Friday 8 January 2010

Minus Sixteen!





That's what it said on my temperature gauge in the car this morning as I left home. This is really beginning to have an effect on the rivers in the catchment. In many places the Upper Eden is two thirds frozen and some of the minor tribs like the Lyvennet and Lieth are bank to bank ice...... I really didn't think I would ever witness scenes like this on a UK river. I have seen pictures of lower river beats with large sheets of ice moving slowly through them, in scenes more akin to what you'd expect on a central European river. We have now had snow on the ground for 3 weeks.

Summer dry fly fishing the evening rise seems an awful long way away!

Thursday 7 January 2010

Trout Steam Management in the Real World


We are now busy planning the STREAM Conference, titled - Trout Stream Management in the Real World. The main purpose of the event is to fill the room with fisheries managers, fishing clubs, rivers trusts and those involved with grass roots wild trout management - and give them an inspirational two days of talks, presentations and networking opportunities.

We are putting together a very exciting list of speakers (soon to be announced) and I really feel we will be staging a very interesting event. This is most definitely not a theoretical workshop - it will have practical benefits to all of those of you out there in the 'muck and bullets' of stream and river management.

The event is being co-ordinated by Eden Rivers Trust, The Wild Trout Trust and Association of Rivers Trusts, with financial support from The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Wild Trout Trust and Natural England (others tbc).

We have kept costs to a bear minimum and attendance is priced at a very reasonable £50 for both days (excluding accom and evening meal). On the first evening we will also be holding an event called - How Good Was Your River? - Local anglers who have fished then Eden over the past 50+ years will be invited to share their recollections, memories and historical records about this special river; it's fish, flylife, habitat and fishing. This ‘anecdotal’ information is seldom captured by organisations responsible for fisheries management and can extremely important when setting objectives for the restoration of a fishery - especially if historical fisheries monitoring data is absent. The output of the evening will be synthesised into a summary record which will be used to help guide ERT’s conservation work in the catchment. This approach could form the basis of a blueprint for other rivers trusts and managers to use on their catchments.

The venue for the event is the famous fishing hotel, the Tufton Arms in Appleby - and the highlight on the evening meal menu is Mrs Ewbanks Cumberland Sausages - which in my opinion are the best bangers on the planet!

Finally there is also an opportunity to sample some of the very fine early season trout fishing the Eden can provide...that is if this snow ever disappears! This can be through some of the wonderful day ticket fishing association waters or our very own Go Wild scheme.

More information can be found on our website, where you can also book on-line: http://trust.edenriverstrust.org.uk/stream-workshop-2010-2.html