Extracts from the experiences of a river angler, mostly barbel, but with comment and musings about other species, river wildlife and associated topics. All pictures will enlarge if you click on them.

The guides were normally cool calm and collected, cheerful and helpful, and always keen to offer advice and beers from the coolbox. I can still see the anxiety in the face of one young guide; however, as he struggled to start the outboard while we drifted closer and closer to a big pod of hippo that were between us and shallow water in a bay close to the bank. Cutting off a hippo escape route is a recipe for disaster, and having seen them charge each other in anger, I was preparing to grab a lifejacket and abandon ship when the motor spluttered into life, and the boat occupants and hippos all breathed a mighty sigh of relief.

Jumping into the Zambezi would not be recommended in any event, as we were often assured that the number of crocodiles under the water was far more than the number that were regularly disturbed out on the bank. One unfortunate canoeist was grabbed out of his canoe by a big croc only a week earlier, and canoes out on the main river were not encouraged. We did manage to sneak up on a twelve foot plus specimen as he basked on a sandbank, and the speed with which he shot into the water when he noticed us was astounding, there would be no escape from those jaws, and no chance of out swimming him!

A typical tigerfish swim on the Zambezi is a drop off from shallow sandbars into deeper, swirly water, but these areas are also favoured by pods of hippo, that lounge around on the shallows with an escape route into the deeps at the first sigh of danger. The baitfish that the tigers feed on also like to hang around the hippo, presumably taking advantage of the hippo dung and other food items that a few hundred tons of wallowing hippo produce. The tigers are never far away from their food, so a common technique was to scare away the hippo by revving the boat engines, then drift downstream of their lie, casting out strips of fresh baitfish on big single hooks and heavy wire traces. Tigerfish are not gentle takers, and hit the baits hard, often leaping skywards almost immediately they are hooked. Hookholds are precarious in those tough toothy jaws, and most fish were lost early on in the fight. The tiger is a strikingly beautiful fish, a bit like a giant grayling with horror film teeth, and the handling of any capture was left to the guides, who all had experience in landing and unhooking fish quickly and safely.

The average size on this stretch was quite high, I am told, and I had several double figure fish up to nearly fourteen pounds. I am certainly going again, and already saving up for another trip next year. The holiday was not just about fishing, and it was somewhat difficult to get to sleep on the first night, with leopard spotted a few yards from the rather flimsy tent, not to mention finding elephant, buffalo and hyena tracks within a few feet of the bed the next morning.

I felt a bit wet and miserable as I squelched towards my chosen swim, cursing the grey clouds and squally showers that are making the fishing much less enjoyable than it should be at this time of year. The swim would be more fishable than most, on the inside of a bend with deepish water under the rod tip, and with the aid of a good heavy back lead I could avoid much of the drifting weed that the extra water had dislodged. It was more like winter fishing, baiting a swim close in, fishing with rod tips submerged, and hoping that fish would be in the area, rather than spotting them. I crouched grumpily under the brolly, and willed one of the pins to screech into life.

The bite from a barbel is nearly always a surprise, and the inert reel suddenly screaming into life is one of the most exciting ways of being woken from a grumpy doze. The fish tore off across the river, stopped, and then surged up under the far bank with the power and authority that marks a bigger than average barbel.
The damp and dreary weather was forgotten as I stumbled soggily into the muddy margins and attempted to bring some control into the situation. The slow and dogged determination of this fish set my mind racing, and the first sight of the tail and flank as it turned and plodded off on another run into the weedbeds confirmed that it was a sizeable and scarily big barbel.

The best of the year at 14.2, it turned a miserable day of low mood and low expectations into a bit of a red letter day, and the clouds lifted along with my spirits. The long walk back to the car was a doddle.

Another fish of similar size came at dusk from the same swim, along with a really chunky chub of just under six that fought almost as well as the barbel, making me think a catch of three barbel in a day was on the cards, which would have been a notable catch from the middle Avon this year. The fishing remains very slow and patchy, from what I hear, and it is one of the reasons why I have fished the river so little this season. The conditions for spotting and stalking fish have not been there, and this takes most of the enjoyment out of fishing the summer river.

