Posted on December 20, 2019
Thank you to everyone that took part in this year’s Annual Draw and to all the donors enabling us to raise a fantastic £5848.
1stprize kindly donated by Sage won by ticket no. 5468 - MG of North Yorkshire
2ndprize kindly donated by the Peacock at Rowsley & Haddon Fisheries won by ticket no. 6018 - SN of Cambridgeshire
Posted on December 19, 2019
It’s a year when we….tramped the river banks from Ireland to East Anglia, Cornwall to Scotland giving advice; demolished yet more weirs, delivered a great bunch of habitat projects from the Aire to the Upper Test, and continued to monitor a few for evidence of change; forged new partnerships and worked with loads of volunteers; revamped our journal; had a tremendous Auction and Annual Get Together; said ‘farewell’ to Mike and Ed and 'welcome' to Bruno and Nick; mourned the loss of some very good friends, fretted over the drought in the South East, the floods in South Yorkshire and low sea trout stocks in Wales; stood up for trout and rivers facing no water, pollution, habitat destruction and netters; celebrated some tremendous winners at the Conservation Awards; launched the Urban Guidelines at a gathering of Trout in the Townies; and enjoyed members fishing weekends on the Wye and the Kennet.
Phew!
Many thnaks for all your support thruogh the year. Looking forward to more of the same and better in 2020.
Posted on December 12, 2019
We are sad to hear that David Bellamy has died, age 86. He was a Wild Trout Trust Vice President and a hugely popular TV presenter and conservationist. He inspired a generation of conservationists with his distinctive presentation and enthusiasm and will be much missed.
Our condolences go to his family.
Posted on December 11, 2019
The ‘Challenges and Choices Consulation’ from the Environment Agency is open now and will close on 24 April 2020. It covers England and includes the Severn and Northumbrian river basins.
The EA say: ‘We are seeking your views on the challenges our waters face and the choices and changes we all need to make to help tackle those challenges.By responding to this consultation you will be helping to shape the management of the water environment.’
The questions are wide-ranging and are set in the context of climate change and the biodiversity crisis. There are 9 sections described as ‘challenges’ and they include water levels and flow, chemicals, physical modification, invasive non-natives, and pollution from plastics, mines, agriculture and rural areas, urban areas and transport and waste-water treatment.
Posted on December 05, 2019
We would like to say ‘thank you’ to Hans Thomsen who, with the help of the Charfield Angling Association has sold fishing tackle to the value of £716.28 on eBay and donated the proceeds to the Wild Trout Trust.
The donation is very much appreciated and will be spent on practical work to improve river habitat.
Selling tackle on eBay, either for a fixed price or by auction, is straightforward and the funds raised can be automatically passed in whole or in part to the Wild Trout Trust. Instructions can be found here: https://pages.ebay.co.uk/ebayforcharity/sell.html
Posted on December 03, 2019
WTT team members have raised £1275 for Movember, a charity which addresses men’s health issues including suicide and prostrate cancer. 5 members of the team grew moustaches during November (and most shaved them off on 1 December!). With the recent death of our much loved Vice President, Malcolm Greenhalgh, and with the agreement of his family, our chaps posed for photos in a Malcolm look-alike pose. None of their whiskers are as luxuriant as his, and the greyness was faked with flour and, in once case, tile grout, but we hope it was an fitting and affectionate tribute to Malcolm nonetheless.
Click the thumbnails below to see the team's whiskers in all their glory.
Posted on November 25, 2019
Malcolm Greenhalgh died recently following complications after heart surgery.
Malcolm is a huge loss to our trout world and to WTT, as one of our Vice-Presidents. Not only has he carved a path in wild trout fishing, Malcolm utterly championed wild trout conservation, especially in the rivers of the north west of England. He had an extraordinarily forensic brain, a lovely humorous way about him. We will very much miss Malcolm and the support and advice he has given us over the years. Deepest condolences to Malcolm’s family and friends from all at WTT.
Posted on November 22, 2019
WTT Trout in the Town Programme Manager Paul Gaskell was recently interviewed by WTT Vice President Matthew Wright on Talk Radio about the flooding on the River Don. There is a wide-ranging discussion about managing catchments to help reduce flood peaks and the challenge of communicating and acting on science based responses to flooding when many people are suffering the devastating consequences of flooding.
Move to 20 mins 30 ish in the 14:00 to 14:30 slot on link below:
Posted on November 11, 2019
The last in our series of news items about the finalists for the WTT Conservation Awards.
The Cumbrian Derwent is a Special Area of Conservation and Site of Special Scientific Interest, with important species of fish, invertebrates and plants. The river was subjected to huge and damaging flooding in 2009 and 2015, making enhancement of available habitat imperative.
The River Derwent Catchment-Wide Habitat Improvement Project is delivered under the umbrella of the River Corridor Group (RCG), a partnership of the Derwent Owners Association, the Environment Agency, Natural England, West Cumbria Rivers Trust, National Trust, Lake District National Park Authority and the Woodland Trust. The project is long-term and ongoing, with the key objectives of improving riparian habitat through stock-exclusion and riparian planting, tree management, improving in-river habitat for fish species through the introduction of large woody debris, providing spawning gravels, creating wildlife corridors through assisted natural recovery projects and contributing to natural flood management processes.
