hard way once or twice trying to cut corners and then straight away you could tell after the paint was dry. It is principle that is in much use at the moment for us at the trust. With 14 projects lined up for next year and a relatively tight window in which to get them done, we need to make sure the preparation is done and done right, hopefully giving us a smoother ride next year.
To that end Monday we were going through the Barrowford 3 fish pass project, looking at the design quotes and planning who we would be going to quotation for the works. Then was the preperation on another habitat project, budget, plans and grant applications. Then there was a web seminar for the Association of Rivers Trusts, angler passport scheme. We hope to start our next spring and so we had to make sure we were happy with everything and ready to go when the time was right.
In the evening was the Annual General Meeting for the Trust. It was a record attendance of 31, still short of the numbers we would like to see but if we can grow it a bit every year that would be fantastic. The usual parts of an AGM were held including the treasurer’s report from Alan Rowntree and then Philip gave the chairman’s report including project lists and plans for the next year. Following on was Stephen’s and my reports for our respective contributions to the trust. I think everyone was suitably surprised by the amount we had done, and the amount Philip reported we would do in the coming year. One thing that both Alan and Philip both brought up and something of great importance, which I hate to labour here – is our “core funding”. The trust is lacking in the core funding for staff, equipment, and administration. Although we fund much of our project work through grants, little of the core funds are raised from here. We rely heavily on donations, and membership of the Trust for core funding. If the trust is to survive, we do need to raise this area of funding. Alan urged everyone to become members and for friends and family of members to consider joining, something I echo here. It not only gives us sustainability for staff, but it makes it a dam site easier to raise money through grants if we don’t have to include core costs. So please consider joining if you haven’t or persuading other to join. We hope in the coming year to offer more to members other than the satisfaction that they are making a contribution to the well being of the Catchment.
Moving onto more the more usual activities, Tuesday I went to lower Hodder, with Mark Rudd to look at the flow gauging weir, and how we can improve passage for Trout, Eels and coarse fish. It was a successful meeting and we will be putting in an application with the EA to make some improvements.
Wednesday Stephen and I headed to Sabden to look at the off stream spawning channel and to look for salmon. The spawning channel had altered dramatically, with some heavy erosion and massive deposits of gravel by the brook. We will need to make some adjustments to improve the channel, which we hope to get done with volunteers, so keep an eye on this blog and you’re email as next year I will be calling for help! In the village we looked over a bridge only to spot yet another impassable barrier, a weir that used to feed several lodges. So my report of 61 barriers to migration at the AGM, increased to 62! After this we headed to Padiham weir to look for salmon, none we’re seen but over 2 foot of water was pouring over the weir and we felt that this was to much water to see running fish.
Thursday was a busy office day, followed by a meeting with Kyle Young of the EA down at Lutra House to go through a project bid looking at small beck restoration. A successful way forward was found and a bid was submitted by Kyle to the EA first thing this morning, so fingers crossed we will have some luck.
Friday, we headed out to look at the Hodder to see what the state of play with salmon migration and spawning was, there was a lot of water on, and so we looked at Losterdale and at Langden. We saw a small trout attempting a fish pass on Losterdale, but the design of this particular fish pass left much to be desired and the poor fish stood no chance. So with another project identified we left him to it! On the way back to the office we popped into Ivan Hargreaves in Whalley to drop off a display and a stock of Malcolm Greenhalgh’s books for a sale on Sunday. After a bite to eat and a bit of admin we headed upto Stock beck again in search of salmon. None found but the beck looked in good order and I don’t think it will be long before they are their, and spawning is underway across the whole catchment in earnest.
Wet, wet, wet…..
November 23, 2009
Well I can definitely say I’m glad I am neither in Cockermouth or a River Cocker fish or fish egg. I managed two days fishing on the Cocker this year, and one of the bridges that was washed away in Lorton, I had stood on looking for moving fish. It is quite strange to think that a big stone bridge like that was so easily washed away.