Next day I went to a reliable bit of the Kennet, and blanked there for a change. This trip was only half a day, after picking up some more bait from Glyn, but even so I expected to get four or five fish in the evening. The crayfish were quite ravenous, and destroyed my hook baits in the three swims I tried, and one nasty specimen gave me the only proper bite of the day, almost drawing blood from my finger as I got him to pose for the camera. I hope and pray that these accused creatures never take hold in my local rivers. Some anglers seem to think they are actually desirable, thinking them responsible for increased growth rates in fish, which is nonsense in my view. Like most invasive species, they are in dire need of total extermination.

There was a time when we stalked the river in search of shoals of perhaps a dozen or twenty fish, and expected to get four to six fish in a day, but rarely anything over nine pounds. Now we stalk even harder, searching for groups of two or three fish, and every third fish is a double. The population is changing, fewer and bigger fish, but there are signs that a new generation is on the way to replace the current dominant year classes. I heard recently of a match catch of 28 pounds which comprised 14 barbel, so there are some backup fish on the way to replace these big old fish when the inevitably pass away.

I could not put John off any longer, and we arrived at a noted swim and baited heavily with hemp and caster and left it for a couple of hours, hoping that fish would move in. I explained that a barbel would be a lot to hope for unless we could find some visible fish in shallower water that had not already been spotted and fished for. I took John to the swim where Richard Walker took his enormous 12.12 in 1963, and gave him a tour of what I think is the most picturesque stretch of the Middle Avon, but no fish could be seen, either on our tour or on our return to the baited swim. Not even a chub had put in an appearance, so we decided to trudge for a mile through the soggy meadows to another swim that I knew held a few barbel. You cannot catch a fish that isn`t there. The walk is normally a nice flat comfortable stroll, but the wet and muddy fields made it a grueling and rather unpleasant plod.

We collapsed in the swim, and determined not to move again. We went through the basics of hemp and caster fishing, baiting techniques and rigs that were new to John, and he assured me that the experience was more about seeing the river and learning about unfamiliar tactics than catching a barbel. Just as well, because the barbel failed to show, but John was delighted to catch a few nice Avon chub on both caster and my special boilies, and the catch was topped by a personal best 6.10 for John, which saved the day in style. A long fish, it would make a good seven in the winter. We were amused between bites by a green caterpillar that walked at least ten circuits of my bait bucket rim before tiring and eventually we rescued him and put him in the rushes. John wanted to throw him to the chub, but we thought better of it.

John left a happy man, but the poor barbel form on the river continues to cause concern. I think it is just down to exceptional conditions; an extra foot of water generates ten times as many barbel swims, and with fewer barbel than ever in the river, they are more spread out and harder to find, as well as being unsettled by late spawning and cooler wetter weather. September must see a big boost to catches!

We travelled further up the M1 than I had ever been, and were warmly welcomed by Warren and advised to pick up some tins of spam from the local stores before we set off for the river. This was the going bait, we were advised. The Swale is a nice little river, with steep wooded banks for the most part and set in classic Yorkshire countryside, but the Himalayan Balsam has got a grip up here, and the heavy beds of HB that choked some considerable length of the banks were a bit of a disappointment. The Yorkie cows seemed to be very choosy, and the herd of Fresians that lived in the adjoining meadows had left the stuff untouched. My Avon Redpolls attack it with vigor, and are a very effective form of control when they can get near it.

The river was about a foot up, and looked very inviting. Phil bagged the best swim, and I took up station in a nice comfortable spot just downstream. We had both slipped and fallen on the muddy banks on the way down to the swims, but Phil was soon set up and cast out, with not a hair out of place. Warren was full of enthusiasm, really welcoming and helpful, and gave us plenty of advice and encouraged us with tales of recent catches. The barbel were not in the mood, however, and all six of the people fishing failed to get a Swale barbel, though I had a nice chub and some tentative enquiries that were probably just more chub.

I am determined to have another go, however, and Phil and I plan another visit as soon as the river drops and clears a bit, although Warren told us the river can fish really well in flood conditions. Thanks to Woz for all his help, and I am sure we can get amongst those Northern barbel next time.

Things did not look very favourable, but we had all come a long way and decided to press ahead.

