News

This five-day workshop emphasises understanding geomorphic process as a sound basis for planning and designing river restoration projects and programs. The course is in English, but draws heavily on river restoration and management experiences in France and elsewhere in the EU, complemented by experiences in North America and elsewhere.Instruction includes lectures, field exercises, problem sets and workshops on approaches to planning and implementing process-based restoration. 

This course will be a great chance to combine a love for river science with wonderful food, wine, and international connections. It will be held the week immediately prior to the IS.Rivers Conference. 

More details on this website: institutbeaumont.wordpress.com

The Angling Trust has launched launched a new ‘Fishery Improvement Fund’. The funding comes from the Environment Agency from some of the proceeds of rod licence sales.

The £65,000 Fund will make awards of up to £5,000 to eligible organisations for buying equipment, to make habitat improvements or for projects that get people fishing and support the aims of the National Angling Strategy ‘Fishing for Life’.

Deadlines are tight so ideally clubs should already have a project lined up.Applications must be posted or emailed to reach the Angling Trust by Tuesday 17th February 2015, and successful organisations must be able to spend the award by no later than the end of March.

Importantly, applications to the Fund from commercial fisheries are welcome and clubs and organisations do not need to be members or Angling Trust affiliated to apply.

Click here for more information and links to essential application and guidance documents

For more details please contact Rick Warner, Angling Trust Fishery Improvement Fund Administrator on 07850 774857 or via email at rick.warner@anglingtrust.net

Friday 20th March 2015, 7pm at the Barr Castle Social Club in Galston, Ayrshire sees a fundraising raffle for the Irvine bailiffs, all of whom do their work voluntarily. Some superb prizes including a Hardy trout fly rod donated by WTT, fishing days on the Tay, Nith, Annan, Border Esk and North Esk, Stinchar and Doon and many, many more super prizes all donated by kind donors.

Guest speakers on the night are Tony Andrews from the Atlantic Salmon Trust, John Wood and from the Ayrshire Rivers Trust,  Stuart Brabbs and Gordon McDermaid.

Further details and raffle tickets (£5.00 per book) from Gary Anderson (redfox2270@yahoo.co.uk), c/o 22 Blair Street, Galston, Ayrshire KA4 8JE.

The Moray Firth Trout Initiative annual report is available here.

Run by Marcus Walters, this is a tremendous example of a project that combines practical habitat work, engagement with schools, anglers and landowners and local communities and some very interesting research.Marcus received the ‘Wild Trout Hero’ Award at the WTT Conservation Awards in 2014.

With salmon catches in Scotland in serious decline, trout are becoming an increasingly important part of angling tourism on some Scottish rivers.

The 2015 RRC Annual Network Conference will take place at Whittlebury Hall Hotel and Spa, Whittlebury, Northants, NN12 8QH on 19th & 20th May 2015.

This year the Conference will be focusing on People and Process-Based River Management: Restoring River Processes; Natural Flood Management; Healthy Catchments with 52 presenters sharing their views and experiences over an exciting 2 day programme.

Early booking discounts are available now until 16 February. Click here for details

The Government agency, Cefas, is working with EA and Angling Trust to engage anglers as citizen scientists to map the distribution and health of freshwater and marine fish -  click HERE for a  a background document.

To achieve this, the partnership is developing a free electronic logbook (smartphone app) as a reporting platform, which they hope anglers will also find valuable for recording their fishing experiences.  To help them design an app that will be both useful for science and for anglers, a survey is running to establish what data anglers currently collect for themselves, how much they value different types of information and how willing they would be to share this data.

The survey has had over 500 responses since it opened in November and a preliminary analysis of survey responses has indicated that over 90% of the data collected by anglers could potentially be available to science, providing anglers can be assured that sensitive information relating to catch location, tactics and your photographs are treated confidentially. 

The EA's Fisheries, Biodiversity and Geomorphology Teams have produced an excellent newsletter highlighting their work in Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight this year. WTT is included as a partner in some of the work described: HERE.

Friday 10th April 2015-  Fishing For Forces event at Leckford Testside Lake (25 helpers needed).

Saturday 20th June 2015- Wild Trout Trust, 'Three Fly competition' at Meon Springs in Hampshire  in memory of Pascoe James (30 needed to fish)

Saturday 11 July 2015 - New event - Fund raiser for Fishing For Forces at Meon Springs in Hampshire (30 needed to fish and donations of auction lots needed)

Thank you to everyone who supported this year's draw either by purchasing tickets or donating a prize, enabling us to raise a total of £5676.

And the Winners are...

1st Prize kindly donated by Sage: Mr N Gooderham of SurreyA Sage One 9-ft, 4-piece fly rod.

2nd Prize kindly donated by The Peacock at Rowsley: Mr K Nicklin of SpainA night's accommodation for two with 3-course dinner and breakfast, and 2 high season tickets to fish the Derbyshire Wye.

3rd Prize kindly donated by The Wild Trout Trust: Rev S Maxfield of WiltshireA day's fly fishing for wild trout at a location in the south, midlands or north of England, accompanied by your chosen WTT conservtion officer.

4th Prize kindly donated by Orvis: Mr D Naisby of SurreyA 9ft, 5-wt, Orvis Clearwater Frequent Flyer Travel Fly Rod

5th Prize kindly donated by Phoenix Lines: Mr R Brawn of OxfordshireA 30-yard fly line made of the purest, finest silk, proofed with several coats of special varnish and hand-polished.

Hutton Rudby FFC is a dynamic club with water on North Yorkshire's River Leven. In addition to loads of river habitat enhancement work carried out by the club with local EA, Tees Rivers Trust and WTT, the club stopped stocking after the 2010 season.

Their catch rates have rocketed and their river provides fabulous wild trout fishing, embellished by returning grayling. Read more on Hutton Rudby's great story on the Trout Stocking page of the WTT website - you'll need to scroll down a fair way:

Trout Stocking

There is a forgotten corner of Britain that is as fishy and fecund as Iceland. It is called The Flow Country and it boasts some of the finest wild salmon and brown trout fishing on earth. For generations fishermen have ignored this distant corner of northeast Scotland.

Now the Flow Country Rivers Trust (FCRT) has been formed to protect the freshwater fish of Caithness and eastern Sutherland and bring its sport blinking into the sunlight. To raise the profile of this gloriously remote area it is running a unique raffle. 

Fishing on some of the best beats in Scotland, many of which have never been open to the public before, is to be won. A day on the Naver Private Water, a day on the Private Beat on the Thurso (the favourite beat of the late Queen Mother) and a week for three rods on the Halladale in April are among the 25 prizes. Also on offer: a day on one of the wild spate rivers - the Forss, Strathy, Borgie, Dunbeath, to name but a few – a day at the Armadale netting station, ten days on the top brownie lochs and the fabulous gift of three days for three rods on a prime beat of the Dee. Entry to the raffle costs a meagre £10, which includes a year’s membership of the FCRT.

Some good news regarding the abstraction at Axford on the River Kennet: Thames Water are planning to significantly reduce the abstraction. 

The abstraction at Axford to supply Swindon has for many years had a detrimental impact on flows in the River Kennet - a famous chalk stream and SSSI.

Well done to Action for the River Kennet  (ARK), the Angling Trust, the EA and local  MP Richard Benyon. 

News from the Freshwater Biological Association

The Freshwater Biological Association, based on Windemere, has produced an interesting December version of its bulletin Freshwater Matters:

Click here