Dear Member
Game Waters Summary.
It looks as if, excepting major flooding in the next few weeks, that we will open all the game river fisheries on April 1st. The keepers have had a busy period over the winter, cutting back vegetation, replacing seats, stiles, gates, wading steps and other bank side features. We have moved our keepers’ store to a building nearer to the Cart Shed and spent time planning the maintenance and development work for the season. Alongside The Wessex Rivers Trust work our staff have spotted very good numbers of trout and salmon redds in our rivers. Some years they are hard to see but lower flows this winter have made this possible. The efforts put into river restoration are helping the wild stocks, a very good sign for the future.
The latest Wessex Hydrology report shows the groundwater level at Tilshead, in the centre of Salisbury Plain and our main feeder aquifer for the Avon, well below seasonal average and already showing the level dropping. Although looking at the river it will be in excellent condition for the season start the prospects for summer flows may not be so good. The very best restorative for our rivers is plenty of fresh water filtered through the aquifer, dilution is vitally important to recovery.
We are replacing some expensive equipment this year, one of our trucks, one of our mowers, a new engine in another mower and other less expensive but vital items. This replacement programme continues year in year out and our equipment gets heavy use in order to present the fisheries as we do. To make it all work the programme has to be carefully planned and the machinery in top order. We have projected forward our equipment needs for 10 years and will invest in the order of £150,000 over that period in machinery alone. I emphasise as we have had to increase fees this year as a result of these and other routine costs but also finding that inflation is running at levels unseen for many years. We will still be the best value chalk fishing club, value for money is a central aim of SADAC.
The recent storm Eunice caused a great many problems with many trees lost at a time when the team were busy enough preparing for the first day. You may find some of your old favourite trees missing and you will certainly see evidence of the devastation caused across all the fisheries.
We have altered the access arrangements to the river at Amesbury below Ham Hatches, renewing the fence, repairing the track and putting in a new gate half way down the path from the car park to the hatches. You can no longer access the lower beat straight down the bank from the hatches though you can fish that part from there or by wading up from below our new fence. We are trying to balance our security and privacy against the public’s permissive use of the hatch pool and the area in front of the cottages. All changes are noted in the new year book so please as usual read the page for the water you are visiting, every year there are changes.
Our report on the 2021 season has been available online and all our fisheries did well with some returning exceptional results. There are some fisheries that carry a lot of the pressure Amesbury and Durnford are typical, others are less well used and we would like to encourage members to turn over the pages of their year book and look at some of the different options. Spreading the fishing pressure will be a good thing for the waters.
Two of our members Hans Staartjes and Simon Tarpey are starting to put together some more detailed profiles of our fisheries. The write ups and pictures will be published in our usual places, website and forum. We enjoy seeing members’ pictures of the beats and whatever else they fancy. It has been very useful to have pictures with any reports that members might want to make from the bank, trees down, gates broken, pollution, litter and so on. The club forum is where we put most of our information and updates so please join and use the members only forum. We are also on Facebook but it is more public and less good a place for some of our information and debates.
The club hopes to raise the profile of volunteering to support the full time team, we will be looking to appoint somebody to maintain a volunteer list from which can be called for jobs across the club’s portfolio of waters.
We have a good selection of used fishing gear at the Cartshed, much has been donated by members and it is available at sensible prices. All the money raised will be ploughed back in to the fisheries and into the Small Fry Club to benefit our junior members. There are rods, reels and more of various qualities so please enquire when you visit.
The game section Open Day will be on May 14th, details in the year book. We have missed our day of instruction, feasting, fishing chatter, raffle and general showing off for the past two seasons but it is back again this year. A mix of formal teaching and social time, it has proved very popular in previous years. Many thanks to the instructors who give their time to the club to support this event. So if you want to learn how to deliver that tricky low level, around the bush cast to a shy two pounder, this is the day.
We will also be running our teaching “Academy” days, again thanks to the instructors at the Cartshed and on the river. Look for the dates on the forum and website and sign up early they are very popular.
Wessex Rivers Trust has been planning some major river enhancements above and below the A303 at Lord’s Walk and Countess. Significant funds have been made available from Highways England. Some complex work with stakeholders has been going on, contractors are appointed and an outline plan published. This is very welcome for the club on a significantly degraded reach where our concerns about over straightening, historic dredging and sewage outflow have been to the fore for many years. We have already started some work there and the new project will build on this with one feature being the re gravelling of the river bed and the creation of pool and riffle features. Thanks to all the involved partners. The dates for the work are still uncertain but we will keep you informed.
