There is a meeting of the Ribble Fisheries Consultative this evening for which I got all the papers yesterday.  It looks like a full agenda with a number of interesting items up for discussion.  I see that the Preston barrage saga rumbles on and its good to note the very robust attitude that the RFC have taken with Preston Council over this issue.  The Council's Chief Exec has been left in no doubt about the strength of feeling amongst anglers that the barrage will be hugely detrimental to the river environment and that RFC will take legal action should the council proceed with its plans.  As things stand at present the plan is to conduct a feasibility study to determine cost and environmental impact and any decision about building the barrage will be taken in the light of the findings of this study.  The problem is that we don't know the criteria on which the council will base their decision such as what is acceptable cost and what environmental damage will be tolerated.  If this project goes ahead it could have disastrous consequences for Ribble salmon and sea trout as well as affecting course fish below Settle.  Anyone with concerns about the scheme should write to the Chief Exec of Preston Council.

It's always nice to get some positive feedback about the state of the fishery here at Horton and an email I got yesterday from Gavin P left me feeling that we must be doing something right.


Hi Ian
Today's fishing was a little on the difficult side on both river and tarn with firstly the stiff breeze that sprung up on the tarn and secondly with the river at bare bones conditions. However the fish did put in an appearance at the tarn where we finished with 8 very spirited fish, as you will note by the returns. The river whilst very low was dotted every where with rising fish and we fished the foot bridge pools and up the following rills where we found fish feeding all along this length at Parker's wood.

On thing I thought might interest you was that In the faster water we found that nearly all the fish caught appeared to be young salmon parr up to 8ins long with a very deeply forked tail. They would snap at any offering that passed over them, and I caught around 8 of these returning them very carefully. It was a shame the Neil had left by this time, as I would have liked him to have seen these young salmon.
 I did end the afternoon with 5 stunning brownies up to around 12" in length from all along Parker's wood. This once again was most enjoyable day with only my knees feeling the pace as most of the fishing was done by kneeling down on the gravel, and as convinced me that applying for membership was one of the better things I have done in the last 12 months. I think kneepads in future will be the next purchase

I only hope that other new members are enjoying this fishery as much as myself, and whilst the river as been hard to fish this makes the results even more worth while.

Regards

Gavin

I had noticed a lot of salmon fry earlier in the year and it would seem that a lot of these have survived in the good water we have had most of the summer.  This bodes well for the long term future of salmon stocks on the upper river and it will be interesting to see if this large population of parr translates into more sizable runs in the coming years.  The fish counters lower down should tell some of the story.

Ian