Weirs and Trout stream restoration
March 29, 2010
Well the title should give you a good idea of what I was up to last week! Monday I was out and about with Kyle Young (EA fisheries Technical Specialist) and we had some students and staff from Hull university looking at potential hydro schemes and existing hydro scheme.
It managed to rain on us pretty much non stop, but they didn’t detract from the day. It was very interesting to discuss some of the potential impacts. Some of which are easier/harder to understand than others. One thing that was of particular interest was a tour of Settle Hydro scheme, during which we were able to watch the machine switch on and the impact on water over the weir and down the fish pass.
Tuesday Kyle and I shared lifts and headed up to Appleby to the Trout Stream project workshop. It was a brilliant 2 day workshop with much networking and discussion going on. The recently published paper on crayfish in which we were involved was actually discussed during one of the talks (a nice little ego boost for me!), and to list all the other topics of talks would take several pages. One thing that was really good fun and interesting was an evening session entitled “how good was your river?” this was where the Eden rivers trust engaged many of the local anglers and clubs to get more information about historic catches and problems.
Thursday I met Phill Harries an Arboriculturist on site at Barrowford 3 to discuss the Tree protection plan required for the Planning permission application. Once this was sorted it was back to the office for a Padiham weir update meeting with the EA. This was good and progress to date was excellent, but we need little rain and only at the weekends – the cost of the river being in spate and keeping them from working in river is colossal so anyone caught doing rain dances will not be popular!
Friday the river was in spate and so some planned invert sampling was cancelled and we switched to checking on old schemes. And visiting more weir and barrier sites. Unfortunately I had to add another two to the list. We also measured up flow rates on Swanside in preparation for adjustments to the fish easement there. Volunteers take note I will be roping you in for this one soon!
I’m looking forward to a short week this week as last week seemed to take forever, plus a disasterous days fishing yesterday has left me with a touch of the man flu!
Tinned fish
March 22, 2010
A real mixed week, last week. Very little time spent in the office, which is always good, and when we were out it was covering a whole load of different issues.
Monday after the usual morning meeting and plan for the week session, I had a little correspondence to sort, followed by a quick visit from Cathy Hopely of the Forest of Bowland AONB. We discussed a recent grant plus the Hydro electric survey project they are working on. In the afternoon we headed out to Barnoldswick to talk to a farmer about a habitat scheme. After a good early response we walked the section getting the dimensions and assessing just what was involved. The next step is to look at funding then return to the farmer to talk him into it!
Tuesday I was out all day kick sampling around Clitheroe with Jason Pusey from the EA. Gathering evidence and data for his pollution prevention campaign in Clitheroe. We identified a couple of potential sources of pollution plus further evidence of the impacts from an existing source that Jason is working on. On one of the last samples of the day, as I was climbing out of the beck (having lifted a car battery out of the stream!) I spotted an old Bean tin on the river bed, a second glance revealed is was inhabited, I though perhaps an eel but of course the tin isn’t long enough for an eel! A quick tap with the end of my net and off shot a beautiful little brownie! A whole new meaning to the term “tinned fish”!
Wednesday I wrote analysed the results from the kick sampling and wrote a concise report on our findings. It was quite a stark picture of healthy and not healthy! In the afternoon I gave a presentation to the Myerscough college fisheries diploma students. It was good to see that there are some keen guys soon to enter the rewarding field of fisheries.
Thursday I met Chris Heap from the Hodder Consultative to spend the best part of the day chasing around chipping brook looking at obstructions. We found one new obstruction, a couple of partial barriers and a lot of info on existing weirs. Although I would like to see them removed I don’t think the two main barriers can be removed. I arrived back in the office and then left straight away with Stephen to look at the progress on Padiham. Before we got there a bet was made on the level of progress, needless to say I lost – and should have been more confident of progress!
That evening was the IFM branch for the North West AGM, followed by a curry. I enjoyed the evening and we discussed a great deal, fish related and not so fish related!
Friday Janet came in to go through setting up a proper data base of all my electro fishing results and also an easy to use data entry interface. It may sound simple to set up, but I’m glad of Janet’s help as I wouldn’t really know where to start! Friday afternoon Stephen and I put in 40 trees on the banks of the new Langden off stream spawning channel, it was a rewarding way to finish off a week, I only hope to see the trees mature and provide the shelter that they can to the fish.
Spring is finally in the air…maybe?!
March 16, 2010
At the weekend I decided to take a long walk from home in Clitheroe off around Pendle and some of the neighbouring villages (including a brief stop in a country watering hole!). With the sun out it really did feel as though spring had finally arrived! To confirm this as I passed through Worston a fellow walker suggested I look into a small pond just up the road. Doing as suggested I then saw a pond “lifting” with frogs who certainly had a spring time urge! It was nice to see a small garden pond which was not overly manicured and really helping what are endangered amphibians.
Monday of last week was a normal Monday, Philip in progress reports and issue resolution. In the afternoon I spoke to Dr Tim Graham of the Wildlife trust who is formulating a BAP list of all the fish species of note in the Ribble Catchment. Although well informed there were two protected species not currently on the list, and a fair few other not so heavily protected species. I agreed to add all that we were aware of to the list, some location notes and levels of protection etc. The aim of the list is to help with conservation planning but also a resource to inform those planning on developing or doing other works around our water courses of some of the inhabitants that maybe of threat.
