WTT Blog

Traditional fishing day tickets risk spreading coronavirus through unnecessary contact with vendors. Digital solutions present a way to fish safely and protect the country.

It’s a little over a fortnight since the (re)opening of the 2020 trout season. One can assume our readership has dutifully obeyed the measures of social distancing passed down from Westminster. For ourselves, our neighbours and the good of the entire population we’ve shelved one third of our annual pursuit allowance. But now we may fish again…

Freshwater scientists have been studying the phenomenon of “hydropeaking”, the artificial variation in flow below hydropower plants, for around 25 years. One particular aspect has been the harmful effects of flows, fluctuating in some cases on an hourly basis, upon salmonid fish species. In response to the growing awareness of the need to reduce the impacts of hydropeaking, a team of freshwater ecologists and engineers recently published a timely review article. One of the authors, Daniel Hayes (a PhD candidate at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna) tells us a little more about the issue.

The ever growing population of the south east needs water, and so do our chalk streams which have been suffering from low flows and, particularly in the Chilterns, drying up, because of the demands placed on the chalk aquifers that supply both rivers and people.

In this blog, Charles Rangeley-Wilson describes a simple but revolutionary solution to the problem. Take the water from the lowest reaches of the river, not the top. Chalk-Streams First has the potential to completely re-naturalise the flows in all of the Chilterns chalk-streams with potentially only a small net loss to overall public water supply. 

While the amazing work around the world to remove huge dams and reconnect rivers tends to capture the media headlines (e.g. Dam Removal Europe), we know that small (known in the trade as low-head) structures can be equally as effective in fragmenting fish populations and interrupting sediment transport. And compared to large barriers, there are thousands and thousands of small ones, as the AMBER project has recently highlighted for much of Europe.

Through the latter part of 2019, Jonny Grey was involved in two projects to design low-cost fish passage solutions on two very different becks, and here he describes the installation in early 2020.

We can't go fishing, but we can plan....

Roaming the lonely hills and quiet valleys in search of wild trout is one of the quintessential adventures of any fishing season. Wales is justly famous for sewin and salmon, but the Principality's fishing for brown trout, pike and grayling is also superb. Thanks to many of our generous supporters, the Wild Trout Trust Auction brings you a wide choice of chances to explore llyns and rivers across Wales.

There are some top quality chalkstream lots in the Auction with no bids against them currently. Click the lot numbers below to go to the lot on eBay. The auction closes from 5pm on Sunday 29 March.... time to bid!

162 A day for 2 rods on the River Anton, guided by Bill Latham165 A day for 2 rods on the River Dever at Bullington175 A day for 2 rods on a private beat of the  Wiltshire Avon177 A day for 2 rods on the Middle Test at Mottisfont160 A day for 3 rods on the Lambourn, guided by Mark Shickle161 A day for 3 rods on the Upper Test at Wherwell158 A day for 2 rods on the exclusive Bishopstoke fishery, hosted by Shaun Leonard, WTT Director.314 A day for 2 rods on the River Kennet, the famous Wilderness fishery 114 2 days for 2 rods on the River Ebble188 A day for 2 rods River Wylye

We hope that we'll be fishing again before too long....

A day of adventures doesn’t have to mean long-distance travel! Thanks to many of our supporters, there’s plenty of exciting fishing to be found not far from London:

A special fishing season can be made even more memorable by a very special rod and reel. Why not choose one of these for your #WTTseasonofadventures?

Lot 28: A 6ft 3wt cane rod, newly built by renowned builder Barry Grantham

A super podcast with WTT Events Officer Bruno Vincent talking to Pete Tyjas of Fly Culture is now available.

Bruno is a talented chap and has donated three lots to our auction (which he runs, and which is on eBay now). The lots are: 42 flies, a days’ fishing the Heddon valley on Exmoor (gorgeous spot) and a lino cut ‘A Festival Of Grayling’. 

Urban River Restoration attracts only the extreme end of ultra-dedicated conservationists. Here's a video record of insights shared at the 2019 WTT Urban Conclave. The video and blog include so many demonstrations of how to creatively achieve river habitat protection, restoration and public engagement that it should probably be a sold as it's own training course!

Test your knowledge of trout over the Christmas holidays. No prizes I'm afraid, but I'd be interested to know how you get on. Email me at dashton@wildtrout.org. 

Almost all of the answers to the quiz questions can be found on the ‘About Trout’ pages of our website https://www.wildtrout.org/ and particularly the  Lifecycle, Ferox, Sea Trout and Trout Facts pages.