Cancel the order for gills and webbed feet!  At long last its stopped raining.  I can't remember the last time it remained dry for 24 hours.  It seems like weeks since we had a really dry spell and the clay soil up here at Horton is absolutely sodden.  Mind you, that's probably nothing new as the word Horton means "mucky farm" in Angelo Saxon.  My runner ducks have been busy re-enacting the battle of the Somme and turning the bottom garden into a pretty good representation of a battlefield after sustained shell fire.

It's been a mixed week on the fishery.  I had a really productive chat on Tuesday with our local police Sargent about security for members fishing at Horton.  Sargent Thornthwaite seemed genuinely interested in my concerns about possible future threats to members from sabs and has gone away to talk to Neil Handy about drawing up a 10 point list of advice that can be sent to members.  He asked a lot of questions about the history of the club  and I think that we can expect a much more proactive police presence at Horton in future.  This is being driven by his new Inspector who regards effective policing as being about feet on the ground not bums on car seats.

Thursday brought an email that left me wondering if teachers inhabit the same planet as the rest of us mere mortals.  As you will recall we have spent the best part of 12 months pulling together a habitat improvement project for Cam Beck which depended on Craven College students doing the work as part of their land management course.  This project was due to start on 8 November but, despite promises and commitments, It's proved less than easy to pin Craven College to a firm start date.  Back in late October the College informed me that they were having difficulties finding a tutor and might not be able to do the work until March.  My response was curt as such delay would lose the grant funding we have received to cover the cost of materials.  All seemed back on course with the involvement of two tutors with fencing experience, but Thursday's email informed me that the College were now pleased to tell me that they could start work on 21 February.  Ye God's!  Still it's slightly better than March and at least gives me some time to get the trees in before the end of March.  A quick email to the Millennium Trust to check whether they will hold open the grant until then and we are back in business.  What really annoys me is the fact that people who are supposed to be guiding these young people towards a self reliant and responsible future life seem to be quite happy to treat commitments as infinitely flexible.  No wonder we are producing a generation of youngsters who regard their own self interest as paramount.  Or am I becoming a grumpy old man?

Friday brought the Craven Herald which contains a notice issued by the Environment Agency that will be of interest to all who fish the Ribble.  The EA have made an order under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975 that will:
    provide that the number of licenses to be allocated in any one year for fishing for salmon  and migratory trout with nets in the Ribble Estuary shall be limited to two;

    provide for the issue of additional licenses if this number is insufficient to satisfy the applications of all those who held such a license in the preceding year;

    provide that not more than one license shall be issued to each person in respect of the area described as the Ribble estuary;

In addition the Agency have made a new by-law that will:
    restrict the number of salmon that may be caught and killed when fishing with rod and line on the river Ribble to two per season.

The EA are now inviting objections to the order to be sent to DEFRA prior to the Secretary of State confirming both the order and by-law.

I make no comment, but would be interested in members' observations on the new by-law.

More next week

Ian

    In my experience it's rare that things keenly anticipated always live up to expectations, but this past weekend has confounded that experience.  As I said last week, I was down at Sparsholt College in Hampshire over the weekend on a fishery management course and have returned abuzz with ideas and enthusiasm.  Oh dear!  Sparsholt is a massive agricultural college with an internationally renowned aquaculture faculty that works in partnership with all the leading bodies in the UK involved with fish and fishing.

I'll give you just a taster of what we did over the two days but I would encourage anyone who is serious about their fishing be it game or course angling to go on this course as the benefits far outweigh the very reasonable cost of £170.

We assembled as a pretty mixed bunch of 23 students with a diverse range of interests ranging from game fishers to quite a few who are in the process of buying lakes in France to establish commercial carp fisheries.  This mix proved one of the real benefits of the course as we learnt to appreciate the concerns and issues of the subjects we studied from a pretty wide perspective.  We kicked off looking at how a fish ticks via a practical autopsy on a reluctant volunteer rainbow trout.  This was a great intro to the rest of the course as by gaining a good understanding of fish anatomy and how it works we got a valuable in-site into how fish react to their environment and the actions we take as managers to control that environment.

