Rather smaller in scale than the record-breaking demolition of the PNW’s Elwha dams, but probably no less significant for other reasons, is the very recent installation of a £300,000 multi-species technical fish and eel pass on the previously-impassable Hadfield weir in Sheffield. Via the Don Catchment Rivers Trust and A Torn Construction comes this fascinating […]
Archive for the 'UK' Category
November 12 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Monday 12 November
Kranj time for trophy hunters: urban huchen fishing revealed on Slovenia’s legendary Sava (top tip: arm up with 8-10 weights or heavier) US-based Clean Water Future’s community engagement crowd-funding model brings Kickstarter-style fundraising to river restoration Bakewell or bust: 3 Wandle Piscators sample street-fishing on the Derbyshire Wye Shaun Leonard, Paul Gaskell, Tim Jacklin and […]
November 2 2012
Film night: Toxic bioaccumulation in post-industrial rivers… are urban fish safe to eat?
This is an issue that’s kept UK-based river restorationists awake at night for years – but never with quite enough evidence to convince regulatory colleagues that toxic bioaccumulation of arsenic, mercury, PCBs, endocrine-disrupting flame retardants and other contaminants probably works the same at the apex of our inland waterways’ food webs as it does in […]
October 24 2012
Urban river restoration: LWD on the Chess
Urban fly-fishers familiar with the River Chess above Scotsbridge Mill in Rickmansworth will know it can prove a spooky stretch to fish successfully. Historically canalised and perched above its floodplain to provide constant power for corn- and paper-milling, this lovely little outer-London chalkstream is now a popular circuit for local dog walkers (whilst tackling up […]
October 18 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Thursday 18 October
Gravel cleaning, cake and urban fishing: just another World Rivers Day in south London Even more London stuff: the Wandle’s first finished rock ramp fish pass, Thames 21’s Cleaner Thames Challenge, and the Wandle Trust’s call for education volunteers Love your river: hosted by Thames Water and the River Chess Association, double Olympic rowing gold […]
October 5 2012
Urban river restoration: Restocking Yorkshire’s Colne
Here’s one we missed earlier: news of the latest very welcome stocking of 4,000 juvenile grayling into Yorkshire’s River Colne between Marsden and Milnsbridge. Readers of Trout in Dirty Places will probably remember that this is the stretch of the Colne which has been hit by an almost unbelievable sequence of pollution incidents in the […]
September 24 2012
Urban fly-fishing report: Rea Brook, Shrewsbury
Urbantrout reader Spencer Clayton fishes many Borderland rivers including the Teme and Onny – and after reading chapter 21 of Trout in Dirty Places earlier this year, he’s been inspired to start exploring Shrewsbury’s magical little Rea Brook too. At the end of last week he sent us this great catch report and selection of […]
September 20 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Thursday 20 September
Trout in (maybe slightly less Dirty, market-towny sorts of) Places: Urban fly-fishing breaks cover in this week’s Shooting Times magazine What’s Environment Agency NW planning for Manchester’s River Medlock? We’ll investigate and let you know! Digging up the river: after the Wandle’s latest pollution incident, fish passage work continues as planned… … while Peter Lapsley […]
September 2 2012
Weir, what weir? Bolton’s Croal shows us how it’s done…
As any fule kno experienced river restorationist knows, there’s really not much point in trying to work against a river’s natural processes: in the end it’ll do what it wants to do anyhow, so you might as well just get out of the way. Which is why we’ve been so brim-full delighted to read the latest […]
August 31 2012
Film night: Fish pass clearance by SPRITE (plus a quickfire tenkara masterclass!)
Fish Pass Clearance by SPRITE from Paul Gaskell on Vimeo. For the second time in as many months, a dozen SPRITE volunteers have been out in the midday sun, clearing around 8 tonnes of sand, branches and other debris to get the fish pass on Sheffield’s Niagara Weir working again… … raising a very valid […]
