Midcurrent reviews the latest Orvis fly-fishing sling pack (we’re loving the digital camo colourway for stealthy urban ops… stay tuned for something special!) Retreat from trouble: the Porter Brook’s native white-clawed crayfish are evacuated from Sheffield city centre to a high-altitude ark site somewhere in the surrounding Pennines A few miles upstream from that tunnel, […]
Author Archive
February 18 2013
City river reads: Peter Simple walks the Wandle
Sometime during the winter of 1969-70, the Telegraph’s columnist ‘Peter Simple’ walked the length of south London’s River Wandle and recorded his experience in the paper’s Way of the World column. At that time, the Wandle was enduring some of its darkest days, officially classified as an open sewer. But unlike so many of Peter Simple’s […]
February 8 2013
Film night: Getting wet feet in Burnley
As the clocks slowly tick down towards those HLF announcements, the Ribble Rivers Trust has just released this volunteer-produced video demonstrating how much impact the URES initiative has already had amongst the communities of Burnley as part of the Ribble Life project. It’s an excellent 7-minute summary of how such a project can begin to […]
January 28 2013
Pasties, plastic bags and public engagement: Greggs the Bakers’ double bonus for south Wales rivers
Although the current wave of Water Framework Directive related funding (via Defra’s River Improvement Fund and subsequent Catchment Restoration Fund) have seen welcome injections of capital into river restoration work across the UK… … the fact remains that funding options for catchment-scale projects remain decidedly limited, and still largely dependent on grants from government and […]
January 21 2013
Urbantrout sidecasts: Monday 21 January
From Seattle to Atlanta via Boston, Denver and Salt Lake City, a new study by the United States Geological Survey examines the varying effects of urbanisation on different stream and river ecosystems … while the UK’s Environment Agency commits to massive £3.5 million deculverting of the River Roch in Rochdale’s historic centre (extra BBC footage […]
January 18 2013
Film night: Fly-fishing the urban Potomac
Via Moldy Chum comes this intriguing trailer for the imminent 2013 Fly Fishing Film Tour, featuring four dedicated urban fly-fishermen making the most of what’s in their own backyard in Washington DC. From the film-maker’s blurb: In an unlikely setting of concrete vistas, population density and traffic nightmares, the Potomac River proves that adventure and […]
January 9 2013
Challenge Buxton 2013: Who’s up for restoring the top of the Derbyshire Wye?
Even the smartest towns sometimes have dirty places, down the inaccessible backs of car parks and petrol stations… and in those places you’ll often find trout! In truth, this particular dirty place was hard to miss when I visited the top of the Derbyshire Wye at the start of last season: an outsize plunge pool […]
December 20 2012
Urban river funding plans for Burnley and south London: Why we’re crossing everything for 2013…
For many rivers trusts and river restoration groups across the UK, the last working week before Christmas has been a blur of deadlines: final drafts of reports on projects successfully completed, budgets and planning for work running up to the end of the financial year, and plans and applications for projects somewhere out there in […]
December 15 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Saturday 15 December
Urban fishing bonus: starlings throw shapes in the winter sky over Taunton’s Obridge viaduct (above, via the Daily Mail) Discover tenkara: Paul Gaskell, John Pearson and Stuart Crofts host a have-a-go day for Sheffield’s SPRITE volunteers The Wandle Trust wins £1m+ funding for Water Framework Directive-related urban river restoration across south London City centre salmon […]
December 3 2012
Pic of the day: The river in winter
Fishing a city river in winter can show you both what you’re really made of. In this case it’s collapsing sheet steel undercuts versus 110% hardcore, as Adrian Grose-Hodge sizes up a sub-zero stretch of the Wandle near Plough Lane in south London… (Photo: Sam Newson)