Stocking plans for the rivers and lakes this season will be the same as last, we seem to have reached a workable level of stocking having reduced quite dramatically over the last ten years or so. The 2000 brown trout will be marked with green tags this year and will go to less trouty habitat and areas of high fishing pressure at Durnford, Amesbury, Abbey, Countess/Ratfyn and Stapleford as usual for the last few years. All our other beats are wild, the catch returns have shown steady improvements in the wild stocks and reasonable numbers of good wild fish taken. Grayling has been a different story but last year we saw the first signs of some recovery in their numbers and this winter has seen some very good grayling caught.
The rainbow trout lakes have met their targets this year, fishing well after a slow start at Leominstead. We are convinced of the value of the summer shutdown for those waters and they will continue to close for June, July and August. Their maintenance programme and stocking levels will be as it has been for the last two or three years. These are an expensive asset, we offer them to fill the long winter months and for early and late season options when things are thin on the rivers. We don’t attempt to emulate what the commercial fisheries can do much better than we do but they add another dimension to the fishing available within your membership. We would welcome more members taking a look and trying their hand at the rainbows in the lakes. The more visits we have the better value they give.
I am trying to go into more detail on a specific area of the work of managing the fishing in each newsletter. Last time I tackled the weed cut, a mystery for many from the rocky, spate river areas but a long established practice on the chalk waters.
This time I am going to cover “Grass cutting and Fringing”. The way that chalk stream beats are presented is very different from trout fishing in other areas, go to Wales or the north and you will not see mowers and hedge trimmers on the banks. The banks are wild, to the benefit of the river and the fish. A good covering of vegetation helps protect the bank and harbours all sorts of other life that feeds the fish. Not so the chalk streams, here those that came before us wanted a more civilised environment, these are tamer rivers, their floods are not so disruptive, their banks are level and grassy and they run gently through managed meadows. Mown paths, trimmed fringes, seats and huts became the norm. These were waters for the gentleman fisher who could afford this level of pampering and keepering.
From April through to the autumn keepers mow footpaths and back cast areas and bend their backs with hedge trimmers lowering and gapping the fringes. It all looks neat and tidy and makes fishing a line easy. It is for the fishers not the fish, none of this benefits the river or its residents. When I took up a role with SADAC on retirement ten or more years ago, we mowed a lot more grass and cut a lot more fringe, we were less systematic in our approach to what is an enormous workload. For a long time we had been encouraged by Natural England, Wild Trout Trust and others to be less tidy. We have taken this on board, we now mow less of the bank, we leave a wider fringe, we don’t cut the top off the fringe, we leave the flowering species. We only mow back cast areas once a year with the rough cut mower. We let things be wetter around our paths, developing wetted areas and ponds where we can. We have a set schedule throughout the growing season with grass cutting and fringing every three weeks.
We are still keeping a chalk stream fishing environment, it looks like the streams of old and is still comfortable fishing that is also beautiful to look at. We know that’s what our members pay for. The mowing is easy with the right machines, the fringing is very hard work and a whole day in the sun with a hedge trimmer is not easy at all.
As we started to change a good many told us we had let things go, we were cultivating hedges along the banks and so on. What is the result? Obviously less mown grass, spring wild flowers flourishing across the back cast areas. Less monoculture of nettle and bramble in our fringe, more flowering species, comfrey, purple loosestrife, yellow flag iris, bittersweet, watermint, figwort , sedges are thriving. Many more terrestrial insects, damsel and dragon flies, butterflies, moths, aphids, beetles, bees, wasps who are all prone to falling in the river and feeding the trout. Aquatic insect adult forms also use the foliage to rest up. For those of us who manage the fringes and have watched the change, it has been dramatic. I like to think members are now used to it and understand its benefits. You may see us push this change a little further, I think there is more we can do without losing the traditional chalk stream style of management.
My final thought is remember we have 30 or so miles of river bank to manage, the fringe can be up to a metre wide packed with wild flowering species and insects. Do the sums, we are contributing a very significant area of wild flowering habitat to our little world that a few years ago was a monoculture of nettle and bramble, both good habitat but now much greater variety exists to the good of the river and its residents.
