Posted on May 20, 2020
A thought provoking blog post from Andrew Griffiths on the difference in attitudes to fish and birds, with comments from WTT Director Shaun Leonard. Andrew is a journalist who writes for a number of publications including Grays Sporting Journal, BBC Wildlife Magazine, The Field, Fly Fishing and Fly Tying and the Sunday Telegraph.
Posted on May 13, 2020
With the news that we may fish again, WTT is offering an amazing opportunity to fish a private beat on the Itchen, with Ross Brawn OBE - Managing Director, Motor Sports and Technical Director for the Formula One Group.
This One Lot Wonder is open now on ebay, closing at 22.01 on Sunday, 17 May 2020 - click HERE
You and a friend can fish this terrific piece of private water: a mile of main, with intimate and challenging carrier fishing, much of it beautifully improved. You can also enjoy a sit down with Ross Brawn for lunch. Obviously, social distancing guidelines may make lunch in the very near future a little less than convivial, so exact dates can be arranged with the donor, perhaps waiting till next season, should that work better.
Posted on April 27, 2020
We’re a month into WTT’s plan for dealing with the Covid crisis. Here’s an update…
Seven WTT members of staff remain on furlough: Denise Ashton, Paul Gaskell, Jonny Grey, Nick Lawrence, Rob Mungovan, Gareth Pedley and Theo Pike. Five of us remain on the bridge steering WTT, some on reduced hours and/or salary (in one case, sacrificing salary entirely). Just to remind you, we’re furloughing this extraordinary group of people in line with Government’s Stay at Home message, meaning we are unable to get out to do our advisory and practical work, much of it requiring travel and close 1:1 work, certainly where we’re working in the river with groups of volunteers. Furloughing people gives us the opportunity to return to our funded projects when movement restrictions ease, though obviously the people we work with have to be keen too to restart those projects when the time is right.
We are cost saving wherever we reasonably can. For example, we’ve deferred a full print run of our annual journal, Salmo Trutta. We’d planned our annual Get Together on the Usk for September 12 & 13, but that is in abeyance for now. We’re investigating the practicalities of a remote Get Together, where you could still hear from some of our guest speakers, such as Paul Procter, Jon Beer and Tony Bostock.
Posted on April 23, 2020
We have added a page about rainbow trout to the website under the ‘About Trout’ menu.
Rainbow trout are not native to the UK, but for many people they are the first (and perhaps only) trout that they catch. We hope you find it interesting.
There are also pages on brown trout, sea trout, ferox trout, grayling and arctic charr under the ‘About Trout’ menu. Plus 100 (or more) facts about trout.
Posted on April 16, 2020
Not so long ago, the issue of the day was flooding….
This report, ‘The Enablers and Barriers to the Delivery of Natural Flood Management Projects’ was commissioned by Defra, makes interesting (if long and quite detailed) reading.The report shows findings about the delivery of Natural Flood Management (NFM) projects. In particular what acts as a barrier to delivery of NFM projects, and what enables these projects. This report presents research findings from a literature review, stakeholder engagements, a legal analysis and case study findings. It identifies the wide range of stakeholders involved in the delivery of NFM and explores their role. Cultural, institutional and social barriers and enablers to NFM are identified and possible improvements to NFM delivery are explored.
NFM continues to attract media coverage, having moved away from being a somewhat niche eccentricity a few years ago to a logical, viable and cost-effective element of flood defence with plenty of positive media coverage.
Posted on April 15, 2020
This article by Andrew Griffiths is about the long-awaited Welsh regulations for farming and water. An interesting read!
Some context to explain why this is an important topic for those of us interested in rivers and trout:
Sea trout populations are in poor shape in Wales, (see news item 'sea trout stocks in Wales at their worst ever levels') and the number of agricultural pollution incidents in rivers in Wales, particularly those related to slurry pollution, is acknowledged to be unacceptable (a letter from the Chair of NRW to the Minister in 2017 detailed the ‘unacceptable number of slurry pollution incidents that have been experienced across Wales').