We then moved on to consider exactly that subject with the head of the fisheries unit taking us through fish ecology and how we should ensure that our management practises are based on sound ecological principles.  After a short lunch we went to see the new fish house which is truly impressive and provides a facility for studying all aspects of fish breeding and management.  Here we learnt about the science of fish feeding and the need to consider the right stocking density for each species.  As an example we looked at a tank of cat fish living at a high density per cubic meter of water which we were told often prompted some questions about over crowding on public open days at the centre.  The truth is that below a given density these strange creatures turn cannibalistic and eat each other.  we then had a tour of the new 2 acre lake and hatchery which for me sparked a lot of thoughts about our own Tarn and plans for the hatchery site.

In the afternoon we had a practical review of fishery maintenance and improvement and I came away from this with a sense of reassurance that our own plans are sound and well founded on current good practise principles.  We ended the day by considering some of the practical issues associated with fishery maintenance such as weed and silt control (not a major problem on the Ribble) and water quality.

Day two introduced us to some methods of stock assessment and management and it was a real eye opener for me to appreciate just how valuable some course stock can be with a 40lb carp valued at around £5k.  No wonder carp fishermen start to sweat when they see cormorants.  We wound up on a real high note with an excellent practical demonstration of how to assess fish health.  This session saw us back in the laboratory for a guided tour of a carp sushi looking for parasites and other clinical evidence of disease.  I now feel I have the confidence to do a few autopsies next season and whilst I am unlikely to know exactly what I am looking at I should have a fair idea when what I'm seeing is wrong.

So, two specific benefits of the weekend.  A brilliant  idea for deterring cormorants which is cheap, easy to construct , unobtrusive and above all effective and also a good working understanding of fish biology and what to look for when things go wrong.  But, overall I came away with a sense of reassurance that I know more than I thought I did about practical fishery management  and a renewed confidence to apply some of my knowledge to the benefit of the fishery and its members.

I know this is a pretty long posting but bear with me just a little longer for two more issues.  I am due to see the local police this evening at a parish meeting and will raise the question of member safety that I talked about back in August.  I will post up the advice I get on the secure area of this blog so if you are a member of the MAA and want to access this area then please email me with your preferred password (about 6 letters) so that I can set up access for you. You will get a confirming email when access is enabled.

Finally, back to normal next week with a return to regular postings on a Sunday.

Ian

    I'm sorry for the protracted silence from Horton, but the gremlins have been busy again.  As regular readers of this column will know we have a fairly unusual broadband Internet service up here.  Due to the rather cruel and interesting geography of upper Ribblesdale the 70 or so households in the valley which enjoy the benefits of fast Internet access get it via a wireless network.  This necessitates having a small stick aerial on the roof and on Thursday of last week the engineers called to upgrade the equipment installed at my house.  I am now the proud possessor of a small grey box mounted on a pole attached to my chimney which beams a signal received from the station to the rest of Newhouses.  This worked wonderfully on Friday, but by Saturday morning it was dead.  we had some dreadful weather on Friday night and when the engineers came back to find the fault on Tuesday they discovered that a supposedly weathertight box was full of water.  I now have a new one which I'm assured is Horton proof.  We will see.

Sticking with more personal stuff for the moment, I am also the proud possessor of a new right eye.  Not the whole eye but the lens.   Last Monday I had the cataract removed and the difference is staggering.  I had no idea just how bright and vibrant colours are and can see better than I have done for the past 50 years.  The left eye will be done just after Christmas so I should be able to see a floating fly next season.

Did anyone see that fascinating TV programme 'The Accidental Angler' fronted by Charles Rangeley Wilson that went out over the weekend?  Charles is one of the founders of the Wild Trout Trust and writes extensively about game fishing all over the world.  This episode in his new series was about his pursuit of the legendary mahseer, the strongest fresh water fish in the world which can grow up to 120 lb.   Next Sunday he's after brown trout in Bhutan so it will be interesting to contrast this with their cousins in the Ribble.

I was at Grassington last Wednesday to attend a meeting called by the Environment Agency to discuss the problem of American red signal crayfish in Long Preston beck.  This is the only population of these alien crayfish in the Ribble catchment and their presence threatens not only our native crayfish but the future of all fish stocks in the river.  We went through all the options to decide what should be done about this threat and reached a unanimous conclusion that the signals must be removed.  This will not be easy but has to be addressed if we are to protect the Ribble ecosystem.  More on this in due course.