John Stoddart
Vice Chair Game.
Spring 2022
Fly Fishing Open Day – 14th May 2022
After two years of absence due to Covid, we are delighted to host again the Club’s Annual Fly Fishing Open Day.
The event will be held on Saturday May 14th, on the grounds of Amesbury Abbey Nursing Home, Amesbury, Wilts, SP4 7EX (map 4 in your yearbook). It is a full day event, open to all members, game and coarse, and their guests.
We typically enjoy a crowd of about 100 participants and we cover all aspects of fly fishing. The participants get divided into three groups 1) Fly casting, 2) Fly tying and 3) Entomology. The groups rotate in the morning and by lunch time, every participant has the chance to experience the full spectrum of fly fishing.
Lunch is included and this year we are planning to have a BBQ, plus drinks, coffee and tea. In the afternoon there is plenty of time to engage with fly casting instructors, fly tyers, entomologists and other members of the club and indulge in your special area of interest. There is also a customary raffle with various prizes to be won.
Deadline for ticket purchases Tuesday 10th May to accommodate catering requirements.
The cost of attendance is £25 per participant, which includes lunch.
Mixed Fishery Update.
Welcome to the spring newsletter, as you have all noticed the weather again this spring has been confused and this caused a lot of extra work due for the keepers and other members of staff. That having been said the guys have been out and about doing what they can, but, we still have a significant issue with a large tree on the north bank of White Bird Lake but this is owned by and being dealt with by a neighbour, so please be patient.
Other than tidying up after the storms we have been out and about continuing with the strategies on the lakes to improve the water quality, removal of small fish through netting, SILTEX application to help with the hydro soil and finally application of barley straw to reduce the algae blooms in the spring. The clubs match anglers have been busy, they raised £200 for the Stars appeal and they have also installed a memorial bench at Parsonage Farm to remember past members of the club.
This year we will be getting out and about clearing swims on the river stretches, installing foot bridges to increase access, tidying the last of the branches from the lakes, tree work around Petersfinger to reduce the risk of damage in the future, to name but a few projects. We will be assisting at Nightingale to start the next phase of the fishery improvements, please look for dates when we will have to close the lake due to the ongoing work.
None of this work would have been completed without the help of the works parties led by Paul Barnard, I thank you all for your time and continued dedication to the running of the club.
I hope you will be aware we have recently acquired access to the Millennium stretch (Old Bull Water) of the Hampshire Avon in Downton, this runs opposite the lower part of the White Horse stretch but offers far easier access. It is a shared facility with local residents so please be aware that it will get busy at certain times of year and times of day with dog walkers, paddlers, swimmers and the like. Try to time your visits around these other users to make the most of this stretch, try not to get dragged into any conflict but report incidents to the club in the first instance, thankyou.
We have lifted the close season restrictions at Steeple Langford for this spring, you will still need a valid 22/23 club book but are able to fish through April and May on both Whitebird and Pleasure Lake.
From June 1st you will be able to lure fish for pike on the lakes if you follow the guidance in your club book. This is a trial and may be stopped at any point, please look at the website, forum and social media for details.
We have continued with the restocking strategy across the lakes, 35 C3 carp from VS Fisheries were introduced into Pleasure Lake at Steeple Langford and 100lb of tench have been introduced into Hands Lake from Heather Fisheries. A special thanks to all at Heather fisheries as we were let down by another supplier and they were able to assist at very short notice.
The Small Fry Club nights will be running again this summer, please get in touch with the club if you are able to assist or have someone that would like to take part, we have several other events with Downton Cubs and other local organisations so please keep an eye out for the dates and assist if you can.
The Salisbury River Park Project run by Wiltshire Council, has begun in earnest with the removal of trees and a lot of the main works will be started through the spring. The long and short of it is that we do not know is how this will affect the fishing on the upper city stretches but we have been told that they are not looking at changing the depths of the river with the current plan.
This brings me onto my final point of this short update, please keep an eye out on the forum, the website and social media for updates on events and lake closures. If you post any fish you catch on club waters please tag the club in the post, we are on most social media platforms and it would be great to see what everyone is catching on the waters.