The presenter of this series, Rae Borras, is an excellent character for the role, and I have known him for many years, since he is deeply involved in the salmon fishing on the Hampshire Avon. He was not impressed with the colour of the Teme, but we persuaded him that there was a chance of some fish, and the weather held nicely, enabling some good scenic shots and interviews with us all to be completed. Rae kept us all amused in his inimitable way, and even though the fishing was hard, we all had a good time. Ron and Steve caught two barbel for the cameras, and Rae managed to get the best fish of the day, a barbel of around eight pounds, whilst idly dangling two lobworms in a half hearted way under his rod tip. I accused him of worming for salmon, and taking the fish by foul means, but this was mostly due to jealousy on my part, since I blanked in fine style, again.

The willow stakes we had hammered into the bank in April to hold back the erosion had sprouted vigorously, and I was fishing just downstream of them. The stakes were submerged, but the growth was still visible despite the river carrying three or four feet of floodwater. Catching three fish in such conditions shows how many there are there, and hopefully the work we are doing at Bransford with the EA later in the year will make the habitat even more attractive to the barbel and other wildlife.

The Loddon was a bit coloured after the usual rainstorm, but the day was clear and hot, and a big grey shape could be still be seen ghosting about in my swim, a big barbel that was obviously very spooky and not keen to feed at all. I blanked in fine style, but will go back for that fish. I think it was bigger than the one Steve had by a few pounds, so worth another visit, even if I have to lend him a pound to shut him up.

The Loddon is well provided for in terms of woody debris, and it is a difficult job deciding which instream trees are good habitat, which are a real risk in terms of flood defence, and which are nasty snags that the greedy or inexperienced angler will constantly lose fish in. Some overhanging and partly submerged trees make superb barbel swims, some are good hidey holes for fish but impossible to get fish out of once hooked. The EA are currently working on removal of fallen trees on both Kennet and Loddon, it seems, but the work so far has left plenty of cover for fish, at the same time dealing with big fallen trees that almost block the entire river. Apparently trees which overhang by more than 25% of the channel width are candidates for pruning, and need to be half a metre clear of the surface. Such criteria are OK for flood defence, but fisheries/biodiversity officers must surely have some input into tree removal policy. Trees are good habitat for all species of fish, and also birds and other wildlife, and managing them involves the usual balancing act between a range of opinions from flood defence, fisheries and conservation interests.

I found two plants at Throop last week, and marched into the brambles to pull them up. We all need to do the same, or face a bankside invasion of the stuff and incalculable damage to the ecosystem. A recent visit to the Teme and the Swale showed me how awful the HB takeover can be, and the effects on bankside erosion are hard to measure.

The Purple Loosestrife on the other hand is a welcome native species that seems to be having a bumper crop this year. It obviously likes cool damp weather, unlike the barbel! The Loosestrife is also very evident on roadside verges as well as riverbanks, and is much preferable to the ghastly balsam.

Next day on the Kennet and the barbel were going well, resulting in a nice bag of ten fish including a few nines and a ten pounder. The river is generally quite prolific compared to the Avon and Stour, and nice to see a good range of sizes. I must assume that the two and three pounders are a different year class to the eights and nines, and the river is assured of a self sustaining barbel population for many years to come.
Rivers like the Stour and Avon are at a crucial stage, with a few big fish and not much sign of recruitment to replace them when they die off. I think the Thames, Ouse and Lower Severn are at a similar cycle, with fish getting bigger and bigger, but fewer and fewer, and the next year classes of barbel yet to put in an appearance. The Upper Severn swarms with smaller barbel, I am told, so they should filter down and keep the population up in the lower reaches.

I was astounded to learn the secret of Phil Smith`s luxurious coiffure the other day; if you look in Sainsbury`s toiletry department his range of shampoos and conditioners is there for all to benefit from.
Phil tells me it is another Phil Smith, but the evidence is there for all to see. I am going to take a trip to the Swale with Phil shortly, so will be able to pass on some more tips on hair care then, I am sure.

The next day on the Stour was quite uneventful, with the river clearing but still lacking the clarity that makes it worth trying to spot fish. Fishing blind on the Stour is as risky as it is on the Avon; the golden rule in the summer is to find your fish before bothering to start fishing, but murky water means you can only use your knowledge of likely swims and fish them in the hope there are a few barbel present. The evening wore by with not even a chub, then a little surprise in the shape of a big dog otter made me sit up. He popped his head up and out over the bank a few inches from my feet, took one look at me, snorted in disgust and splashed away in a flick of his tail and left a trail of bubbles as he shot off upstream. I must have been sitting at a spot where he wanted to come ashore.

