This past year we have experienced an incredibly warm and dry period. It was reported as being the lowest recorded rainfall for a March to September period in the South East since records began. The effect on our little river has been extremely low and clear water conditions. This did not appear to deter the fly hatches which were good. Though I did not witness the grannom hatch, but heard from a couple of anglers that it was sporadic and localised, as grannom are inclined to be. It has been the high rainfall of the past winter that got us through this year and hope we do get heavy rainfalls over the coming winter periods to recover this recent water shortfall and replenish for the future.
We have been making good progress of recent years, and all our continuous
hard work is benefiting the river habitat. The coppicing work, whilst can appear
raw at the end of a weekend working party, soon growing to sprout new vegetation
as our planned intention. We are finding most anglers are catching some of our
small wild trout that now appear to be on the gradual increase. If we could only
sustain or in the future improve the aquatic plant life, we would have an
opportunity to encourage insect life further, believing if we get the insect
life we will consolidate our indigenous fish stocks.
Plans for this close season are to continue the selective coppicing between the
road bridge and farm bridge. Remove the fallen tree downstream of the Hatchgate
bridge. The working parties in March tend to be lighter duty general clear up of
banks along the whole stretch.
We also intend to electro fish the stretch from the Hatchgate bridge to the top
weir and pending funding may electro fish from the junction to the River
Blackwater up to the Hatchgate bridge. This to evaluate course fish stock for
the club, transfer some of the pike to another F&DAS water and bring some of the
trout back up from the lower reaches to the upper reach stretch.
For our working parties we would appreciate your help by coming along on one or
more days. Those that have attended have greatly assisted and say they have
enjoyed themselves, with most coming back for more. So please put some working
party dates in your diaries now.
Saturday 1st November 2003
Saturday 6th December 2003
Saturday 17th January 2004
Saturday 7th February 2004
Saturday 6th March 2004
Starting at 9.00am, or turn up when you can on the day. We usually go onto
late pm early evening.
By preference meeting by the road bridge parking area, this may vary dependent
on planned work on the day and river condition. The alternative meeting place
will be the Hatchgate bridge car park.
If anyone has a bowsaw that they can bring, they are always useful tools to
have. Bring plenty of food and drink to keep you going, either strong boots,
wellington boots or waders are advisable.
Each working party will be hosted by any combination of Mick, Bill, Graham and
myself . We look forward to seeing you for the working parties.
The E.A. contacted us to advise there had been a pollution incident at Fleet sewage works into Fleet Brook. Fleet Brook flows into the River Hart, which in turn flows into the River Whitewater. The spillage was promptly detected and source of pollution stopped. The E.A. have advised that their investigation so far suggest it was an accident as opposed to neglect. Water samples taken and survey?s by the EA indicate that the pollution has killed the fish, beetle and invertebrate population in Fleet Brook. So far tests indicate that it has been contained to Fleet Brook. The E.A. will continue to monitor and carry out water sample tests over the coming weeks. On the evening after I heard of this incident I walked the River Whitewater in particular around the conference of the River Hart. Thankfully both by sense of smell and visually could not detect anything untoward. I also waded in to investigate further and found plenty of water snails and bullheads on the gravel bottoms, with minnows in the margins as expected. It appears that the River Whitewater is unaffected.
We had an opportunity to fly fish the Sindlesham Mill stretch this past season and wonder how many anglers ventured along the Loddon. We have only had observation feedback from one angler, that was Ken. Can other anglers that fished the stretch this past season report their experiences. We will report a summary of appropriate feedback in a subsequent newsletter.