In all seriousness the high waters won’t be doing us many favours at all. My report for our AGM tonight was finally completed on Friday after spending the best part of a week looking through the analysed data. I knew already that there was an overall improvement, and that this was due to three factors, but the one I think that was the most important, and highly relevant looking out my window now and listening to the news, is Redd wash out. The more I looked at data and read about the effects of high water on redds the more convinced I became that the low winter waters of 2008 resulted in a much better redd survival, and on top of that the timing of the spring “floods” was well after alevins had emerged, and there is much scientific evidence that this is another vulnerable stage for our juveniles. Salmon tend to suffer less as they are able to bury the eggs far deeper, but trout on average only seem to get them down 15cms.
So what does this mean, well I am fairly certain next years trout fry results will be lower than this years already, with much of the trout having spawned. If the weather eases then salmon fry may be better or the same. What else can we do? The well used words of climate change will continue to be used by all and sundry but to bring home climate change we must link it to every day occurrences and things people care about, we are lucky it is not our homes that are being washed away but our fish are still fairly important, to us. We must cut our Green house gas emissions, of that there is no doubt, and encourage others to do the same. This is the first thing we can do, and must be the first, as everything else is mitigation and will not be as effective as halting climate change. At our AGM tonight I will mention some of the other mitigation measures we can take on the ground.
So off my soap box, and onto what else we got on with last week! Monday was the usual report writing, as was Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Wednesday I went up to Kendal to a North West Crayfish group meeting. The importance of the North West for White clawed crayfish can’t be understated. Probably the most important area in Europe. Much was discussed and key outcomes are the needs for educating people about crayfish plague and signal crayfish. Crayfish plague will devastate white claw populations in a short period of time, and it is easily transferred on fishing tackle, wellies, even dogs. It is so important when fishing in different catchments that we disinfect our equipment, tackle and foot wear. This is not just for anglers, but walkers, and canoeists as well. Disinfectant is not expensive, and can be bought from vets, and farmers co operatives. It doesn’t just stop crayfish plague but will help to halt the transmission of fish diseases such as G. salaris. The introduction of signal crayfish is just as bad for white claws, but our ASC vs fish research is indicating a severe impact on salmonids from signal crayfish. We must discourage anyone thinking of introducing ASC to waterways, it is also illegal under various legislation and holds a severe penalty.
Thursday I met up with Ian, Maurice and John from United Utilities to look at some problems on the Brennand and to discuss other issues soon to be brought up on UU’s estate. They were very keen and enthusiastic to help in anyway possible and we will work together to try and rectify the problems we have seen. Before Ian arrived I bumped into some students from Newcastle University who aer studying the impacts on water levels from the SCAMP program. It was a very useful chance meeting and we hope to share data to look at correlations between river level/flow and juvenile abundance.
Friday I finished my presentation for tonight’s AGM, and as a reward I went salmon spotting on some of the tributaries around Clitheroe. One place in particular I visited showed many salmon in large numbers trying to ascend a weir. This is a weir that we hope to work on to improve migration, we already knew salmon struggled to ascend but my visit really confirmed the point. I saw just one salmon successfully ascend the weir and there were over 30 attempts made in just 30 minutes. Removal of weir should always be our first option, but it is not always that simple. Quite often the landowner does not want to remove the weir as it may have historical, economic or physical value. We will always look to remove weirs, as even a fish pass is not the most ideal situations. Fish still have to use up valuable energy in ascending even the best of fish passes. The weir also have other ecological impacts, scouring of river bed down stream, and holding up valuable sediment and gravels upstream.
Watching the salmon on Friday, made me rather emotive, It is sad to watch animals that have faced threat after threat trying to ascend an obstruction so close to there final goal, it is also exciting to see so many of them, and makes me quite angry that our impact as a species can be so devastating. A cheesy line to finish this week blog - like those salmon I will continue to try and try (some say I am very trying) to improve the environment until I can’t do so anymore.
