Build it and they will come ....

WTT Conservation Officer Tim Jacklin is delighted to see that a new section of river channel on the River Galven in Norfolk is already holding a good population of trout and other fish: 

The Bayfield Hall Project created a new, 1.2‑km long, naturalised river channel re-connecting reaches of the River Glaven that were previously interrupted by an estate lake and an enclosed, brick culvert. The meandering course of the new channel has over thirty gravel riffles suitable for fish spawning and a similar number of deep pools, providing excellent habitat. The project took several years to plan and seven weeks to construct and was completed in September 2014.

Norfolk Rivers Trust (NRT www​.nor​folkriver​strust​.org ) carried out an electric fishing survey on 30^th June at two sites on the ​“new” River Glaven at Bayfield, Norfolk. This is the site of a river restoration completed just 10 months ago which was project managed by Tim Jacklin of WTT. More information on the project is available here.

Jonah Tosney, Senior Projects Manager at NRT said: 

“I’m absolutely delighted with what we caught. We had around 90 trout, probably one-fifth fish of spawning size and four-fifths fry that must have been spawned last winter, so great result for the trout. Eels were pretty good too, with several young eels caught, probably ones that have come in this year, and a few older ones, maybe 15 or 20 overall. Brook lamprey were the big surprise as I didn’t think they were very mobile but we caught a lot of ​“transformers” (almost mature juveniles, ready to spawn next spring) which have migrated into the site. Fish diversity overall was excellent as we also had a lot of bullhead (these had also spawned, we caught a lot of tiny juveniles) and just a single stone loach and stickleback.”

This is excellent news and an astonishingly quick colonization of the new channel, given the diggers only left site ten months ago!