The closest I have ever been to a wild otter, and an experience that left me with mixed feelings.
It may be the reason there were no fish feeding in my swim, but on the other hand I have caught barbel within minutes of an otter cavorting through my swim on the Avon. He was the first otter I had seen on that stretch, and the barbel have never been as scarce in recent years. I have to hope it is just coincidence; there are loads of roach, chub, eels and perch showing, increasing in numbers as the barbel decline. Too early to blame the otters, I think.

Another blank on the Avon, and even the chub are not doing me any favours this year. The signs on both Avon and Stour are that the chub are recruiting well, with plenty of small fish from a few inches to three pounds, as well as the bigger specimens. There is now a realistic chance of eight pound plus fish from both rivers, and sevens are now not mentioned with any surprise at all. How things change; not that long ago I was seriously doubting whether the Avon would produce a six pounder, now I no longer bother to photograph sixes unless they are pretty fish.

A nice ten seven barbel from the Loddon kept my barbel needs satisfied for a while, a really clean chunky fish with no hookmarks and perfect fins. It was a hard day for one fish though, and the oncoming warm settled weather may start to turn the barbel on properly. The bulk of the fish are still drifting about on the shallows, with spawning still on their minds I am sure, and I saw a group of barbel yesterday that were sitting out in very shallow water and looking a bit confused. They will regroup and switch on eventually, and I cannot wait until the rivers are clear enough to spot them and proper barbel fishing starts.

We ended up going to a stretch I was familiar with for the afternoon and evening, and even there it was a couple of hours before anything happened. Two or three fish in a day is acceptable to me on this bit of water, and three sprightly fish eventually got their heads down on my carefully droppered bed of particles, dragging the rod round boldly and storming off downstream. They seem to like the thick cabbage beds on the Loddon, and burrow into them furiously when hooked. The tail of a nine pounder can look quite impressive when it is all you can see waving out of a weedbed that the fighting barbel is busy demolishing.
All three fish looked like doubles in the water, and two nearly made it.

The next fruitless visit to another new stretch produced one bream, but the sight of four kites wheeling over a newly cut hay field more than made up for the lack of fish. At times they hovered just above the trees, and I could make out the glint in their eyes as they searched the field after the recent grass cutting. I suppose there are mice and voles that get minced as the hay is cut, and the kites are used to going in and mopping up the casualties. Lovely elegant birds, that are apparently spreading every year, and there is more than enough road kill and rabbit to keep them going. Their proper name is Red Tailed Kite, I think, and those reddy ginger colours are easy to make out at close range.

The exceptional water levels have meant that some stretches of river that have not been weedcut for perhaps twenty years are to be cut this coming week, mostly because the water is threatening to flood houses and highways. The two wet winters and springs have meant that the river is flowing at 140% of long term average, which means it is carrying 40% more water than normal at a time when weed growth has also been unusually vigorous. The cutting is a compromise between the demands of farmers, homeowners, conservationists and fishermen, and the weedcutting consultation meetings I have attended over the last few years have shown me how much the EA tries to take all concerns on board before any cutting takes place.
It remains a considered and minimal cut in my view, and certainly a much better situation than occurred twenty years ago.

Angry anglers must also realise that a large amount of weedcutting is regularly practised on the Upper Avon, Test and Itchen for angling benefit, on the trout fishing stretches, and this has been common established and accepted fishery management for centuries. The effect on fishing, flow and inverts is seen as beneficial. The wholesale bank-to-bank weedcutting of the sixties and seventies does not occur now, and the ever reducing level of cutting probably does less damage than we think, though it looks a bit horrendous when the boats are in action.

The new island on the river that was constructed by the EA last autumn has survived the floods, and is currently still underwater due to the high levels, and gathering some goods rafts of cut weed. It is already proving to be a haven for chub, and will no doubt become an improved habitat for dace, chub, and barbel as well as salmon.

The next evening I tried again for an Avon barbel, and immediately caught two large bream, both over eight and the biggest a shade under nine! Avon bream are not usually welcomed by me, but I have to say they were very clean, golden bronze fish, that made me stop winding in twice during the fight. They were both females, and looked as if they had not yet spawned. The male Avon bream are often ugly black fish, all covered in warts and tubercles, but these fish were almost nice to look at, and also lacking in the thick slime that their stillwater cousins have. A chub of a little under five rounded off the evening, but still no barbel.