The Water Framework Directive
November 16, 2009
Last week was a shorter one, as I took off Friday to treat myself to a long weekend in Pembrokeshire with my family. Such luxury will be in short supply for the rest of the year as I have just about exhausted my leave and the extra hours I have built up from the summer. It was a very wet and long drive down, and a very wet and long weekend! There were floods abound in Pembrokeshire and much of south west Wales. When I lived there every other winter would be like that, but now it is a seemingly more common occurrence, and one looks at Climate Change as a potential cause. In terms of fisheries this is a major threat, work by Aberdeen University several years ago explored the effects of winter spates, their sizes and impacts on salmon and trout redds by monitoring artificial redds. The exact figures escape my memory but they were scary, quite common spate levels would wash out redds to a large degree. So as I looked over the bridges of my child hood in Pembs and saw the waters lapping the tops of the arches - I feared for the sea trout redds that will have already been laid and wondered whether it was similar in the my new home of Ribble Valley. It certainly made me want to reduce my carbon foot print!
Monday last week was the standard office day, going through correspondence and working on paper work, data analysis and preparing for the week ahead. I normal brief with Philip took place and we planned out our “strategy” for a Water Framework Directive (WFD) meeting the next day. Late on in the day Stephen and I headed down to the bottom length of Mearly Brook, we found one potential trout redd, but it was hard to be conclusive. We were encouraged by how clear the brook was running, and to see little sewage litter, hopefully indicating that despite the very high water of the previous week the controlled storm overflow was not used.
Tuesday Philip and I headed to Lancaster University where with 3 other trusts from the North West, Natural England, and the Environment Agency we looked at delivery of projects to aid the EA in delivering the UK’s(specifically the North West) promise on achieving good ecological status (GES) by it’s deadline. We went through several interesting presentation from the EA and NE and then sat down in our respective catchments to go through the works/issues. The WFD both excites and despairs me. The opportunities to get works done, the pressure the government is under to provide resources to get the work done and most importantly what this means for our rivers gets me into a state of heady excitement – ready to take on the whole catchment at once! Then I am brought back down by the paperwork & bureaucracy, poor ambition (not locally by EA, NE or us I would like to say!), and the failure to report the status of becks correctly. Many of the becks are in classifications that are too good. This makes them low priority and hard to get projects done to rectify them. I will stop now on this subject before I pull the soap box out and depress myself. We will however with the local teams, seek to rectify this and get the work that is needed done. In fact we already have 5 projects in the wings ready for submission to the EA this month!! On top of the 14 other projects we are doing next year!
Wednesday was a nice change of pace and I helped Stephen install the Trout in the Classroom tank into Edisford School. The kids were already excited by the prospect of trout, and we didn’t even have the eggs yet! Things went swimmingly and I hope that shortly there will be things swimming in that tank!
Thursday we received delivery of Malcolm Greenhalgh’s Book on the Ribble River & Valley. This is a great book on the history, fishing and countryside of the Ribble Valley. It is something that will be cherished by all who have an interest and love of this fantastic place. All the royalties of this book are going to the Ribble Catchment Conservation Trust and the Hodder Consultative. We will be selling them out of the office or anywhere we might be visiting. They are also available from several outlets in the Ribble Valley. It is an ideal Christmas present! More details will be available on the website soon and fliers soon to be distributed.
The rest of the day was a good old get on with my 2009 report and also prepare my report for the AGM on the 23 of November here at the office. So with the end of another week I am amazed as to how quickly this year is going, just 5 weeks to the festive season, and then it’s a new year!
Data analysis, the joys of excel
November 9, 2009
Another week spent with the onorous task of getting the data analysis completed for the end of year electro fishing report. It’s no small task, but what I have done so far this morning has made great in roads and I hope to be done some time this week.
Last week started with a long meeting with Philip as we didn’t see him the week before, and with a Trustee’s meeting Tuesday we had a lot of reporting to do – as we keep getting busier and busier. After Philip left there wasn’t a huge deal left of the day but I was sure come 5 o’clock my vision had a distinct spreadsheet distortion to it!
Tuesday more of the same, finished my report for the trustees, got an invoice in the post and then spreadsheet after spreadsheet. In the evening was a long but productive trustees meeting. With so much going on it was no surprise that we were their till gone 22:00! I had a few action points which I have already followed.