I'm off to Winchester on Friday to attend a fisheries management course at Sparsholt College over the weekend.  This will be a great chance to learn more about the practise and skills of river keeping and exchange ideas with fisheries managers from other waters.  So expect a round up when I get back and no blog this coming Sunday.

Finally a word of warning on rod licenses.  There have been a couple of letters in the Telegraph recently about the difficulty of obtaining rod licenses via the EA website.  One correspondent who bought his license on-line back in March is still waiting to receive it despite the season now having closed.  The EA's excuse?  They were inundated with requests at the start of the season.  Something that one might think that they could have predicted.  The moral is buy your license from your friendly local Post Office or better still use the one at Horton and help keep this vital village institution going.

Next update will be posted next Tuesday on my return from Sparsholt.

Ian

    When the English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web back at the end of the last century as a means of enabling universities to share data he can scarcely have imagined how far his idea would develop.  Access to the web is now probably the single most important force driving sales of home computers.  We can communicate to an audience almost instantly and far beyond the scope of the phone.  This blog is an example.  We can access information in such volume and detail that it would take several lifetimes to read and absorb it all.  Just try typing "brown trout" into a search engine and see what you get!  And it enables us to buy (and sell) stuff without the hassle of traipsing round the shops.

The last benefit has been uppermost in my mind this week for two reasons and connects this geeky stuff to life on the fishery.  Firstly I have been able to source all the materials, tools and equipment we need for our fencing project from a firm in Burnley found as a result of an Internet search.  OK, I could have done this using yellow pages if I had the edition that covers the whole of the north of England but the advantage of the web is that I can view this firms product list, select the items I want, see pictures of what it looks like and compare prices with other companies.  All in the space of a few minutes.  A simple email, phone call or fax and the job is done.

Secondly,  What about eBay?  for those of you who haven't yet ventured into this electronic auction house I would encourage you to do so.  I was sceptical until I bought my first items back in May.  It's simple to use, pretty safe and you can get a bargain.  Just right for that vital bit of kit you can't do without next season.  This week I had two successes.  Two books that will provide many hours of absorbing reading when the weather turns nasty.  The first cost me just £3.18 (cover price £17) and is by Mike Weaver.  It's titled The pursuit of wild trout and describes Mikes experiences fishing for wild brownies in unspoilt rivers in the UK and Ireland.  The second is a book I have had my eye out for for some time.  This was an absolute bargain at 99p (cover price (£15) and is the life of Mick Lunn the third generation of his family to work as Keeper on the Houghton waters of the River Test.  It's a book full of passion about dry fly fishing on what is probably the most exclusive and famous trout water in the world.

So, what of life here at Horton this week?  Mr Sod has been in action again on two fronts.  The weather has been glorious since the season closed with good clear water of a sustained high volume.  Just right for spawning salmon.  A pity we did not get more of this a few weeks ago.  A last minute glitch on the fencing project front where Craven College are having tutor problems that may delay the start of work a bit.  I will know more tomorrow but everything else is in place with the supplier standing by to receive and deliver an order for materials as and when I an satisfied that we can start.  Who said that project management was easy?

I was in reflective mood last week but clearly not reflective enough as the one event of this season gone that I forgot to mention was the VHS incident that caused so much hardship for fish farms and our own stocking plans.  Things are still slowly returning to normal and a brief conversation with our usual supplier for the Tarn has confirmed that he is out of quarantine and ready to deliver again next season.  I also forgot to mention Alan Toppings bench that now provides such a convenient place by the Tay Bridge to sit and eat lunch or just sit and reflect (or just sit).  I think it blends well with it's surroundings and is a lasting memorial to such a fine fisherman who was so passionate about the Ribble.

I am off to a meeting at Grassington on Thursday about the problem of signal crayfish in the Ribble catchment.  This has been organised by the EA who want to try to eradicate the growing population of these little alien pests from Long Preston Beck.  If they get down into the main river then we can kiss good by to any hope of returning our native species to the upper Ribble.  I have a couple of good recipes for crayfish. Waste not want not as my mother says.

All being well the barley straw should go into the Tarn  this week.  We decided to try placing solid bales this time so it will be interesting to see how effective this method is compared to the sausages with their larger surface area.  If it works then it will save a lot of work and mess in future years.

See you next week.

Ian