Next two days will be spent on pulling up the infestations of Himalayan Balsam that are starting to take hold on the river. With luck, and with a good education programme for anglers, we can keep this stuff at bay on the river, but it does need us to keep our eyes open and take the trouble to pull it up whenever we see it. I always attack it when I see it on the Kennet and Loddon, but they are really lost causes, along with the Frome and some of the southwest rivers. Not giving up on the Avon, though, and am pleased with the support from local fishing clubs to date.

The Kennet came up trumps for me though, and bags of four or five fish in a day, including a couple of ten pounders, reminded me of just how hard they can fight at close quarters. They may not compete with Canadian commons for speed, but the stamina of a fit ten pounder, in deepish water under the rod top made my arm ache. These fish may well have spawned and recovered, they seemed very fit and quite fat in the belly, but may have been gorging on the hemp and crumbled boilie that I was bait dropping so generously for their benefit. The Kennet still suffers from very turbid water, and it is a shame that the fish can rarely be spotted. The ranunculus still seems to grow well on most stretches, but rarely reaches the profusion that typifies Avon weed growth. I will be glad when the Avon and Stour clear properly, and the fish can be sought out by spotting, rather than mostly fruitlessly fishing blindly.

Weedgrowth on the Avon has been exceptional this year, and linked with very high levels and flows, has resulted in huge problems for farmers and, we are told, the interests of breeding wading birds. The low lying fields have certainly been ankle deep in water a lot of the time. The Avon weedcutting has had to be more severe than normal, which is a cause for some concern, but it must be viewed in the light of a period of much less cutting, and having attended weedcutting meetings on behalf of the Society and local clubs, I must say that the EA have been very responsive to angling interests over recent years. Some years there is little or no weedcutting, and the amount of cutting is reducing all the time. It is now carried out in a minimal and much more controlled way, and I would not welcome the job of trying to satisfy the demands of farmers, conservation bodies and anglers, all with conflicting demands!

One stretch I know is not going to be cut at all from now on, as a direct result of consultation and reasonable negotiation between myself and the EA, and there have been changes in cutting practice which have achieved drops in levels that are slow and effective, thereby not stranding fry and inverts, again at the suggestion of anglers. This has involved a single, sinuous narrow cut, which lowers levels and retains the bulk of the weed growth. It works best in low flow conditions, however, and every year is different. In the future, the level of weedcutting will get less and less, I am sure, but in the meantime we can work with the authorities to minimise any potential damage to ecosystems.

A quick visit to Budgie and Trevor to see how the Roach Club roach rearing project is progressing was a delight; the roach are now feeding furiously on the shrimp and daphnia that Trev is farming in his back garden, and losses have been minimal. There are tens of thousands of healthy little fish that are being given a chance of survival and will ultimately be returned to the river to try and give the roach in the middle reaches a helping hand to repopulate. Recent EA fish population monitoring confirms that roach are noticeable by their absence, even though chub and to a lesser extent, barbel are maintaining numbers.
The little roach love the live food that are being bred in Trevor`s conservatory, and will soon need to be fed on fish farm supplement as well. The EA are very supportive of this scheme, even to the extent of providing a promise of some more tanks to increase the roach rearing capacity of Trev`s back garden.
The enthusiasm and commitment of both Trevor and Budgie is astounding, they deserve every success and credit for what has been achieved so far; must get them to try rearing some barbel as well!
They are both BS members, and just the sort of contributors that angling needs. The Avon roach need them too!

First barbel on the Loddon
19th June 2008

First trip of the season was to the friendly little Loddon, and combined with a visit to Glyn the Baitmaker to pick up some fresh boilies and paste. A new recipe was called for, not because his last mix was not effective, but to keep up an interest and confidence from a base and flavour that you know is both high quality and unique. I had seen Avon barbel move a couple of hundred yards to home in on a bed of crumbled boilie made by Glyn, and rip up the bottom on the baited area, and am always confident that his stuff both attracts and catches fish.

