Chris Avery | Wednesday, 21 February 2024
Across a muddy field, hundreds of yards from where any public could see it, and completely obscured from even the most adventurous bird watcher’s binoculars; with the only buildings in view, some tall concrete block and corrugated zinc storage units of a large working farm far off on a hill. Was this strip of concrete track that straddled the Brook and at its centre was that Bugger of a Bridge. Not even the shooting parties of Autumn, visiting the pheasant clucking coppice, or the red jacketed horsemen and packs of baying hounds in winter would notice it as they snuffled past, recessed down in the channel as it was. Just the passing farmer on his tractor or his wife walking the dogs; and the occasional fishermen who made it this far upstream by turning the final bend in the Groynes beat, glimpsed it eventually, after hearing its growing roar as they waded upstream to this last fishable pool. If ever a project called out for simplicity, just pure form and function it was this, there was little need to over-egg this particular pudding.
You’re probably wondering “is this really such a problem?” Does it really make any difference to the fish above and below the obstruction? After all, it’s the same water, insects; temps; climate; and habitats, even the pollution and siltation are shared.
After thinking about it carefully you’d maybe consider that the fish would be bigger with more adult habitats on one side of the blockage and the Trout more numerous with more juvenile habitat in the mix on the other side. How would you quantify the difference, and how could it be problematic to the population?
The historical understanding of our population of Trout is in the records of the AGM’s, old studies, and surveys and articles. Each subsequent secretary passes it on, and in a novel variation of “pass the parcel”, adds a few more layers of chaos and intrigue. It bares the scars of many attempts to kick it into shape and add some form and narrative for future generations. Each attempt, floundered in the “will to live and just get on with life” as it exhausted the good intentions. Projects that failed to be completed and subsequently things got copied in duplicate and triplicate unedited, and just added to the burden and the confusion.
It now sits on my table and on two chairs and the transferred data slows up my hard drive a little. Trawling through piles of the stuff I sometimes find another clue or mention of sightings of Trout breeding. Despite a few former keepers of the ‘pile’ denying that such things occurred,. Why ?
Maybe they didn’t explore too hard or maybe it didn’t suit the narrative they wished to portray, or maybe didn’t trust the reliability of the witnesses and dismissed it as wishful thinking, as they tend to do when discussing my thoughts on the matter. Those record are a ‘criminal’ mess that’s not likely to get any better on my watch I’m afraid.. such a thing is not in my skill set and beyond my patience threshold.
One piece of our history divides opinions. A devastating pollution event in the 1970’s, industrial Cyanide, was likely to have wiped out everything in the stream, unless some fish and invertebrates headed up little feeder streams and drains to avoid the onslaught and then naturally repopulated the waters when the trouble past.
We are far inland and there are many sluice gates that control the flows and flooding as the main river Nene winds across the Fens, they also prevent a natural recruitment from migratory Seatrout; although they are in abundance in the estuary. And we even have a large concrete gauging station below us that would, like the Culvert bridge, isolate everything from moving up except maybe Eels. We really are in ‘glorious isolation’, no bad thing with the invasive species getting ever closer, from Signal Cray Fish to Seals, both now close by in the Nene!
After the pollution the Trout were stocked by the club as usual, annually, large, from a fish farm and the vast majority unlikely to survive until the breeding season.
Prior to the pollution event we had Lampreys and Gudgeon in the Brook, which we no longer have. But we do have Loach and Minnow, Bullhead, and then the Coarse fish; Chub and Dace in abundance, and occasional meetings with Perch, carp; Rudd; and Pike. None of them were restocked as far as I can discover, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t come up past the gauging station from the Nene. Some may have dropped over the high dam that holds the lake waters at Apethorpe hall but all that was polluted too as was the whole stream and lakes, from up near its source in Corby. So I tend towards the belief that some pockets of water helped some fish survive and then re-populate; and trust the resilience of the rivers to bounce back from these flash events.
We will never all agree on that it seems. Arguments based upon various levels of educated guesses and experiences and agendas divide us, and the event is remote, it’s getting on for 50 years ago.
