River Dearne

See my new page on river angler.
www.riverangler.co.uk

River Itchen from the site http://www.riverangler.co.uk I couldn't start this website without a look at what some people regard as one of the finest fly fishing rivers in the country , the Itchen. The River Itchen is only 28 miles long starting its life just to the south of the village of Cheriton flowing northwards through Cheriton and Tichbourne then joining with its tributary the River Aire and the Candover Brook just below New Alresford the river wanders westwards and through the upper Itchen valley passing idyllically named villages of Avington, Itchen stoke, Itchen abbas, martyr worthy, Easton, and abbots worthy it then enters Winchester the river splits into several channels in the city, It then flows through water meadows and through the Itchen valley country park before joining the river in Southampton. The river is designated as a site of special scientific interest [sssi] along most of its length and is a well noted as one of the worlds premier chalk streams and has seven species of ecological interest including crayfish, otter, salmon, bullhead and brook lamprey.Its water quality is crucial and helps to support the plants and invertebrates and in turn the large range of species that the river supports. The Itchen is regarded as one of England's finest chalk stream Trout rivers along with the River Test , famous angling writers fished the Itchen like G E M Skues who was probably the inventor of modern day nymph fishing and wrote numerous books on fly fishing his first book Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream was his effort towards restoring wet fly fishing back to its rightful place on the chalk streams of England.[Skues] Sir Edward Grey was a prominent statesman in British politics in the early 1900s and is the man who sent Briton into the First World war [grey] he wrote books based on the Itchen ,Cottage Book Itchen Abbas 1894-1905 and Fly Fishing. Frederick M Halford was a business man who retired to fish he wrote books on dry fly fishing and historically is the man that made dry fly fishing into an art and wet fly fishing was looked down on and even to this day it remains the same on many rivers in this country.[Halford] he wrote Floating Flies and How To Dress Them and many more were penned. River Itchen River Itchen The Fishing. Test valley angling club ,Southampton piscatorial society have a short length of the Itchen near the m27 motorway behind the white swan pub on the A27 the river contains chub carp roach grayling dace pike perch eels gudgeon and flounders. the club offer membership at a yearly cost. check them out here.. http://riverangler.co.uk/tvacsps At Twyford East lodge fishing offer fishing to corporate events to fish the river and stay in the Lodge ,treat yourself to some dry fly fishing for the trout and salmon http://riverangler.co.uk/eastlodge Avington trout fishery offer fishing and corporate events at their stretch of the river at Avington http://riverangler.co.uk/avington Upstream Dry fly, offer fishing on the upper river also do corporate events and will like most of the other private owners of the waters offer tuition and accommodation http://www.upstreamdryfly.com/ If you fish or have fished this delightful little river please share your experiences with us also let us know of clubs on the river and your memorable days. Help us with this page by sending details about the river photos snipets anything at all that you can share with us . mail me at andy@riverangler.co.uk see main site and page here. http://www.riverangler.co.uk/river-itchen

Later this month an alarming statistic will be published by a quango north of the border, Marine Scotland Science. It will tell us how many wild salmon were caught by anglers in Scottish rivers in 2014. It is likely to show that the number is the lowest since records began. Wholly unnoticed by the public at large in the fantastic political hurly-burly of the referendum last year, something catastrophic seems to have happened to stocks of the great migratory fish, which is as much a part of Scotland’s wild identity as the Munro, the stag, the heather and the golden eagle. The five-year average for the annual rod catch of salmon in Scottish rivers between 2009 and 2013 was 84,897. But the figure for 2013 itself was 67,468, and according to detailed soundings by the Salmon and Trout Association (Scotland) the rod catch for 2014 was between 40,000 and 45,000, which, if borne out by the official figures to be published on April 24, will be the lowest since records began in 1952. We are talking an astounding 50 per cent decline, more or less, in just five years, and if we look at the 2014 figures that have already been published for one of Scotland’s greatest salmon rivers, the Tweed, we see something more astounding still. They show that 7,767 salmon were caught by anglers last year, compared with 14,794 in 2013, a scarcely believable fall of 47 per cent in just 12 months. It is starting to look like the beginnings of a collapse, and this is despite the fact that around 80 per cent of salmon caught by anglers in Scotland are now released rather than killed (and on some rivers this figure is 100 per cent). Someone keeping a close eye on the situation said to me yesterday: “The writing appears to be on the wall for the Scottish salmon.” There may be an ominous reason for why this is happening. Two major problems have already been highlighted. One is the extensive salmon farming, along the west coast of Scotland especially, where the farmed fish are affected by plagues of sea lice, which in turn can badly affect the wild fish swimming past. The other is the indiscriminate take by netsmen of fish returning to spawn in their native rivers after their migration to the seas off Greenland. But some experts think the main problem lies elsewhere: that it is a question of “marine survival”. Fifty years ago, for every 100 smolts, or young salmon, which went down to the sea in Scotland, about 25 to 30 came back to the rivers of their birth. Now that number is more like five. And the reason may well be climate change, as the young salmon’s prey species in the Atlantic ocean are moving north and out of their reach because of the warming seas. The Scottish Government is seized of the situation: from next year you will be obliged to buy a licence to kill any salmon north of the border, with a rod in a river or a net in the sea. But the Holyrood Parliament cannot do much about global warming. Could this be one of the first major effects of climate change on the natural world in Britain? The North Atlantic salmon, known as the “king of fish” for its power and beauty, is not only one of the most charismatic of all wild creatures; it is an icon of aquatic purity. It can only flourish in water with a high dissolved oxygen content, meaning that if you have salmon in your river, the ecosystem is probably in good shape: it’s a key environmental indicator. It is also a magnificent cultural icon: a major component of the image of unspoiled wild Scotland. To lose it would be unthinkable. But something is clearly happening now, which means that the unthinkable may come to pass. A post by MICHAEL MCCARTHY re tweeted and blogged.