I used the new boilie on the river that afternoon, and was most appreciative of a barbel on it during the first session of the season. Such instant success is to be expected from good bait, and shows that the heavy prebaiting that some people employ and recommend is not really necessary a lot of the time.
It was only one fish, though, and typical of results so far this season for most eager and over-expectant barbel anglers. A few fish, and some very big ones, will be caught, but it seems to me that the barbel are particularly unsettled and scattered this year, and we invariably forget that early season barbelling can be very hit and miss. Fish are almost always on the move to or from spawning, and take a few weeks to settle down and start feeding in earnest. The barbel I had was very fit, in perfect condition, and may not yet have spawned. The reports of very big fish I have heard so far would suggest that the big females are yet to spawn, and no surprise when you consider the very changeable, cool and unsettled weather we have had this spring, along with above average flows on many rivers.

It was strange to be playing a fish on what seemed like delicate and light tackle after getting aching arms with beefy carp rods, big reels and heavy braid on the St Lawrence, but the bite was as far from delicate, a typical wrench round and a nice way to start the season.

The area we were fishing was a flooded area upstream of a massive hydroelectric dam, that links Canada with America, and the bays often contained small submerged villages or roads, and the huge glacial rocks added to the snag potential. Heavy braid was a must to avoid being cut off by either the rocks or beds of zebra mussels, but losses in snags were very few. My more experienced colleagues told me that the fish with hookmarks I was catching were once a rarity, but a few had obviously been caught before. British anglers are now outnumbering the locals most days, and the place, despite the huge scale, is getting ever popular. There are literally millions of carp in the river, however, and they are seen as a food source to some. There were Chinese and Eastern Europeans happily putting big carp in the boots, sorry, trunks of their vehicles on the last day I fished, much to the bemusement of the Canadians, who were just as happily fishing for tiny bass on useless little four foot rods bought for a few dollars from Wal-Mart. The Canadians were welcoming and friendly people on the whole, and we forged some good friendships on the trip, experiencing some awesome barbecue food. The size of their portions matches the size of their carp.

The final sight of the trip was of carp spawning in their thousands in one large shallow bay, but the spectacle was marred by the sight of some bow hunters, who think that it is sporting to stalk the spawning fish from specially designed boats, and then nobly and bravely shoot the biggest with crossbow bolts attached to lines. The fish are generally discarded once they have thrashed themselves to exhaustion and hauled in, and I do find this practice more difficult to tolerate than the taking of the occasional carp for food. The biggest females, often fish of forty pounds plus, are the preferred victims, and the lack of bigger fish over the last few years may be in some way a result of such selective culling.

I ended up with 144 carp over the two weeks, and a whole host of experiences that are making another visit next year very likely indeed.

The carp of the St Lawrence are famed for their abundance and their fighting qualities, and the first few days of my holiday in Canada has proved that they do fight astoundingly hard, but are not too abundant at the moment. The reason is blamed on a cold spring, and the big shoals of carp are still in the main river, and have not yet made their way into the shallow warm bays ready for spawning. We fished some of the main river swims on the first day or so, and although we had fish to over thirty and some nice twenties, the numbers of fish were apparently disappointing. Four or five such fish in a day was more than enough for me, though, and the experience of thirty pounds of sleek Canadian carp tearing line off the clutch and heading for America across the other side of the river was something I could like getting used to!

The carp are not very educated, and will take anything yellow on heavy tackle fished over a bed of maize, and they give terrific bites; just like barbel, the bite is half the fun. They really do fight like tigers, and the bigger fish in particular have unbelievable stamina. Seen lots of wildlife so far too, including beavers, raccoons, chipmunks, Essex carp anglers, turtles, white-tailed deer, ospreys and big black squirrels.

I can only fish for trout or salmon during the close season, and do so more as an excuse to get out on the river bank more than anything else, so my rod effort is not terribly high. I tend to keep stopping and looking at the plants and animals instead of working hard at keeping a lure in the water. There are those who are bringing back the old Devon minnow technique, which is deadly for fishing the deepest, fastest water on the river, but my enthusiasm is limited for the time being to the Mepps and its variations.

Sometimes I feel as if I am covering the water quite efficiently, and feel much more confident than when using a fly. If I get one fish this year I will be happy, but there is always more to going out fishing than catching fish. A little perch and an even smaller pike took an out of season fancy to the Mepps, but that is all. So far today I have seen several deer, a peregrine falcon, a hobby I think, and a scuttering brood of baby goosanders. The swans have a small brood of three, which is more than enough.

