Oh well into the last week of the 2008 fishing season and the weather this morning seems to have relented at long last and has given us a bright start with the promise of much sun later.  The river has been far too high this week to safely do the invertebrate check, but with the threat of rain receding it may be possible for me to get onto the river later today.

I try to avoid fishing politics as much as possible, but there are two issues currently attracting attention.  Firstly the proposed hydro scheme at Settle weir has now gone before the planning committee at Craven District Council and has been turned down. At present I know not on what grounds although there was much opposition to the scheme from angling and conservation bodies who are concerned about the impact that the scheme will have on river habitat and migratory fish.  The point has been well made that no one is opposed to the scheme in principle.  However, there was far to little in the environmental impact assessment that addressed the impact that the scheme will have on water levels, the antiquated fish pass at Settle and the restrictions that abstraction at this point will have on salmon and sea trout.

Those of you who know Settle weir will appreciate that normal flows over the weir are pretty meagre and the availability of good water above and below the pass is vital for fish making their way up to Horton.  We shall see what transpires here.

The second issue is the long running debate concerning whether to stock the river with triploid or diploid trout.  This debate is fairly sterile and academic for us here at Horton as we no longer stock the river at all, but lower down knickers are getting fairly twisted and the EA who are imposing a ban on diploid stocking are getting quite a bit of stick.  My own simple take on this is that if you have to stock at all it's far better to stock with sterile fish as we know from our own observations that stock fish rarely survive their first winter probably because they lack river awareness possibly genetically induced due to the length of time that the strains have been captive bred.  If diploids in any way contributed to the recruitment of river trout stock we should be able to walk across the river on fish by now given the many thousands of fish that have gone into the Ribble from its source to the sea over the past one hundred years or so.  Far better to ensure that there can be no interbreeding between wild fish and farmed cousins to the genetic detriment of the former (and notice the use of the term 'wild' as opposed to 'native').  Even more to the point is the need for clubs on the river to move progressively away from stocking at all and adopt a strategy of proper river management that aims to encourage the natural recruitment of wild fish.  I fear that we are some way from that goal.

Ian