Posted on April 01, 2020
WTT is a practical, hands-on organisation: we improve rivers and advise and help others to do so too. At present, however, Coronavirus restrictions on essential travel and social distancing means that some of our staff aren’t able to do their usual work. We have many practical projects lined up, with ringfenced funding in place, but we simply cannot get to the rivers to deliver them.
As a result, from 1 April 2020, WTT has taken the difficult decision to follow many charities and other organisations in temporarily furloughing some of our staff as part of the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
This means that, from 1 April 2020, some of our team will remain employed by WTT but not allowed to do any work for us, initially for one month. More details of those who are furloughed at www.wildtrout.org/contact-us
Posted on March 31, 2020
From Shaun Leonard, WTT Director:
The Spring Auction is now closed. A tremendous £70,000 was raised. Huge thanks to all the bidders and donors and the many supporters who helped publicise the auction.
The Auction is an extremely important source of funding for us, and never more so than this year, when other sources of funding are looking threatened by the crisis around us. The Auction funds are vital for us to continue our work to improve rivers for wild trout.
Posted on March 31, 2020
Jonny Grey has updated the paper on predation by fish eating birds, which is held on the ‘Predation and beavers' page in our website library. The paper reviews the available research and evidence regarding goosander and cormorant impact on fisheries and describes the measures available to control fish eating birds.
Jonny is a WTT Conservation Officer and Professor in Practice for aquatic ecology at the University of Lancaster.
Posted on March 31, 2020
Following a Consultation, the Environment Agency have decided not to extend the season for beach netting fishing for sea trout in Yorkshire and the North East.
Of the 562 online responses they received, 93% opposed an extension of the current netting season and 7% were in favour.
This is the first paragraph of our response:
Posted on March 25, 2020
The timing of the Auction is (to put it mildly), unfortunate, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis and many potential bidders will be concerned about committing to buy fishing at this time. We can only be optimistic that fishing will be possible at some point this season. Many of our generous donors have indicated they are happy to be flexible and will defer to next season if necessary, and we will, of course, refund winning bidders where Covid-19 prevents them from taking their fishing day.
The Auction is an extremely important source of funding for us, and never more so than this year, when other sources of funding are looking threatened by the crisis around us. The Auction funds are vital for us to continue our work to improve rivers for wild trout.
Please support us if you can.
Posted on March 24, 2020
The Wyre Rivers Trust have produced an excellent illustrated online ‘book’ to explain Natural Flood Management. It includes questions and activities aimed at primary school children but is also an extremely good summary for people of all ages of the issues and actions around Natural Flood Management.
There are teachers notes and lesson plans too.
Posted on March 16, 2020
If you win a lot and Covid-19 prevents you from taking your lot, please contact us and we will do our best to sort the situation; for example, donors might be willing to defer when the lot is taken. Hopefully, refunds won’t be needed, but please contact us for help.The monies we raise are incredibly important to us, even more so in these vexing times.
Posted on March 15, 2020
The auction starts on Friday this week! If you would like a printed catalogue so that you can peruse the lots with a glass of wine or beer and pen in hand, please contact Christina on office@wildtrout.org. Catalogues and all the lots are also available on our website. With over 300 to choose from, we’ll be helping you narrow the field by featuring groups of lots under the ‘Season of Adventures’ banner over the next couple of weeks until the auction closes on Sunday evening, 29 March. Keep well and keep your spirits up by planning your ‘Season of Adventures’.
Posted on March 15, 2020
We at WTT are planning to carry on as best we can, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. We believe that our advisory visits and our practical work, with appropriate hygiene measures and risk assessment in place, can still continue, at least for now, so please don’t hesitate to contact your local Conservation Officer for our help; details here.It may well be that the river bank is a good place to be while this crisis rages!