The Orange Balsam is sprouting as vigorously as last year, when I wrongly identified it as Himalayan and pulled it all up. It is still an invasive species, of North American origin, so no problem there really. It is soon overpowered by the native plants, and only a few plants make it to flowering, and produce startlingly bright tangerine orange flowers. It is a much smaller and delicate plant than the dreaded HB, so does not seem to present so much of a threat.

Water levels on the Avon seem to be very satisfactory, with official figures showing flows at close to the long-term average. It is nevertheless intriguing to see the old water meadow structures high and dry, and hard to imagine how the river would have looked when levels meant that these substantial sluices and channels were flowing. Many are several feet above current levels, and it is good news to hear that some are being reinstated for the benefit of both wetland birds and coarse fish fry.

The talks were all very professional and well attended and received, and the interest, goodwill and friendship among the members was plain to see. I was moved to tears at the end, because I was sitting right next to Marylyn Brown when Peter Wheat was announcing the recipients of the Gordon Scott Award for services to the Society, and when she realised he was talking about her and her husband Dave, her reaction was an absolute delight, but made me sniff a bit and pretend to rub my eyes! They are such lovely people, and genuinely selfless hard workers. The Award was never more well deserved.

This afternoon was spent in quiet contemplation, practising with my scythe and keeping the pathways clear on the river, watching the plants growing with that bright green purposefulness so typical of the English spring. The nettles, soft rush and comfrey, dock and coarse grasses are all shooting upwards at an almost visible rate. The pollarded willows were certainly springing into life. A row of such trees have been planted as simple stakes in order to slow down some bank erosion, and now teeter on the water's edge, where once I had driven a big tractor mower two widths between the stakes and the water. Lowland rivers do behave in this way, snaking across the meadows and gobbling up the ground on the outside of bends, while new ground slowly forms on the inside of the opposite bank. Opposite the willows, a lone alder stands ten feet from the water, and hard dry ground has replaced the rooty, underbank swim where I had caught a big pike a few years ago. Only the fixed markers of such trees demonstrate how the river moves over the floodplain with time, so often now accelerated by unseasonal floods and sustained high water from climatic change.

The dredging of the Stour in the name of flood relief in the seventies and eighties destroyed the river as a salmon fishery, and is also thought to be responsible for the poor fish stocks of coarse fish between Blandford and Wimborne. There are signs of good recovery above and below this section, but even in the historically well-populated barbel zone around Throop, there are signs that recruitment of barbel is poor.
The work that the EA have done to date on the badly damaged middle Stour is commendable, and the use of stone croys and linked ORSU`s seems to be producing the goods. Some lovely barbel swims, with brisk flows and gravely pools and shallows have been created from a straight dull uniform bit of dredged river. We want our name on a few of these pools!

The cost of reinstating the millions of tons of gravel the Water Authority dragged out is hard to envisage, but the continued work of the Agency, backed with help and ideas from the clubs and the Society, will mean that we can help the river to mend much more quickly than it will naturally. Top marks to the local clubs as well; they have been begged and cajoled and harassed by me to stump up some cash, and we now have over five thousand pounds to spend on some works that would otherwise not have happened. With luck, we could see the diggers on the bank this autumn, so I will be eager to do some before and after shots.
ORSU means Off River Support Unit, basically a big ditch, oxbow, backwater or cow drink that has been excavated to provide fry refuge in high winter flows in particular.

Roach and barbel spawning success
2nd May 2008

The EA have been doing some electro-fishing to monitor the coarse fish stocks in the Avon, and first news is that they found some good numbers of large barbel in the usual, expected reaches. It seems to me that the regular barbel anglers could have provided that information, as angler catches are a valid and invariably reliable way of determining fish stocks. There are some concerns that regularly shocking big fish can cause damage, both internal muscle/bone damage and damage to ova in spawning females, but on the other hand I am informed that the Calverton broodstock are obtained off the redds by electro fishing, and the same big female fish are caught year on year. These fish provide plenty of viable eggs, and many fertilised eggs are returned to the river as a result, along with the donor females. We must hope that the risk to the fish is worth it for the information it provides on stocks and age, growth and year class structure.

Good news is that numbers of small barbel, in the pound plus bracket, were discovered as well, and it will be most interesting to see the total catch data in due course. The Avon and Stour barbel are continuing to get fewer and fewer, although bigger and bigger, and the generations that will replace them are awaited with some eagerness.

