Another foul and wet day, no good to man nor beast (except salmon).  The river is not quite in spate, but too high and coloured for decent trout fishing.  The forecast is for more of the same tomorrow with a brief respite on Friday before more rain returns at the weekend.  So Friday looks as though it may be a decent salmon day.

There has been a flurry of correspondence in the angling community recently about the impact of non native crayfish on salmon and trout recruitment.  This is something that has concerned me and I have been banging on about for a couple of years now and it's good to see anglers at last waking up to the threat pose by non native crayfish to our riverine ecology.

We are currently encouraging the S&TA, Environment Agency and others to consider funding research on the Wharfe into the impact of signal predation on salmonids and it is likely that a meeting will take place soon to discuss the proposal.

It may be too late to save the Wharfe which is heavily infested with signal crayfish; however, the research may save other northern rivers from becoming devoid of salmonids and other fish. 

Ian