Thank you to all the members of the committee, staff and members that have supported us on all the projects, works parties and other events over the last year. I look forward to seeing you on the bank sometime.
Ben Bentley
Vice Chair Coarse.
Water Quality Group (WQG) Update
(Members: David Holroyd, Tom Putnam and Patrick Heaton-Armstrong)
Water quality deterioration between Durrington and Amesbury.
The water quality group met Emma Baker, EA Regional Director, on November 21st. The EA still don’t see they are in breach of the Water Framework Directive. Our argument is that, by their own data, the Avon has gone from a ‘Good’ to ‘Moderate’ status due to the extent of the phosphates present.
There was a follow up meeting on 16th February to clarify why they consider that going from ‘Good’ to a ‘Moderate’ is not a deterioration in the standard as defined in the ‘Water Framework Directive’. We agree to disagree! However, we did secure the concession from their Regional Director to meet with Wessex Water and actively support their capital investment bid for Ratfyn Sewage Treatments works which will enhance the plant’s phosphate stripping capability. Securing these changes to the plant are a priority objective for the WQG.
There is a further meeting to be held in April to consider the continued decline of invertebrate life throughout the Avon Catchment. SADAC commissioned ‘Aquascience’ to produce a report based upon the historic ‘SmartRivers’ data which Salmon and Trout Conservation has been collecting together with all major fishing clubs on the upper Avon, Wylye and Nadder.
Whilst we have a general concern regarding the scale of the overall decline, there are a number of specific areas which we believe warrant particular attention e.g. Stockton STW/ River Till/ Wylye, Upper Wylye, Tisbury STW Nadder and fish farming at Durrington Avon. Dr Cyril Bennett is assisting with the analysis of the data and development of the Agenda with the EA.
BBC Radio Wiltshire
A member of the WQG was interviewed on air by BBC Radio Wiltshire Breakfast on 2nd Feb. This covered the condition of the river quality within the Avon catchment, the context of the impact of farmers’ muck spreading and the EA’s rules aimed at reducing phosphates flowing into the rivers from agricultural practices.
Daily Telegraph
A member of the WQG was interview by ‘The Telegraph’ who are publishing a number of articles about the Government’s lack of response to the falling water quality in the country’s rivers and in particular chalk streams and SSSIs like the Avon. They were particularly interested in the Wiltshire Fishery Association’s submission to the Environmental Audit Committee and the data and case study within our submission. This work is a collaboration with the S&TC who are working with them on the wider topic of poor river water quality nationally.
Engagement with the community.
Working in collaboration with the Wessex River Trust and the Salmon &Trout Conservation, a community engagement strategy is being developed called “A call for action to save our special river”, with ‘The people’s river” being the general theme.
On 10th March 22 Wessex River Trust hosted their quarterly Avon Catchment Partnership, a meeting of lead representatives of the major wildlife and community groups as well as those associated with the river, within the Avon catchment. The Chalk Stream Strategy – https://catchmentbasedapproach.org/learn/chalk-stream-strategy/ was presented, outlining the threats to chalk stream environment and for the need of a special status for protection. The WQG and S&TC representatives made the case for a call to action to stop the decline of our rivers.
This will be followed by a networking workshop in May with a view to embedding the local wildlife and community groups, in particular, within an overall action plan.
Other workshops will follow to develop the action plan and specific improvement projects.
Communication and management are seen as key success factors.
The S&TC are providing a Project Manager and their PR/Social Media expertise to this initiative.
Engagement with local MPs – ongoing
Collation of data, information, articles and papers appertaining to water quality both national and locally – on going.
Engagement with Local Agriculture.
Members of the WQG, with support from S&TC and Wessex Rivers Trust held a workshop the Farming Advisers last Autumn. This was done with a view to being able to get their assistance in getting access to faming groups within the catchment and to work with them to improve farming practices that are detrimental to the river.
It is anticipated that the WQG will attend a number of these farmers’ cluster meetings over the summer supported by the local farming advisers.
Working with School Children
The WQG and S&TC will be helping with a two-day event which is being run by Kingfisher Scheme – a charity aimed at working with schools to experience rural life and the environment. This evening is being held on 8th and 9th June at a farm in Tisbury. We will be showing invertebrate life in the River Nadder and the importance of invertebrates in monitoring health in the river.
Andreas Topintzis
Chairman Water Quality Group