Tuesday I had a nice trip over to the Lune to spend a day going over diffuse pollution with Sarah Littlefield of the Lune Rivers Trust. It was in preperation for a weeks course at the end of April that aims to help Trust staff to advise farmers on good practice and improvements they can make to reduce diffuse pollution.
Wednesday I spent the morning on projects and preparation, and in the afternoon I spent a good 5 hours visiting proposed Hydro sites in the Ribble Catchment, to determine the location, type of structure they may be built on and what we can do. Needless to say my Barriers to migration list has now grown further!
Thursday I finalised my presentation that I was giving that evening to Clitheroe Anglers Association. After some pointers from my last few presentations I feel I now have a really good over view type presentation of what, why and how the Trust helps our rivers, and of course how people can help!! I hope that if you haven’t already been bored to death by one of my presentations that perhaps you’ll see this one in the near future.
Friday was a really good day of hard graft. At 10:00 myself and a band of volunteers from angling clubs the Forest of Bowland AONB and Burnley college set about planting 1,000 native deciduous trees on Boyces Brook at Ribchester. Despite a lunch time panic that we wouldn’t finish, by 4:30 all the trees were in and we had cleared the site. In a few years that spot will look fantastic! This will reduce diffuse pollution, providing shading and important cover for fish species. I can’t thank our volunteers enough for their efforts and hope that if you couldn’t make it perhaps on our next day out you might be able to come along!
Ground Broken
March 8, 2010
An apology for those who checked for a blog entry last week to findI didn’t do one. I was on a long weekend Holiday in Morocco. For the First time in nearly 10 years I went on a Holiday where there was no fish, rivers, lakes or the ocean involved. Well a confession I took the better half on a “Romantic” open top bus tour so that I could get a look at the nearest stream I could see on the map, it flows into the Oued Tensift, and although flowing was neither romantic or particularly interesting! It was a nice Holiday and left me feeling relaxed but not re-energised as Marrakech is a fairly intense city.
So going way back into February…. Monday the 22nd was busy with a lot of the usual correspondence with the EA, Grant funders, and project stakeholders. Nothing of particular note but all necessary stuff!
Tuesday I dropped into Ken Varey’s and signed them up to selling our passport scheme vouchers. This is great news for us, them and the users of the scheme who will be able to quiz their fishing department team for info and tac-tics. I also spent some time on the online membership of the trust page which should be completed soon, and worked on my presentation for the open evening and Bowland Game Fishers Association.
Wednesday I took our contractors out to look at the A59 culverts job. It was cold and wet, and the trout in the pool below didn’t really like our presence as a sizeable fish (I’m guessing) took a pot shot at my Wader boots! We headed up to Langden and Dunsop in the afternoon to check on the Spawning Channels. These were looking fantastic. We found 6 salmon kelts including one of 32inches (A Cock fish) and 2 Sea trout kelts.
Thursday I put together the specification for the beams I needed on the A59 project, and sent this over to Cattermoles to get a quote. In the evening I gave my presentation to Bowland Game. It went relatively well but certainly wasn’t my best presentation, but one learns and then improves (I hope!).
Friday I worked on the Barrowford 3 fish pass project again, getting the documentation ready for putting tenders and planning applications together. In the afternoon I dropped my dog off to the Kennels in preparation for the Holiday, and then on the way back spotted 2 huge “piles” of white foam the size of my 4×4 on a small stream. I rang this into Fred Higham as I didn’t have time to ring the EA directly but Fred had it reported, and references numbers sent within an hour or so. My guess is that the incident was a cross connected washing machine, and combined with rainfall equals frothy foamy becks. How important is this? Most detergents contain phosphates, which generally people think only come from farming, but have just as much damage. Reducing water quality and there for invertebrates, fish andbirds that depend on the former. Cross connections with toilets and Washing machines is one of the biggest issues coming from the general populace. If you want to know more about Cross connections visit our Threat to the river pages.
I Had planned to be back in work on Wednesday the 3rd of March, but the weather and thus flight times had other ideas, I landed back in the UK at 1:30 and got to our Hotel in Manchester after 2:30 by the time I got home Wednesday was gone! However I couldn’t resist switching on my phone that evening to go through messages and emails!
Thursday was catching up and getting back on top, but Stephen and I then went out to look at Padihamin the afternoon. Ground has been broken and the project started!!!! And to add to that we headed up to Montford straight after to look at our first project in 2010 – The removal of Montford Weir.
Our Contractor was in and out in one day! The water now flows beautifully through a pool and riffle sequence and has opened up a fantastic spawning riffle that is the rival of anything on Ribble or Hodder!
Friday Stephen and I spent the morning preparing the tree planting site at Ribchester, which he worked on with Prince Albert Association Volunteers on Sunday (getting in over 900 trees!). In the afternoon I had a chat to Chris Heap to sort out a look at weirs on Chipping Brook, and then set about filling in our completion report for one of the Grant Funders on the Passport Scheme.
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- JOINT STATEMENT FROM THE HEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVE AND THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY REGARDING THE BUNCEFIELD TRIAL