News

River Holme Connections in West Yorkshire are running a Japanese knotweed control training course (PA1 - safe use of pesticides, PA6AW - hand held applicators and PA6INJ - stem injection) in Holmfirth on the following dates:

• Training: 20th-21st August 2018
• Assessments: 22nd & 23rd August 2018
• Venue: TKF Training Centre, Holmfirth 

River Holme Connections are happy to pay for the course fees if volunteers would be able to contribute 8 days of volunteering work on the River Holme (in September and October) (as well as 4 days for the actual training course), so 12 days in total.

They will also provide all the PPE, reasonable travel costs and lunch expenses during the work.

Removing tens of thousands of obsolete dams in Europe will bring life back to rivers, says new report

With only 40 percent of Europe’s waterways in good condition, a new study published today calls for up to 30,000 redundant dams and other barriers to be removed to help restore rivers and lakes – boosting wildlife populations and benefiting communities across the continent. A new initiative called Dam Removal Europe aims to start an era of dam removal.

Click here for the full press release and here to download the report.

WTT Grayling Weekend  

We are hatching plans for another chalk stream grayling weekend, this time on the River Test. As last year, we hope to be able to offer grayling fishing on exclusive beats (no day ticket water). There will be limited places and they will be open to WTT members only. Proceeds will support our habitat improvement project work.

Reserve the date in your diary – 3 and 4 November 2018 – and watch out for the email in September to book your place (you will need to have  ‘opted in’  to emails from the WTT to receive the email).

Fly Culture magazine is open for subscriptions!  Trout in the Town and urban fishing gurus Theo Pike and Paul Gaskell of the WTT have an article in the first edition which comes out in September. We are really delighted to be associated with Fly Culture and wish our friends Pete Tyjas and James Beeson great success.

https://www.flyculturemag.com/

Whilst the southern chalk streams are enjoying good flows at this time thanks to a wet winter and spring, many rain- fed rivers are approaching record low levels; low water levels plus hot sunshine means high water temperatures and low oxygen levels. Once the water temperature reaches 20-21C, our native brown trout start to struggle.

The West Sutherland Fisheries Trust is teaming up with several partners to continue its excellent work studying the movements of sea trout in Loch Laxford. BUT the project needs your help: you can donate, adopt a sea trout, report any tagged, rod-caught trout from the Loch, or even all three!

For more information, click here. 

The WTT Conservation Awards 2018 seek to recognise river improvement projects at all scales, from the huge to the end-of-garden stuff; more information and application form HERE. The application process is simple and is followed by an informal phone discussion with our judges, before a special and great fun Awards’ evening in London on 17 October 2018.

We’re also on the look-out for nominations for our Wild Trout Hero 2018 – if you know someone who’s gone that extra mile for wild trout, please let us know.

Entries for this year’s Awards are welcome until 30 July 2018, by e-mail to office@wildtrout.org. If you’d like advice or a chat about your project, please call the WTT Director, Shaun Leonard, on 07974 861908.  

WTT Conservation Officer Mike Blackmore is looking for volunteers to help with a river restoration project on the River Avon at Amesbury in Wiltshire.This is a great opportunity to make a real difference for wildlife as well as learn about river habitat restroration and have some fund with a great team of people.

If you have any time available between 30 July and 10 August and would like to help, please contact Mike.

Email: mblackmore@wildtrout.org Tel. 07881 248 789 Tweet: @blackyhimself

Patagonia have produced a film highlighting the plight of some very special rivers in the Balkans, currently being dammed (damned?) for hydropower, with thousands more schemes planned. This will be an absolute disaster for these rivers, their unique fish and wildlife communities and their people.

The film trailer is here and, very importantly, you can support a campaign against the damming by signing the petition urging international banks to stop investing in the destruction of Europe’s last wild rivers. This will be handed into international banks by the end of June, so no time to waste. 

The inaugural World Fishing Day, 23 June 2018, is only days away, with 24 hours of angling from around the globe streamed live on the Fishing TV channel.

WTT has teamed up with Chalkstream Fly, makers of the excellent film, Chalk, to produce a short piece on WTT’s work that will be shown during the day and one of WTT’s Trout in the Town champions and tenkara guru, Paul Gaskell, is in Japan for a week, including live filming on the day. Paul is included amongst the event’s ambassadors, alongside many other WTT supporters, including our Vice-President, Matthew Wright; they’re sure to weave WTT’s conservation messages into their fishing tales.

Lots more on World Fishing Day at https://www.worldfishingday.com

Listen to this excellent podcast with journalist Andrew Griffiths and WTT Conservation Officer Tim Jacklin talking about ‘Letting the Dive Flow’ in the Derbyshire Peak District. 

Letting the Dove Flow is a partnership project led by the National Trust to re-naturalise the river and restore habitat in Dovedale in the Peak District National Park. Wild Trout Trust Conservation Officer Tim Jacklin is responsible for delivering the project which includes removing some of the 177 weirs installed in the 1920s.

Click here for more information about the impact of weirs.