Does it matter, these divided and isolated populations? The source of the Trout breeding?
It may, if it is a unique population, with a distinct phenotype established in the Brook, and a water with a particularly rich diversity of ecology for this region of the UK. It may just make it more worthy for protection, and a priority case in an uncertain future of climate change and habitat degradation from “Progress” and the now relaxed legislation on water quality. Waters are now under stress as a natural resource that’s bizarrely crippled in debt and dividend payouts to foreign investments, and from a government that talks about care of the environment as a vote winning soundbite, but of being an issue to be dealt with by 40 years’ time. Things are not going to get better under the present politics and governance, and we may need to rely upon compelling evidence in future to protect the place. In the Judgements of men where “Maybes” don’t count; these answers, if we find them, can help.
That’s the uncertain past in the records; We may have always had some breeding Trout holding on to existence in a largely unnatural and canalised water course; an agricultural drain, that also survived devastation in the 70’s enough to re-populate a small population, then bombarded yearly with stocked fish, until we unleashed it and helped it to flourish.
Or we may have suffered a year zero type wipe out of everything that lived before, and what breeds now comes from a few stocked fish that manged to get established in those years since.
Future DNA resources may help with those questions, we’re waiting for the world and the EA to catch up on that one.
For the present state of the population we read in the scale samples and working on a hypothesis that if stocked Trout breed it takes roughly 25 generations to develop a phenotype; a recognisable genetic characteristic from its interaction with the environment and develop a robustness for that piece of water (based upon advice from Professor Andrew Ferguson who works in Trout population genetics in Lough Neagh and lough Melvin ).
We were advised as a club to take scale samples a dozen years ago or more, some people did but not many took it up. It sounds trickier than it is in the field, especially with a living creature, it needs demonstrating to get people on board and confident. The basic information it gives you is the age of the fish and the growth rate.
The first set sent to the EA for analysis came back with the question:-
“Who do you buy your stocked fish off? The growth rate they are achieving in that fish farm is phenomenal!”
We corrected this assumption and assured them there was no stocked fish in the samples. We have, it seems a higher than average growth rate .
In recent years I have had a researcher come out to see me and ask if our fish are going out to the sea, as he had only seen that growth rate before in Seatrout. So the mystery is on to discover what they are eating to promote that spurt of growth. We have theories, but as yet no answers.
My challenge of attempting alone, to subdue a 3½ lb indignant Brown trout and get its stomach samples out and then return it safely to the water has “BIG FUN” written all over it. The obvious would be electrofishing and pump the contents out while they are stunned, but they tend to get under the banks and out of the field of electrical current when we have had those surveys done in the past, and I envisage a lot of fruitless searching throwing up more questions than the answers seeked, and unnecessary stress on all the life in the river. I’m not prepared to make that call.
In recent years I have attempted to increase the number of samples taken from a dozen or so, yearly in the past, and to now catch them in the shortest of periods, to try and get a snapshot at a particular time of the season and the development. I aim for 75 to a 100 samples in a month of fishing. This latest data method has told us the extent of our populations speed of growth and that it is also short lived. A four year old Trout seems to be the limit, with maybe the odd rare five year old.
This isn’t unique to us, a few other rivers in the UK have fast growing, short life expectancy fish. The Test in fact, and the Hampshire Avon were noted as having two resident populations one fast growing but short lived, and the other slower growing that can get to twelve years of age and eventually exceed the length of the other group.
Those fish I believe, do not interbreed but remain distinctly different populations. Fergusons work at lough Melvin showed 6 different populations of Brown Trout that were distinct and bred in different areas and inlets and arrived there in different time periods.
However it seems for some reason that we have the second fastest growing , non
Sea going Trout, in any river in the UK. Beyond that fact is at present guesswork, and the answer I seek.
What complicates it is that the growth spurt is not consistent each year, sometimes it’s in year one, and some times in year two before the increment and percentage of growth slows off. It seems the amount of growing tissue increases but then it continues to grow at a decreasing rate (unlike other creatures who reach breeding size and then stabilise in growth).
