I wonder if you can come and give us a little talk Warren?
- Details
- Published on Friday, 10 April 2009 06:32
- Written by Warren Slaney
The powerpoint and video are now on my portable hard drive. The dam video takes hours to render and as it reaches the end of the painfully slow process, the hard drive is snatched up and I race from the house leaping over the dogs and shouting ‘ See ya!’ to Melissa, who shouts back with ‘Good Luck, drive carefully’.
There’s a talk to be given and thundering up the lane from home, I’m late, I am always late for talks.
River keepers are often asked to give talks but I’ve always shied away from the standard ‘quaint job’ presentations. Now though I have a message to pass over to the fishing clubs and syndicates who invite me into their ‘locals’. This is the reason the landrover is flying through the snow on a winters night.
Welcomed, but politely ushered into the dinning room of the pub, I’ve got a few minutes to put up the screen, line up the projector and plug the laptop in. The members are filing in now, so I’m not going to get a last look at any of the presentation before the off.
“Hello and thank you for asking me here tonight. My name is Warren Slaney and I’ve been asked to give a presentation about why I believe stocking trout into rivers is unnecessary and in fact damaging to the resident fish and resident wildlife”.
The evening flies by and next thing I know is I’m back in the Landy, winding my way home with the six foot screen back in my ear.
Why do I do it? Wouldn’t it make sense to continue to be that rare thing, to continue with our niche in the market as a day ticket wild trout fishery? The answer is simple. I am passing over information, learnt from my time as a full time professional, that I know to be right. That information could be of benefit to the fishing club, its members and the rivers they fish.
During one such talk the club members got so involved in the Q & A at the end, the land lady of the establishment came to the doorway with her husband and displayed the type of body language that suggested ‘I don’t care how much these freaks are paying us, I want to get to bed before 1AM‘.
When the club secretary can be seen to gulp, we are getting somewhere. The realisation has dawned on him that he will now no longer be able to take the quick fix of chucking in the stockies. Their club will have to make everything right for the fish in their river and this includes providing spawning gravel in the right places, fry refuges and fingerling pocket water. The easy casting will be replaced by slotting flies under ariel cover, crucial for the adults. Only once have I seen the Secretary onside from the off and in that case he wasn’t afraid of anything.
“But what happens if the river gets polluted and all the wild fish die?” from the back of the room. I like this question because the answer is so simple. “It doesn’t get polluted” is my reply.
You do everything possible to risk assess the catchment with the EA and Natural England. All silage pits and diesel tanks are bunded, all mobile sheep dipping operations are regulated carefully. You take ‘Lurch’, the largest member of the club, along with you when meeting local farmers and ask that he just hang back and give the occasional withering look. A river corridor group is set up so all riparian owners above you on the river can get together and flag up potential problems. This is preemptive fisheries management and by the end of this outreach, everybody knows how special the river is. It's followed up with newsletters and open day invites. Don’t forget anyone. Every single pollution, no matter how small is reported to the EA to obtain a call back, site visit and the all important NIRS number.
Now this is fisheries management. There’s no need for stock fish anymore. You’re enjoying the river again and begin to find a new respect for that twisting ribbon of water. Working parties are starting to fill up as well as other people’s interest is renewed. On these parties though nobody is allowed to disappear with a bow saw to ‘lop the odd branch off the help casting on their favourite pool‘. This moves fish faster than a dose of bleach! If there is any trimming to be done, its done in two’s; one on the bank making sure not too much comes off, one in the water clipping carefully. Consideration is given to the fish, not the angler. Good anglers can make the cast, bad anglers will learn to be better or take up golf and not have the branches removed from tree canopies to allow them to continue to be bad!
Our last stock was on June 5th 2003. If we can stop stocking, anyone can. We have a busy, seat of the pants, day ticket fishery with 12 rods per day regularly pounding its banks. Day ticket rods fish very differently than season rods do. It's all about getting their monies worth and fishing hard. Success here is measured by the number and size of the largest trout caught. Season rods however are in it for the long haul and are just as happy to smell the roses along the way. Our proud tradition is with the dry fly and only the dry fly. No gold heads or teams of nymphs can be used to scrape the depths or bounce through the fast water. So if they aren’t on top, there is no sport.
Stock fish numbers. Same again Gentlemen? This is the question asked at AGM’s or committee meetings across the country as winter turns to spring. The default is to stock. If last years fishing has been deemed less good then the management decision may increase numbers of stock fish for the coming season, rather than inquiring into the cause of these problems. But; if the members can instruct the committee that they would prefer to catch & release and have wild trout?
When you take the lease or the ownership of the stream, you also take on the role of guardian to a whole host of creatures, birds, mammals and billions of insects. I think this is lost upon a lot of anglers. The decisions you make will lead to their health or starvation, their sanctuary or their displacement. When you step foot on the river bank and see problems, don’t think to yourself ‘I only fish here once a year, this is the responsibility of others, more qualified or empowered’. You allow it all to happen by doing nothing; you really are part of the problem rather than the sustainable solution.
We take out the weirs, created to try and keep stock trout in sections for longer and a fast water river weed develops. Riparian zones are fenced. The margins of the river grow in with semi emergent plants as the summer river shrinks. Windblown timber and gravels are thoughtfully installed along with some of your own ideas and innovations. Water voles arrive, insects are able to survive in the fast braids of Septembers flows. Field voles, breeding like lemmings within the late summers grasses of the new buffer strip are carried back to the shed to feed the hungry Barn Owl chicks. The members have as much fun out of all this as they will the fishing. 
The fish are caught and released after careful handling and will replenish themselves many times over, along with many broods of kingfishers herons and dabchicks. Club members will take pleasure and pride from orbiting this developing world, being its sole benefactors.
On the other hand; same numbers again Gentlemen?
These are very positive times for our rivers. Those visionary conservation trusts are forming pro wild trout policies and putting on their wellies to show us what they mean. Our Environment Agency is asking us what we think about it all and healthy debate has been stimulated. We are moving in the right direction; in some cases at the pace of a snail, in others at the speed of light but it’s now become clear that those choosing to run rivers with sole consideration being given to fishermen… are running out of time. They are likely to be asked some very difficult questions in the next twelve months by their own members. One such question might be… “ Are we the best people to be looking after our river?”.
Let me be the first to ask it; well are you?
W. G. M. Slaney
Head River Keeper
Haddon Estate
Derbyshire
Warren Slaney gave up fly fishing for the Derbyshire trout and grayling twenty years ago to become a river keeper on Haddon Estate in the Derbyshire Peak District. He is responsible for three rivers including the Derbyshire Wye and Lathkill. Writing and consultation work take up most of his free time but he also plays table tennis for his county.