First Survey Record of Wild Trout Returning to Lyme Brook Habitat Works Site!

Posted on September 11, 2017

You may have seen the first three phases of works on the middle reaches of the Lyme Brook (shown in previous blogs Here and Here) from project works that began in 2015…

Well although the first surveys after that work found some nice coarse fish populations — there was no cold hard evidence that any trout had found the newly-improved habitat…Until now!

EA Midlands Survey Teams reportedly found “More than one…but less than five” wild trout like this one on Sept. 7^th 2017

I received a phone call today from Matt Lawrence who is the EA’s Catchment Host for the Trent Valley Catchment Partnership (with key partners Groundwork West Midlands and the Wild Trout Trust who conceived and delivered the habitat works). Matt told me that he’d had some exciting preliminary reports from a EA Midlands fisheries surveys team. Their survey on 7^th September had caught several wild trout as part of their sample on the habitat works site.

These are the first modern records of trout in the brook and is also the exciting news that we have been waiting for on these first phases of work to create spawning, juvenile and adult trout habitat in a straightened channel in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Whether any fish can yet reach the most recent phase of works on the Lyme Brook a couple of miles upstream (documented on this most recent blog Here)…it remains to be seen. There are certainly some challenging obstacles for fish between these two areas.

Watch this space for more specific details as they are passed on…

Paul