Wednesday I met Darren Wilson the EA catchment officer for the Calder and we had a look at a couple of potential projects on the Calder. He was very positive and we hope to work with the EA and Barrowford AA to get these projects underway. In the afternoon…. more spreadsheets.
Thursday I had a day discussing electro fishing techniques statistics and fish in general with Rebbecca Chaffer the Fisheries Officer for the Eden Rivers Trust. We were pretty busy all day, as if you hadn’t guessed by my hints at spreadsheet above, there is a lot of statistics involved with fisheries data!! We managed to help each other with our own sets of data and come up with a good approach for next year. In fact we wondered if some of the stuff could help other rivers trusts who are about to or soon to be undertaking their own electro fishing program. These trust get togethers are very very useful and it is important to learn from one another. Despite the differences in between the Ribble and the Eden there is much common ground!
One small bit of excitement in the middle of the day was that I got a call from Paul Matty of the City learning Centre who asked if I would do a telephone interview with a student to be aired on Radio Lancashire. We talked about the Calder the salmon and sea trout at Padiham weir and how we work with the EA to try and improve all rivers.
Friday I put together a small summary (I say small but it was a good couple of pages) of the previous days meeting. These make sure that I don’t forget what was discussed and also are a good opportunity to mull over a few things and add them in. I also had to put together some project files and specifications for projects going ahead next year. I discussed them through with Chris Heap whose expertise in Health and Safety, and contractor management is invaluable. I am sad to say that Chris has stepped down as a Trustee due to his other various commitments, including the sea trout and salmon smolt stocking projects, and habitat works that the Hodder Consultative are currently working on. We were sad to see Chris step down, and I as would the rest of the Trust like to thank him for his help, however he certainly hasn’t left and has promised to help with any of our projects, this will be particularly helpful and welcome especially with all that we are doing next year.
In the afternoon Stephen and I decided to head out and do some site visits but the miserable weather and lack of water in the side tributaries around Clitheroe brought us back to the office fairly sharpish!
We were in time to see Fred Higham who popped in to catch up, these are handy visits as we learn much from the anglers that we otherwise wouldn’t and with all the angling contacts Fred has he doesn’t miss much and this gives us a very useful source of information from the anglers.
AGM
November 6, 2009
Our Annual General Meeting will be held here at the Trust’s offices on the 23rd of November at 19:30. Members are encouraged to come and we also welcome those who aren’t members but are interested in the work, becoming involved or perhaps joining.
The trust’s office are in Clitheroe, based at Hanson Cement. If you are coming from the A59 turn onto the Pimlico link road towards the industrial estates, continue straight on until a round about, go straight over at the round about, follow the road until you come to the level crossing, immediately after the crossing turn right (into Gate 4 – sign posted) and our office is the building on the left. IF coming from West Bradford direction, come over the bridge head up the hill and at the crest before the level crossing turn left. For sat nav user our post code is BB7 4QF but you’ll need the above directions to get there once nearby.
Hope to see you there
Stocking, Diploids, Triploids, and Jumping fish
November 3, 2009
A slightly shorter week last week, I snuck out for half a days fishing and had a day off on the Friday. My leave is getting slowly used up, but with salmon and trout seasons now closed there are few plans for me to take any more time off! I ended my salmon season with 0 fish caught and 3 fish lost, two were on my half day on Tuesday, a combination of school boy error and pure bad luck. I felt better to know that while I had lost two fish from 15:00 on, no one else on that beat had touched a thing since day break when 2 lads landed 3 between them. I hope to change this next year and really get into the fish but we’ll see if lady luck takes a shine to me! I hope that everyone else has fared better than me.
With Philip away (fishing no less!!) I had arranged for a day with Kyle Young, those of you who don’t know him, he is the Fisheries Technical Specialist for the EA, a very important man I might add. He will have the say so on a lot of important fisheries works. Thank fully every time we have met him the more we feel the trust’s work is in tune with his experience in fisheries - which is pretty vast!