How I ‘Scale sample’ a caught Trout is by immediately leading the fish back downstream before netting it. To a place where I can manage it easily, with the minimum of stress, and away from the water that that I’m about to fish next; to maximise my chances of efficiently fishing out an area of water un-spooked.
First I get the hook out and rinsed ready for drying, and with the rod and reel, tuck it safely out of the way on the bank or resting in a reed bed. So my hands can concentrate their efforts on the welfare of the fish without any accidents with lost tackle or the stream grabbing the rod or line. This time of controlled calm also seems to give the fish chance to settle in the net and be a bit more tolerant of what’s going on, less panicked and frantic. It’s early season and the waters cool and aerated, so recovery is at its easiest, but I still try to minimise the toxic Lactic acid build up in the muscles caused from stress and being held out of water.
I have a small brown envelope placed ready held in my lips and lift the fish out (with cold, wet hands) and hold it with its right flank upper most (the following season I go left flank up). On the top of the flank between the gill cover and the dorsal fin I rub gently with a very blunt little butter knife. This dislodges a few scales held in fish slime. They do grow back, but without the full information needed for scale sampling, it’s a natural process of repair. The fish quickly goes back down into the net after a few seconds in the air.
The slime and scales are then popped into the open envelope and squeezed off and the envelope sealed. I then take the fish out again and measure it from nose to fork of tail before it is released into the Brook. Date, place and Beat as well as length is written on the envelope. And the inevitably sodden and scruffy evidence is stuffed in a pocket, coming out looking remarkably dry and reasonably presentable a few days later. My fly is usually dry by now and ready to immediately re cast.
I start my season and work upstream systematically working through the fish in each pool and riffle, if I have to go back over an area , I can see if I’ve previously caught the fish, purely by taking the scale from the same spot in each. One year old parr are frequently taken, not just because of the greater numbers of them, but I suspect they are less cautious. After I have caught 25 or 30 I tend to just quickly measure them and return them if they look at either extreme of length, say, if they are less than 15cm or unusually big to still have parr markings, over 20cm. I will add them to the survey and take a sample. The rest are quickly returned.
It can be pretty frantic activity when the Grannoms or Mayfly are around and it’s nice to have a buddy catching while I am scaling. One afternoon and evening last year, was a great Grannom hatch and I kept my head down working away, only when I counted up the envelopes at home later did I realise I’d caught and scaled and exceptional 48 fish from 15cm to 42cm in the session. When we used to stock it with Trout, I would have been hard pressed to catch that amount of fish in an entire season!
The other area I tend to, I guess, manipulate the survey is with the bigger fish.
Most fishermen in the Brook never connect with a 35cm+ fish. Either by not fishing the right areas, too deep or overgrown for them:, or not being there at the right times of day (early morning or late in the evening, when most of them have wandered home considering the “evening rise” to be done) or they do connect and get smashed and have no idea what they lost, usually blaming it on big Chub which are visibly evident in the stream, more so than the Trout .
I hear of a couple caught each year, word soon gets around. That however, does not reflect the population in the stream. I inevitably connect with a few early in the year when my reactions and timing are so rusty from close season, they are gone before I’ve really had time to react.
Other times I’m fishing superfine and not expecting to suddenly steer an irate Locomotive train away from its nearby safety with a 2wt rod and a 7x tippet. Up to 40cm I can deal with usually with my light set up, once past that they become deeper, and much more powerful and determined, and the odds are stacked in their favour in a small brook full of woody debris.
I usually take my hat off to them and tell them I’ll meet them again later in the season. I’ve lost too many good fish in my life now to allow them to bother me anymore, or I’d be in therapy. I don’t tend to remember the good ones caught, as much as being haunted by the great ones lost and it’s them that keep me awake at night and send a shiver of regret and remorse through any happy recollections. Reminders of our fallibility always bring us crashing back to earth and stop us from being smug.
