I spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour down on the bankside at New Inn yesterday morning doing the monthly invertebrate check.  This gave a quite positive result with a good range of beasties and good numbers of animals in the families most commonly found here.  The most productive habitat at this site is the gravel bank just downstream of the bridge where the flow from the east arch drops over the bank to join the intermittent flow from the west arch.  In low water this bank dries out, but with the moderate flow we had yesterday it was well watered and has been for some days.  Upstream from here the substrate is rather bouldery for good sampling, but it does produce some heptagenia and Baetis nymphs so I guess that they are there in greater numbers but buried down in the gravel under the stony layer.

What I got from a 3 minute sample in total at 6 sites is a s follows:

Heptagenia - 70+,  Baetis - 30+, Stonefly - 2, Gammerid - 5, Cased Caddis - 10, caseless Caddis - 7, Ephemerellidae - 3.  No Ephemeroptera (mayflies), bullheads or minnows this time, but I did find 2 leeches, one big sod that clung to everything and measured about 2 inches when extended.

I plan to do a similar sample at Turn Dub on Saturday to see how the results compare.

I haven't yet managed to get down to Stainforth Foss to see whether the salmon are coming up, but Andy from the Post office has and the photo's he took on Wednesday are, once again, superb.  Follow this link to see them http://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_rush/1621430452/.

They seem to be coloured fish, but Andy tells me that they were leaping the lower falls at regular intervals.  He did not spot any on the upper fall so it's possible that we need a little more water for them to clear the Foss and get right up to Horton.

Ian