We started by discussing various issues that we have with EA processes that we feel the approach by both the trust and the EA could be improved, we agreed on everything and we now hope that our consents and works will be obtained and completed faster, but I stress it’s not all EA we have some improvements to make! After that we talked about the up coming fish passage work for 2010, Kyle’s on objection was that we didn’t look at demolition as first option, and we agreed where ever possible demolition of weir should be our first option. The limiting factors are things such as erosion, flood risk, cost, priority of work and most importantly land owner consent!
This was then followed by a long talk about the Calder and instigating salmon stocks. There has been much feeling that natural recolonisation would be better for the Calder within the EA. We disagree, on three counts, water quality is not pristine and this will have a serious impact on rates of recolonisation, not sufficient adult numbers, and the natural recolonization must get the Calder into “Good ecological Status” by 2027! The adult numbers were “debated” but catch returns for the Calder in 2007 were low and on the decline, and last year we heard no reports of salmon at Padiham weir – and we made several visits (12 between us to be precise – If you did see some please comment below or email me), this and the deadline for recolonisation settled the debate. Stocking will be needed, however the EA position is not until we have opened the Calder, as they do not want to see salmon banging their heads on Padiham Weir again. This stocking program will be carefully devised with appropriate and significant numbers, as well as carefully monitoring of returning adults, juveniles and genetics.
After this we looked at another little trust project, the use of egg nest boxes. We hope to take this forward in 2010 and incorporate it into a study on effectiveness of the boxes and fry movement. After discussing this in the office I then took Kyle to our planned sites on the Hodder, he liked all the sites and was quite excited by the quality of the habitat, but depressed by the numbers of barriers and semi-passable barriers. However these are all things we can work on remedying!
And if that wasn’t enough of a day on Monday, Kyle then came back to the office and we went through last years results, how we gather and analyse our data, what techniques and improvements could be employed, and I gave him a copy of last years report. At that point we decided to go home as it was 19:30!!!
Tuesday I met Mark Rudd the Catchment Officer for the Hodder and we walked over Easington Beck, Mark wasn’t overly familiar with the beck, but we have found it to be badly under performing, so we found two locations that were in dire need of a habitat scheme, with this agreed the next step is to contact the owners and hopefully get them on board, once they have agreed we will then go about fund raising!
Wednesday was a boring day of data entry and analysis, 8 hours of this is hard slog, we did slip out for an hour to measure up a weir in Barrowford so we could send our plans and dimensions in for Land Drainage consent. Once back to the office I dropped the dog home and came back to the office for a meeting. We were hosting a local region meeting on the Diploid/Triploid stocking policy being brought in by the EA. The aim of the meeting was to get together some susinct and effective questions to be asked at a workshop on the Policy this Saturday at the Tickled Trout (This is ticket only event). It started with a short presentation on policy formation and then science form Kyle. Then lots of discussion, some questions were banded, but I’m not certain that any specifics were decided upon. It was useful for me to get a good understanding of the EA position and background information. I have a couple of niggling issues with the policy but I am not opposed to it’s introduction. This was another late finish, 22:30 and that was with me having to point out that the room was only booked till 22:00!! I dread to think what time it could have gone on until.
Thursday was more data analysis, nearly their now, I just have to form them into coherent tables and maps!! In the Afternoon I showed Stephen another project I would like to see on the Hodder, the flow gauging weir on the Lower Hodder although passable does represent a barrier to all fish depending on water height. We witnessed 7 trout and a salmon attempt the weir during an hour, only 2 trout made it, the first on it’s first attempt, the second on the tenth attempt. Why is it important to make it more passable, every failed attempt is a loss of calories and a potential injury, this decreases the spawning fitness, they may be lucky and spawn successfully, they maybe slighty less lucky and spawn but lacking body condition the redd might be too shallow, or worst case they don’t spawn at all. The semi-passable barriers also carry problems!!!! It is for the above reason that Kyle asked me to plot out every known Barrier and semi-passable barrier so that we can demonstrate just how many problems there are facing our fish, and highlight the need for more money to be spent improving the river – Something that everyone who loves this catchment will agree on.
A good Brown trout failing to ascend the weir
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