When you take a fundamentally good idea and combine it with an environmentally aware fishing club and some hard working fly fishers, good things can happen. Ian May explains...
Some 15 years ago, Dr Cyril Bennett - entomologist and long time friend of Salisbury & District Angling Club, alongside the Environment Agency, started a river fly monitoring initiative on the River Test at Leckford...The Riverfly Partnership Initiative was born.
The purpose of the initiative was to establish a monitoring programme for the rivers fly and invertebrate life, which, because of it's relative simplicity, could be carried out by volunteer monitors in a quickly administered, fuss free manner. The programme is centred around gathering samples of river dwelling invertebrates that are collected by means of a consistently performed kick/ sweep and manual sample gathering test.
The test is conducted by two people using a pre specified, 1mm gauge pond net and requires the net to be placed directly downstream of the tester and the bottom dislodged where upon, any creatures present are washed into the waiting net. In order to improve consistency in the procedure, the test is timed at three minutes followed by a one minute manual search. With the test completed the contents of the net are emptied into a bucket and t a large shallow white tray (which allows the contents to be spread thinly and consequently, much easier to identify), and is ready to be sorted. A segmented tray is then prepared and the targeted invertebrates are transferred over using a large pipette. The samples are identified sorted into eight targeted groups, these being made up from Caddisflies...Up-winged flies...Stoneflies and Freshwater shrimp.
The purpose of the test is to establish both the species present and their respective densities. In order to avoid the need to count every individual present (which would be mind-numbing in the extreme!), the numbers are entered into estimated bands ie: none present, 1 to 9...10 to 99, 100 to 999 and over 1000.
The information gathered is entered onto a pre-prepared spread sheet and fed back to the EA through regional co-ordinators. Thus providing a regular influx of information that the agency can use to monitor the rivers ability to support a healthy balance of fly and invertebrate life that would ordinarily, be difficult to gather due to the lack of available resources. It’s real value is that it not only allows a closely monitored, trained eye to be kept on the general well being of a section of the selected river, but vitally, also means that any evidence of a sudden decline in the rivers fly life can be quickly flagged up and acted upon without delay.
Saturday 18th May 2013 - The Salisbury & District Angling Club/ Riverfly Partnership Initiative training day.
Cyril and his trusty assistant Charlie Blake, alongside club committee member Chris Thomas and his wife Chrissy (who had the office set up in tip top order and an excellent lunch prepared), organised the first of a number of S&DAC Riverfly training days. The purpose of which is to establish the continuation and expansion of the clubs fly monitoring programme, which to date has seven active sites on it's waters. The collaboration of Cyril and the club will help to ensure that the vitally important river fly life is monitored and protected to ensure top quality trout and grayling fishing for future generations of chalkstream fly fishers. In all...a great way to be involved in the protection of our all important river environment, but also, to have Cyril and Charlie impart their vast knowledge of flies and fly life over the course of the day, is exceptionally useful to any chalkstream and river fly fisher.
Ian May is an AAPGAI Master Instructor based in Hampshire, teaching both single and double handed disciplines for salmon, trout & grayling... contact him here at the Hampshire Fly Fishing School