Posted on November 01, 2019
A summary of one of the Conservation Awards finalists:
The construction of Roadford Reservoir, in Cornwall’s Tamar catchment, led to the loss of natural flows, spawning areas and habitat for all wild salmonid life stages; for over 30 years, compensation from South West Water took the form of a fish rearing and stocking programme. This project, however, a collaboration of Westcountry Rivers Trust, South West Water and the Tamar & Tributaries Fisheries Association, aimed to work on habitat improvement across the entire catchment, dividing it into three parts: the Lyd, the Inny and the upper Tamar. A suite of interventions has been implemented, including the reduction of abandoned coppice, gravel cleaning, debris dam removal and electric fishing monitoring.
The project has mapped areas for rehabilitation through 11km of walkover, established 16 new electric fishing monitoring sites, cleaned gravel at 65 sites (approx. 1,300m2), thinned abandoned coppice on 27 sites along 3.8km of river to increase light penetration to the river and tackled six impassable debris dams. The aim, exceeded by more than double, was to increase smolt output by nearly 4,000 fish, excluding any increased migration from the debris dam work.
Posted on November 01, 2019
A summary of one of the Conservation Awards finalists:
The Aire Freshener project, headed by Bradford City Angling Association (BCAA), supported by the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Farming & Wildlife Partnership, Aire Rivers Trust and WTT, tells the story of an angling club that has changed both the philosophy and practical management of its fishing on Yorkshire’s River Aire, near Gargrave. The river has a chequered 200-year history of neglect and abuse from various forms of industry but BCAA has established a vision for a river which:
Posted on October 29, 2019
A recent project funded by the Environment Agency and designed and delivered by Andy Thomas of the Wild Trout Trust provides new opportunities for trout and other flow loving species that reside in the lower Thames.
The Abbey stream is an old man-made river channel that leaves the River Thames at Penton Hook and re-joins downstream of Chertsey weir. The weirs and locks on the main river mean that opportunities for flow-loving, gravel spawning fish species, including brown and sea trout are very limited but a recent project completed by the WTT with EA funding and support has not only created spawning habitat but also helped to provide improved migration opportunities.
Posted on October 29, 2019
This project, led by the Environment Agency in partnership with Birdsgrove Fly Fishing Club and WTT, involved the removal of two large weirs on the River Dove in the English Midlands. The Dove is a river with a long history of re-alignment, straightening and weir-building, for land drainage, purportedly to reduce flooding and for fishing. This project set out to restore the longitudinal connectivity of the river, improving sediment transport and habitat connectivity including migration of trout, eels and other coarse fish and to restore the river’s natural processes, physical structure and habitat availability for the ecology to flourish.
Using £15,000 of EA Fisheries Improvement Programme funding, with co-funding from the fishing club and WTT, the project removed two large weirs built in the 1980s as pool-creating angling features.
Photographic monitoring and frequent site visits post-weir removal show clear evidence of habitat availability and variability which was lacking before the work was carried out; various juvenile fish and lampreys have been seen at the work sites. Before the weir removal, the upstream impounded sections were only suitable for adult fish; now, with changes in the habitat, both river reaches provide excellent spawning areas. Fresh new gravels are now transported to the downstream reaches and this will provide new habitat for fish and other organisms. Fixed point photography, time lapse cameras, water level monitoring and habitat mapping is in place to monitor the physical responses of the river after the weir removals.
Posted on October 29, 2019
The third of our summaries of Conservation Awards finalists:
This vast project to build a rock ramp on the River Almond in West Lothian was led by Forth Rivers Trust (FRT), in partnership with West Lothian Council and Edinburgh City Council, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Government and SEPA’s Water Environment Fund. The Almond is fragmented by barriers including a large weir at Howden, removal of which is deemed impossible because of an upstream road bridge.
So, Atlantic salmon, sea trout, eels and lamprey were severely restricted, barely able to access more than the bottom third of the catchment. The solution was a huge rock ramp that would not only improve fish passage but provide educational opportunities, create employment and a place for the community to visit, improving physical and mental wellbeing. The broader project is to tackle seven barriers, with the Howden rock ramp one of the most technically challenging, the UK’s longest at 185m! Construction of the ramp was completed only in May 2019, so it’s hard yet to tell if it’s completely successful, but FRT expect it to be so, for all species and sizes of fish. However, otters are clearly visiting this area as are people from the local community – 350 children from 12 schools have taken part in FRT’s work and hundreds of volunteers involved in litter picking, electric fishing, invasive weed spraying and path building. Social media reach from the project has been great, reaching a high-point of 58,000 followers in the autumn of 2018.
Posted on October 29, 2019
The second of our summaries of Conservation Awards finalists:
The limestone becks of Lincolnshire can be home to important species such as the water vole, brown trout and native crayfish, alongside a substantial array of regionally and nationally rare insects, but historic changes to the becks including dredging and straightening along with more recent stresses from abstraction and pollution have resulted in degraded habitat for wildlife.
The Community Project site upstream of the village of Branston near Lincoln offered a great opportunity to improve habitat for spawning brown trout and other wildlife and also involve locals in creating an attractive yet biodiverse section of accessible stream. This project, led by Lincolshire Rivers Trust, set out to:
