HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE….
FROTHY WATERS – OBSERVATIONS ?
Whilst the algae blooms witnessed along the coast are nothing new there are a couple of observations I will make. First the bloom often referred to as May bloom is earlier than normal and secondly the amount of surface froth is unusual and whilst large spring tides and a big surging swell have contributed I personally consider that this could be largely due to extensive run off from rivers into the Bristol Channel carrying worrying levels of enrichment from agricultural run-off and sewage overflows.
There is increasing awareness of the many issues that impact upon water quality with considerable focus on rivers with many groups with environmental interests now joining together to campaign for a revision into how we manage our environment. This is certainly complex and requires extensive effort across government and society.
SPRING TIME ON NORTH DEVON RIVERS
The recent rainfall is welcomed by salmon and sea trout anglers across North Devon. The Taw and Torridge both saw water levels rise significantly anglers are waiting until the colours drops out providing good fishing conditions. There have been no reports of salmon or sea trout as I write this report but prospects are much improved.
I fished a short morning session on an upper tributary of the Taw and was surprised how low and clear the river was despite the recent rain. I used a duo set up consisting of a large deer hair dry fly and a bead headed nymph. During the first hour I tempted several delightful small wild brown trout but struggled to find any larger fish in the clear water.
Eventually I found a couple of better fish in a shady section of river the best an absolutely stunning wild brown trout of 12”.
Whilst the fishing was challenging it was a real tonic for the mind being emersed within the Spring countryside as the songs of chiff-chaffs and wrens drifted through the valley in natures splendid springtime symphony.
The Waters Of Exmoor Spring Conference 2025
http://www.lance-nicholson.co.uk
Next month you will find Seven Fables at The Exmoor Society and Exmoor National Park Authority Spring Conference. This year their focus is on rivers and among the invited speakers are nature writer Professor Charles Foster, Mark Lloyd ~ CEO of the Rivers Trust, Professor Sir Dieter Helm and Toby Diggens of Dig & Co.
Do you live in North Devon? Are you interested in the health of your local rivers?
Do you live in North Devon? Are you interested in the health of your local rivers?
We are looking for new volunteers to join Westcountry CSI and become citizen scientists!
What is Westcountry CSI?
Westcountry CSI (Citizen Science Investigations) is a scheme established by Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT) that involves monitoring the health of our streams and rivers, through spot sampling. We are organising a training event (delivered by WRT) to sign volunteers up.
The surveys are fairly quick and can take up to 15-20 minutes to complete. Once you sign up to the scheme online, you will receive free kit including phosphate test strips, a turbidity tube and a dissolved oxygen probe. As part of the project, volunteers are asked to take monthly samples at their chosen monitoring site and upload the results onto cartographer – a database managed by WRT.
The event details are included below:
Westcountry CSI Training Event
at Hatherleigh Community Centre
on Thursday 20th March
from 10.30-12.30pm
If you would like to book a place at the event, please email [email protected] confirming the area you live and where you’d be interested to survey, if you have a preference.
For more details about the scheme there are plenty of resources available on the WRT website here: Westcountry CSI – Westcountry Rivers Trust (wrt.org.uk) or you can view the CSI Leaflet here: CSI Leaflet.
The training event is funded through Devon Wildlife Trust’s Northern Devon Natural Solutions project and therefore, we are only looking for volunteers who can sample streams and rivers in the northern parts of Devon, although this can include anywhere in the Taw and Torridge catchments. For more information about the wider project, you can view the website here: Northern Devon Natural Solutions | Devon Wildlife Trust
Wild Swimming – Don’t swallow the lumpy bits
Many thanks to Richard Wilson ( Fish Rise) for once again sharing his thoughts with North Devon Angling News. Follow link below for more of Richards wisdom….
Wild Swimming
Don’t swallow the lumpy bits
All too often there’s conflict between wild swimmers and other river users, such as boats and fisherfolk, but not me. The swimmers seem a decent enough bunch of people, mostly of my generation, or thereabouts, and with whom I could comfortably share a mug of tea and some friendly chatter. Male and female, they are as polite as I aspire to be (that’s a compliment). Socialising would be much easier were they not wracked by uncontrollable shivering.
And given that these days there’s rarely a salmon to be seen, let alone caught, there’s no harm in letting a swimmer in. Rocks, dogs and wild swimmers can all stir up the fish and breathe life into a slumbering pool. For the swimmers, so far so good. I’m sympatico.
Where this gets really discombobulating is that word ‘wild’. There’s nothing remotely ‘wild’ about Britain’s rivers. Mostly they are little better than open sewers that allow farmers, our water companies and the few remaining factories to move, at zero cost, huge volumes of human and animal shit from source to sea – and after years of inadequate investment there’s a lot being shifted. So the only thing ‘green’ about our rivers and lakes is organic phosphate pollution and the vivid algal blooms that choke the redds with slime and suck the oxygen out of the water. And, depending on the type of algae, kill animals, fish and make people very sick. Wild swimmers, when clumping, talk about this and compare notes on who got ill, when and where. They’re all unwelcome notches on their back-to-nature experience of life in the ‘wild’. Which seems a counter-intuitive reaction to me. I’d just stay out of the water because it’s toxic.
This phosphate pollution is a global phenomenon. Eutrophication is killing lakes and rivers from Windemere in the Lake District to Chesapeake Bay in the US and back the long way round. It’s a universal by-product of humanity. Just about everybody everywhere can point to local examples.
The various habitués of our rivers respond to this in different ways. Salmon, for example, have mostly given up. They like cold, clean water so there’s a double whammy: pollution and climate change. In the UK, they’re now a Red List endangered species and while I’m doing my best to kick the decision down the road, I think my salmon fishing days are over. Here, and perhaps everywhere.
Thankfully, fishing humans have some watery advantages over salmon and wild swimmers. I approach a river in a rubberised hazmat suit, of sorts, that lacks only the helmet and gloves. Chest waders, waterproof jacket, decorative neckerchief that makes me daddy-cool and so on. And for at least a decade I have been very careful not to get my fingers anywhere near my mouth while in or near the water. I am mindful of the pensioner who recently went down with sepsis after falling into the ‘pristine’ chalk stream I grew up on.
So what can we do? How do we make a difference? Some of this is easy: I donate to non-profits that fight pollution and support research into catchment management and the such like. This does some good. Over the past 4 decades, I have also written scores of articles and filed dozens of TV reports on the increasingly dire state of our rivers. I repeat: the increasingly dire state of our rivers. Except for an occasional break-out story, reporting rarely has a discernable impact and it all goes from bad to worse. So I’ll keep writing the cheques.
Not all the news is bad and there have even been some improvements. Remember acid rain? Nobody frets much about the acidification of our upland streams anymore, mostly because the heavy industry that caused it has collapsed into a land of uniformly bland shopping centres, car parks, cinemas and junk-food outlets where the grotesquely obese wobble short distances from car to sugar fix. Gimme a ‘shake with double sprinkles, syrup and chocolate sauce. And cake.
Meanwhile, back in the hills, there’s a winner and the insect life in our headwaters is recovering. So, provided they’re nowhere near over-stocked cattle or a village, there are aquatic insects and fry for their dependent birds, the dippers and kingfishers, to hunt. Ah … did someone say climate change? Well, you can’t have everything.
Here’s the grown-up bit: It’s important to understand that the high and mighty in politics and industry who decide the fate of our rivers don’t see them in the same way as us mortals. To them rivers are economic entities carrying trade, providing water and getting very expensive when they flood. It is entirely predictable that floods always happen before adequate (for which read ‘expensive’) defences have been planned, approved and constructed. Ideally, this would be done by restoring the wetlands upstream. Unfortunately, this memo has not reached the management. So our rivers remain part-asset, part-liability, wrapped in concrete and always an economic opportunity (bargain-basement waste disposal, for example).
I have heard this best explained, reductio ad absurdum, by a small-cog employee in the big wheel of water management. Early in my time as the BBC’s Environment Correspondent I was asked by a pollution control officer if I knew how drinking water from the many reservoirs in Wales, in the wet west, reached taps in towns in the drier east of England. There is no pipeline, no shared catchment and no visible way for plentiful Welsh water to get from wet A to needy B. The answer, he said with a twinkle, is that people in Birmingham drink a glass of water and then flush their toilets. Birmingham drinks Welsh water and drains eastwards, via decrepit sewage works. Like all good stories, this stuck in my mind for the ludicrous nature of its central proposition and the awful realisation that it could easily be true (it is). I wonder how many millions of gallons of waste-water the 4.3m people of Birmingham and its surroundings generate every day.
The times they are a’changing and, I fear, not for the better. I like being on rivers, but not nearly enough to swim in most of them. Meanwhile, they need all the friends they can get from the most humble of anglers and wild swimmers to the rich and politically powerful. And as for the Salmon? I wish I knew, but I fear the worst.
March for The Torridge
On October 26th I Joined representatives from several local angling clubs at a March For The Torridge. Over sixty from various organisations gathered to demonstrate their support for efforts to work together for the long term health of North Devon’s rivers. It is very apparent that there is a great deal of passion for our rivers with many working to get the issues that are impacting upon their health higher onto the political agenda. The Taw and Torridge Estuary Forum work with the North Devon Biosphere on a catchment based approach. It is essential that all parties put aside their differences and unite in the interest of the rivers that are the vital arteries of the land.
I was asked to say a few words and told of how I had witnessed the dramatic decline of salmon in the Torridge a river that a few decades ago saw catches in the hundreds. This years total rod catch is less than a dozen. Surely a symptom of a wider ecological issue?
March For Clean Water
Dear Angling Trust Members & Supporters,
We are calling on you to join us at the upcoming March for Clean Water on Sunday, November 3rd in London. This is a great opportunity for anglers to make their voices heard on the urgent need for clean, healthy rivers and waterways, and we need as many of you as possible to join us.
We’ve already shared a video featuring our ambassador, Paul Whitehouse, alongside Bob Mortimer, encouraging support, now we’re asking you to be there with us in person. This march is about showing the strength of the angling community and the passion we have for protecting our waters.
Event details:
- Date: Sunday, November 3rd.
- Time: Assemble from 11:00 AM, march starts at 11:45 AM.
- Location: Albert Embankment, London, SE1. Zones C-D, look for signs on the lamp posts & the Anglers Against Pollution banners.
- Rally: The event will conclude with a rally at Parliament Square from 1.30 PM finishing around 3:00 PM.
- Speakers: Penny Gane from Fish Legal and Angling Trust ambassador Feargal Sharkey
We’re asking everyone to wear blue as a show of solidarity, if you want to carry an old rod, or make up your own Anglers Against Pollution placard to show that the angling community stands united in the fight for cleaner, healthier waters. Your presence at the march will send a powerful message.
If you can’t attend, you can still support by sharing our social media posts to help spread the word.
This is our chance to make a difference, and we need you with us. We hope to see you there!
For updates see here.
Atlantic Salmon : THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION?
https://fishrise.substack.com/p/atlantic-salmon-the-brink-of-extinction?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1289122&post_id=140218257&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1uvzdy&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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Salmon are in trouble. Ask anyone involved and they’ll tell you how bad it is and who’s to blame (it’s always someone else).
It’s so bad that the Atlantic Salmon is now officially an IUCN Red List Endangered Species in the UK. In Ireland, the population has collapsed by 80% in 20 years. Other places and other salmon species are not far behind, and the word extinction really has entered the debate.
We can see this decline by watching the way the money flows. Just about everywhere the value is slowly ebbing out of salmon fishing, almost no matter how or where we do it, and from mega-trawler to rod & line.
Sure, we can remove dams and nets, replant catchments and clean up pollution to help mitigate the decline, but they’re not enough.
This crisis is universal, which is of note, because not everywhere has nets or fish farms or pollution or management corruption. Indeed, some have none of the above, yet their salmon are in trouble.
One of Scotland’s most exclusive rivers, the Helmsdale, used to be a place where fishing was accessed via dead men’s shoes. Royalty graced its banks and the management was so discrete as to be almost uncontactable. A rod on the Helmsdale was a mark of status. Now the Helmsdale has gaps to fill and is promoting itself in upmarket magazines. It has no pollution and no fish farms to blame. Something else is going wrong.
What salmon everywhere have in common is rising water temperatures. This is happening both at sea and in rivers. High temps impact badly on salmon at every stage of their lifecycle, from squeezed and collapsing ocean food chains to overheated redds and undernourished smolts failing to make the journey back to sea. The salmon lifecycle makes them especially vulnerable to warming water.
This is real and it’s happening everywhere. Check out the Missing Salmon Alliance for a thorough breakdown of these combined threats. Their rallying call is Cold, Clean Water – which is as succinct a summary of the salmon’s plight as you can find anywhere.
And it’s not just salmon: Entire food chains are wobbling. In recent years 10 billion snow crabs have gone missing from Alaskan waters and the most plausible explanation is starvation in warming seas. A few years ago 100m Alaskan cod went AWOL for the same reason: Warmth increases fish and crustacean metabolic rates, so they have to eat more just to maintain body weight. At the same time the warm water suppresses growth in their food supply. So they need more, get less and starve. It’s becoming a regular feature of ocean life.
Worse, the increase in metabolic rate may also increase salmon’s need for oxygen beyond the ability of their gills to fully deliver. If so, that too would inhibit growth and reproduction.
To understand why, we need to do some time travelling because today’s benign weather wasn’t always a given. Our ancestors had a much tougher time than us.
About 17,000 years ago the world was in the depths of the last Ice Age. We humans scraped a marginal existence as hunter-gatherers. Life was freezing and the world was a whopping 5c colder than nowadays.
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We hit our stride about 10k years ago when the climate warmed and delivered a sweet spot that stuck. We could sow crops, expect to harvest them and feed our expanding population. Great civilisations formed. We could also hunt and fish for nature’s seemingly boundless resources such as the herbivores that roamed the plains and the fish and whales in our seas. The post-glacial world was rich in opportunity.
This is the Holocene Era: The time when the Earth and its climate came good for humans. There were blips along the way: a few major volcanic eruptions that caused cooling and short-term global famines, for example. But since the end of the Ice Age, Planet Earth’s climate has been stable and very hospitable.
Then came the Industrial Revolution and the arrival of the fossil fuel era. We are about 250 years into it now – the red zone below.
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Current predictions are that temperatures will likely peak at about +2-3C, with growing confidence that it will be a lot closer to 2C than 3C. The hoped-for 1.5C target is surely a lost cause.
We have understood the basic science behind this since the mid-1800s. It’s not difficult – excess CO2 is pollution that traps heat in the atmosphere. We can measure it very accurately. We know the science is good and that what’s happening now is unfolding as scientists predicted it would (my first TV report saying the Holocene could unwind was nearly 30 years ago, and I was in Antarctica reporting established science, not breaking new ground). The scientists even got the speed of change about right, although as a layman I’m shocked by what we’re seeing now:
NASA animation of global temperature change since 1880:
We’re hitting temperatures not seen for 125,000 years and it’s going to get worse. When we finally stop pumping out CO2, we will revert to a long, slow cooling trajectory (business as usual). It will take thousands of years to get back to where we were just 250 years ago ( NASA ). That’s one heck of a hangover from our CO2 party that we’re giving to future generations.
It’s not all bad news (below). Climate scepticism is fading, clearing the way for better political engagement. The graphic below shows that only the 10% or so on the margin are still drinking neat Clorox. This group are mostly hard-core conspiracy theorists and have bucket lists of competing dire consequences they expect to suffer. You’d think climate doomsterism would be right up their victim-centric street, but I don’t think they will ever shift their position by much. I suppose they believe that one day they’ll be proved right and they won’t be the only ones dying of vaccine-preventable diseases or in G3/4/5 radio mast attacks.
The remaining 90% of us are increasingly concerned about climate change. The dial is shifting.
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So where does this leave the salmon?
The answer is worrying: We can do a great deal to adapt to and mitigate the impacts, but the bottom line is that we’re stuck in a pattern of decline that won’t end until we tackle the root problem. The Earth is getting too warm and it’s happening too fast for the fish to adapt.
Ask an Atlantic Salmon. If you can find one …
The UK River Summit
Tghe UK River Summit is to be held beside the River Wandle in London on May 21st. It looks like it will be very intersting event for those who are passionate about rivers across the UK and beyond. Please see information below: –
https://www.theriversummit.com/the-uk-river-summit-2024-panel-discussions
https://www.theriversummit.com/the-uk-river-summit-2024-culture-celebration
https://www.theriversummit.com/our-partners
This unaffiliated event, curated by an independent team comprising of Claire Zambuni, Emma Sandham and Iona Mackay, aims to facilitate a forum for interesting parties and stakeholders involved with the range of issues affecting UK rivers. Set at Morden Hall on the River Wandle in London on the 21st May 2024, The UK River Summit & Festival provides a platform for collaboration and communication on the current issues and solutions required to improve the health of our rivers.
Bringing together environmentalists, policy makers, regulators, campaigners, anglers, media, businesses, politicians and members of the public who all share a desire to work towards a more positive future for our rivers, this event offers interested parties the opportunity to build relationships and network while also finding time to celebrate our rivers, engage in community-led initiatives, and experiences based on the river Wandle.
Following the success of the inaugural UK River Summit on the River Test in Hampshire last year, this event moves to the River Wandle, a unique chalk stream flowing through an heavily urbanised area intertwining a rich historical past with a current ecological importance.
Claire Zambuni, Founder of The River Summits & Festivals said “The UK River Summit offers the opportunity to discover some of the valuable work going on and the knowledge to affect change, as well as celebrate our rivers based on an extraordinary chalk stream, the River Wandle. We are hugely grateful for our partners’ support on this unique event. We hope the Summit helps present a collaborative voice in demanding positive action for our rivers and waterways. In this general election year, the need for action and to engage politicians to work across parties to resolve this crisis, has never been greater.”
Penny Gane, Head of Practice at Fish Legal said, “With the state of our rivers and lakes rarely out of the headlines, this event is an opportunity for local people to find out what is being done to turn things around.”
As we navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing planet, the key to environmental progress lies in facilitating continuous dialogue between various players – from government officials and NGOs to businesses and the public. This event aims to bridge these gaps. Attendees will gain informed knowledge from key environmental stakeholders, be able to ask direct questions, work collaboratively to find solutions, and celebrate our rivers.
Date, Location, and Schedule:
Tuesday 21st May 2024 at Morden Hall, South-West London
- Event opens at 9.30am
- From 9.30am: Coffee morning with YETI
- The UK River Summit panel “It’s not all about sewage” begins at 10:15am
- Lunch at 12:30pm
- Afternoon panels and activities from 1.30pm – 6pm
“It’s not all about sewage” summit panel speakers include:
- Penny Gane – Head of Practice at Fish Legal
- Dr Bella Davies – CEO at South East Rivers Trust
- Shaun Leonard – Director at Wild Trout Trust
- Jim Murray – Actor and Founder of Activist Anglers
- Dylan Roberts – Head of Fisheries at Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust
- Dr Jack Hogan – renowned local historian and member of The Wandle Piscators, The Fly Connection & South East Rivers Trust
- Hannah Gunter – Proteus Instruments PHD Associate
- Dr Hannah Fluck – The National Trust
Afternoon panel discussions include:
- “The Freshwater Emergency: from scarcity to abundance” River Action UK panel chaired by CEO James Wallace, and speakers including; Philip Duffy (CEO, Environment Agency) Lila Thompson (CEO, British Water), Feargal Sharkey (Activist, SERA Chairman), Lawrence Gosden (CEO, Southern Water), Helena Horton (The Guardian)
- “Future of Farming” with Mike Blackmore of Wessex Water, Ed Ayton of Abel & Cole, Henry Clemons of Knight Frank, and JM Stratton Ecologist Robin Leech
- “Effecting Policy in Rivers” including Penny Gane (Head of Practice, Fish Legal), Stuart Singleton-White (Head of Campaigns, Angling Trust), Bobby Dean (Liberal Democrat Candidate for Carshalton & Wallington), Dani Jordan (Surfers Against Sewage), Ashley Smith (Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, WASP), Stewart Clarke (The National Trust) and Shosha Adie (ENDS Report)
- Cross-party discussion on water security for the future with leading politicians including Toby Perkins (Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Nature and Rural Affairs), Tim Farron (MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), and more to be announced
- “The History of the River Wandle” talk with Dr Jack Hogan
Film Screenings include:
- “Fish Legal” and “Hydrotherapy” film screening by Friction Collective
- “Black Samphire” and “This is Shit” – films by River Action UK
- A brand-new animation from The Beavers Trust
- “The River Nar: A chalkstream restoration” by Wild Trout Trust
- “50 years of salmon monitoring on the River Frome” by Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust
- “Our Wild Salmon” by Fisheries Management Scotland
- “Britain’s Hidden Fishes” by Jack Perks, narrated by Jeremy Wade
- 30pm “Wandle: A River at Risk” film screening with panel of cast and crew including Bobby Dean, Liberal Democrat Candidate for Carshalton & Wallington at 5:30pm
Afternoon activities include:
- Hands-on workshops and river walks with South East Rivers Trust
- Introduction to Fly Fishing 101s & Kit with Orvis UK
- Wandle Piscators ‘Meet the Cast’ casting instruction and learn about local fly fishing and conservation
- Wandle Industrial Museum: textile printing demonstration and display of works by William Morris, Kilburn, and Liberty’s
- Entertainment from The Funny Terns: performance by comic musician duo at 12.30 and 3.30pm and more.
- Art Exhibition (including works for sale) with Jo Minoprio, Julia Manning, Elly Platt, Dexter Kazmierkiewicz, and Al Simmons.
- Stands from The National Trust, The Rivers Trust, Abel & Cole, YETI,
Orvis UK, Knight Frank, WildFish, Fish Legal, River Action UK, RS Hydro/Proteus Instruments, and more.
Tickets:
Tickets are now on sale here: UK River Summit – Orvis UK
Tickets include refreshments and lunch, and all activities on offer during the day.
All tickets must be bought in advance before 17th May
Event partners include The National Trust, Proteus Instruments, South East Rivers Trust, Fish Legal, Orvis UK, River Action UK, The Rivers Trust, Surfers Against Sewage, Filson, The Wandle Piscators, The Wandle Industrial Museum, Delivita, Lakedown Brewing Co., and Abel & Cole.
For more information please contact Zambuni Communications on the details below.
PR Contacts
Claire Zambuni | [email protected]
Emma Sandham | [email protected]
Iona Mackay | [email protected]