A glorious four week trip to New Zealand is now stored in memory, not of any of the many fine fish caught, but of the one Fish that broke me on the tiny Hamilton burn. I was hopelessly unable to cope and its memory haunts me and grows. It was at the time like a salmon, it’s now a small Dolphin, but the time I reach my death bed it will probably be a large Tuna and the source of my last earthly groan and defeat before my tippet section finally breaks off.
I’m typing now with my personal tiny black cloud hanging over my head, that like a malevolent dark Halo that appears whenever I think of New Zealand.
Once I’ve got most of my numbers up, around 75, I change up to a longer 4 wt rod and go specifically searching out some bigger fish in the adult habitat. If the fish don’t beat me, my ineptitude usually does the job for me.
On 75 last year with the Mayfly hatch starting I decided it was that day! Parking my car at the wrong end of the dirt track I trudged up the long trek to the water, I then set off up the Groynes ignoring rising fish of the size I’d welcome in a month or so. “You’re too small” I’d scoff. “Come and see me later in the season, I may have space for you then”. I’d joke. Such confidence is an ugly trait in others and deplorable when coming out of my own lips… and it usually comes back to haunt me.
At the top of the Groynes is a fast run by a deep undercut bank, wonderfully aerated from the water jetting through the Bugger of a Bridge a few yards ahead. I often finish here with guests as the last cast, Theres a number of big trout live under that bank in a line, and as a bonus there is a wide featureless pool between you, so to net them is reasonably straight forward. The odd person finishes their day with a surprise 3lb wild Trout here. It’s Willowbrook’s home banker, the saver of blanks, the never fails pool.
I’d held off fishing it last season until I’d come with the heavier set up on that day, and slipped down the bank to cautiously approach it and reap the maximum it would payout. Such is the speed of the water you rarely see a rise, but as fish were feeding lower down the pool I could assume they would be active. I caught nothing, I tried everything, and every choice was equally ignored and rejected. It was a humbling beginning to a cock-sure day.
I knew some great spots just above the Bugger of a Bridge in some tricky deep wading, but Id marked where the fish were and knew I’d get at least one, my casting and presentation seemed spot on and few parr fish agreed, but still I blanked on the bigger fish.
Thankfully I had spotted an area much further upstream a few nights back that I saw 7 big fish feeding so I knew I had that in reserve and quite a few options on the way there to get the day started. “Really I should be able to bag four 3 lb fish today in the conditions and with the research I’ve done.” I thought in consolation. I was still feeling optimistic, arrogant and invincible.
I tried for a great spot of shallower water mid-stream, but you had to battle through brambles and some tricky wading through swampy reed beds to end up in this Nirvana (isn’t it always thus?).
Very few members venture here. Just where I expected, in a beautiful aerated fast run, I connected at last with a large indignant fish and it jumped twice and I saw its size; “At last a four year old!”
I was knelt in the stream and at last felt confident enough to free one hand and reach over my shoulder for the bungy cord and the net to get ready to land it. My hands scrambled and searched and stuttered blindly and could only find the magnet off the cord. “ Oh Feck! The battle in the brambles”! I remember the tugs and tussles to break through, I looked at the fish and resigned I would never land it and get a sample, let the line go limp, a few shakes and the barbless hook was free and it was gone, just like my landing net.
OK to cut the rest short….. Got up, trudged 1 mile+ back to car, drove home for spare net, can’t find spare net. Drive to workshop can’t find the spare spare net in workshop even.
“ I’m always tripping over the flipping thing, where the hell is it?!” Take deep breath and sigh.
Ring secretary, drive to secretary get his spare net. Drive back to Brook, do long dirt track, walk a mile up stream (searching brambles again, much thorn and blood and colourful language, verbal threats of brush wood cutters and unspeakably poisonous herbicides). Walk all the way passed the channel above the Culvert bridge beat,
“Bad luck here today, start afresh, areas anew and all that, plenty of fish still to be tried for!”