The roach responded to the warmer temperatures by indulging in some feverish procreation, and Trev and Budgie were delighted to see that the spawning boards had worked fantastically well in some spots. There were some that were ignored. Not surprising when you consider how few roach there are in the river, but in places where roach were gathering, they chose the boards that Budgie had designed in preference to the weeds they normally used! There are now several thousand eggs beginning to transform into little roachlings in the hatchery tanks, and the sight of all those eggs plastered over the netting on the boards has made all the work those two guys have done over the winter more than worthwhile. They spent hours and hours thinking and planning and constructing the boards, and though it may be a few years before the fruits of their labours are realised, the whole exercise is entirely laudable, and a bit humbling. The tiny fish can be seen twitching inside the egg cases, and a massive shoal of pinheads are now starting to collect as they hatch in response to the warmer weather.

Mike Oz had a clear idea of what was needed on the Teme at Bransford, and organised the work with calm and confident efficiency. Some swims were made very accessible, and a few were created without any danger or disturbance to resident wildlife. We agreed that it was very late in the year to do any proper tree work, but a few isolated willow saplings were safely trimmed and we experimented with some spiling work to try and rescue an area of badly eroded bank. It will probably be too late for the willow stakes to take this year, but we may get away with some slight success in holding back the erosion. Next year more productive work can be done in plenty of time; the willow stakes really want planting late autumn/very early spring to give them the best chance, and technically I think need all sorts of official permissions and consents; our small works were a bit experimental, so we should get away with it!

The main works at Bransford are planned for the autumn, and some big willows are expecting a serious pollarding. This "sky lighting" will encourage low bankside growth and instream weed, all of benefit to fish and other wildlife. They look very bleak to begin with, but the way willows sprout and blossom into new life is something that always amazes me. Before and after pics are also very impressive.

The members who turned up were a great bunch of workers, and much was achieved with a good deal of banter and fun to liven up proceedings. Mike provided some very welcome tea, and Adrian provided the main entertainment by falling down holes regularly.

My third reasonably successful cast resulted in a violent take, that made my heart leap, but no leaping salmon came to light, just a snappy little pike that was swiftly returned none the worse for wear. The number of coarse fish taken on fly, spinner or prawn are remarkably few, and no more than the salmon or kelts taken outside of their season on coarse anglers baits, but pike, chub, bream and the very occasional barbel fall to the salmon anglers every year. All are returned carefully nowadays; it is a long time since the local clubs had rules stating that all pike and chub must be killed.

The day before I had helped Trev and Budgie with the installation of some of their roach spawning boards in the river, sidestreams and an offline pond that is well populated with Avon roach. The plan is try and help the perilously low roach stocks by growing on fry in tanks, using spawn gathered on the boards, and returning them to the river after a couple of years. A self-sustaining population is the ideal scenario, but the collapse of the Avon roach in much of the river means that some attempt to give Mother Nature a helping hand is worth a try. The EA are very supportive of the scheme, and we are all eagerly awaiting signs of spawning near the boards. The salmon have a more complex lifestyle, and hatchery schemes are a source of much more debate!

I agree with the current EA policy of not stocking barbel into rivers in which they are non-native and not already present, and I am sure that BS policy would follow suit. However, we live in a world where few rivers are anything like natural, and where resources including fish stocks need to be carefully managed and exploited at times to fulfil reasonable demands. In my view, the recreational and socio-economic benefits of generating a barbel population in the Blackwater outweigh any possible detriment to existing stocks of fish, and the river and wildlife and local anglers will all benefit when it becomes a more valuable angling resource. The Blackwater is threatened with increasing abstraction, and developing it into a more popular and valuable fishery will work towards giving it more protection, I feel. The EA do have a duty to maintain, improve and develop fisheries, and barbel in the Blackwater is a chance for them to do so with no risk to other species. Or interests, or of threatening biodiversity. I have seen no real evidence that coarse fish of other species are prone to adverse competition by barbel; the chub roach and bream of lowland rivers seem to thrive even better amongst barbel. Current EA guidelines on stocking are quite complex, but not written in black and white terms, and they are sensible enough to see that each river is special and must be judged on a case by case basis.

I will ask the BS to give this campaign every support, as long as the local anglers and clubs are keen on the idea, which they certainly seemed to be at the meeting later in the evening. A good time was had by all; Ade Kiddell gave an interesting talk o