‘Sculpin’, ‘Trout’ and ‘Shrimpy’ go urban grayling fishing somewhere up north… no hotspotting here! Salford Friendly Anglers launch their revamped website, including an urgent appeal to stand up for the Irwell in the Environment Agency’s Challenges and Choices consultation London calling: making headlines in The Angler, undoing historic dredging and impoundment damage on the Hogsmill, and […]
Archive for the tag 'Irwell'
October 25 2013
Restoring the Red River: Manchester’s River Medlock
At last week’s Wild Trout Trust Conservation Awards (no urban winners this time, but we salute them all just the same!) many of our fellow river restorationists kept coming back to one fascinating subject of debate… … the massive ongoing project work by the Environment Agency, Groundwork and the Irwell Rivers Trust to restore Manchester’s […]
September 16 2013
Urbantrout sidecasts: Monday 16 September
Another one bites the dust: latest news of fish passage improvements on south London’s little Hogsmill River CATCH ‘em young: Wincanton’s newly-formed community river restoration group draws crowds at the town’s first Sunday street market Sheffield University becomes the UK’s biggest urban water research group Changing perceptions of a dirty river: Action Irwell’s Eric Owen […]
May 31 2013
Urban fly-tying: Tim James, Tavistock
Readers of last year’s best-selling urban fly-fishing blockbuster may recall how impressed we were by the locally-tied flies of Tavistock fishing guide Tim James… … which we loved enough to pick up a generous handful from the counter of English Country Pursuits, the town’s huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ shop. Some of these featured in chapter […]
May 21 2013
Urban river projects: Celebrating our successes (and why there’s no such thing as inevitability)
Ahead of this weekend’s third biennial Urban River Conclave, co-ordinated by the Wild Trout Trust and hosted by Salford Friendly Anglers, the WTT’s most excellent Paul Gaskell has posted this thoughtful piece on his Trout in the Town blog. Last year, he admits, he spent a lot of time drawing together an application to the […]
May 15 2013
Urban fly-fishing report: Calder, Irwell and Tame
With successive weather fronts blowing in from the Atlantic, flexibility and a functioning sense of humour were just enough to bring success when the Urbantrout team visited northern Manchester’s river systems last weekend. Starting our campaign on one of those classically post-industrial Calder tributaries, we indulged our passion for urban exploration to find bruiser trout […]
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 […]
June 23 2012
Miracle on the Irwell
It’s all happening in Media City. Just a few days after Nick Carter’s big lunchbreak trout hit the blogosphere, ITV News has aired this 2-minute local spot charting the Irwell’s recovery over the past 30 years, thanks largely to the (uncredited) Mersey Basin Campaign. Chub, trout and several Salford Friendly Anglers are briefly interviewed… This is […]
June 15 2012
Lunch break trout
Is it possible to catch a trout on your lunch break in Manchester city centre? As existential questions go, this one has clearly been haunting Salford Friendly Anglers‘ co-founder Nick Carter for a while. But after surviving at least one close encounter with something of the Mancunian night (hint: it’s 18 stone and wears a […]
May 5 2012
Urban fly-fishing: 10 top rivers in FF&FT
Sixteen miles upriver from central Manchester, between the cricket ground and the carpet factory in Ramsbottom, the early-season Irwell surges with smooth, deceptive power. Raindrops splash into eddies along the banks, and a hatch of dark olives tacks across the leaden surface. Under those little grey sailboats, the trout I’ve just hooked on a dead-drifted […]