Get to next area where I know big fish wait for me. Find someone fishing the best pool and he’s just been through the other likely spots, hopping from one good pool to next while working ‘downstream’, not ‘upstream’ like me AAGGGH! Take a deep breath and sigh. Walk another ½ mile to where I saw the seven and above where he has already fished. Now it’s salvage the day.
“I better make the best of this”.
Slow deep pools, very overgrown banks, Find I can’t wade upstream too far, back off carefully and come back round to work from the bank, desperately careful, getting over two layers of barb wire in brand new Simms waders. Some arse has removed the foam pipes we fix on the wire to make it safer. Take a deep breath and sigh a little harder.
By now 2 ½ miles across some rough land and difficult wading, two steep ditches to cross, two barbed wire fences and a rickety style away from the comfort of my car and my forgotten sandwiches. Stood back from bank scanning water looking for clues, see movement on the edge of peripheral vision. Shuffle round to look, Foot goes down Rabbit hole, I fall forward, large fish breaks the surface for a flying Mayfly, magnificent view, hear loud crack and hit the floor thinking strangely in my predicament not about getting to the car or being stranded miles from anywhere on private land with no one around to help, but just the sickening thought that I will never get to that fish now!
Ruptured Achilles tendon, end of fishing for the season, only 75 scale samples taken and only two 4 year old trout this year. The best laid plans of mice and men and fish.
I will remember the sight of that Trout leaving the water to catch a mayfly in flight as I crumbled earthwards to a sickening snap and a thud, for the rest of my fishing days on this earth. Can’t say that for any of the past 500 I caught and got into the net.
The EA now have the ability to look at the DNA of the population and have our old scale samples in storage, so hopefully we can see if there’s any development over time and signs of isolation. More questions can be answered
More immediately the scale samples have shown up one distinct difference with that Bugger of a Bridge involved and its limitation responsible. When compared to national average growth rates (National Fisheries Laboratory data), the species above and below the barrier both have a fast growth rate, attaining a percentage standard growth data of 137% above the Culvert bridge and a stunning 151% below it. (Giving Willowbrook a combined value of 142%).
So there is a marked difference between the two populations. Not so much in the average sizes of fish caught, but in growth rate of the individuals.
And those females looking to select males that are robust for the environment but genetically not closely related to her, need to be able to explore further afield to get the best options and diversity. In a small brook with limited breeding sites, the isolation of the two populations really hampers that need.
I don’t know the full story of the chairman’s plans. I’ve heard various versions and interpretations, but not from him. I saw the drawings and they were beautiful, a simple elegant structure. I could understand being a designer, that temptation to just push perhaps slightly towards a touch of vanity in a project like this, after all your name is associated with it and it becomes part of your legacy. You want to be proud of it.
He had located the company who had made the Victorian pump and who still made these archaic. pieces of equipment and had organized rerouting the positioning of the new one, so this time it wasn’t integral in the bridge design. That tricky, sticky, part of the solution circumvented to everyone’s satisfaction. So it was just a case now of the water levels and getting farm vehicles safely across the brook. Simple as.
The bridge itself in his drawings however required for the construction sandstone local to the area. And he was specific of which quarries for certain tones and materials. I have no idea If this was due to planning consent pedantically specifying a construction that would sit at home in a local town, or the surrounds of 300 year old cottages of the local villages. Or it was his own fancy. I’m guessing the latter.
But it complicated and delayed the process. And it seemed to go on and on, and then on some more. Personally, I thought that fine. The bridge would get done some day. And meanwhile, the chairman was gainfully employed. And not sending out ‘Bolshi’ emails to members of the Fishing Club whom he disagreed with.
Then I was told that the project ground to a halt and we lost the funding. Apparently, there was a deadline for the submission which was strict. The chairman submitted the plans a few weeks later, as he did in his professional life, and the funding was lost.
And all his work was in vain. And we still had our connectivity problem and that Bugger of a Bridge!
More on the genetics here if your interested:-
My very best to all the Sexyloops community; happy Wednesday one and all!
Chris A.