Of Eric and the funky Fandango

Below these steel joists the flowing Brook was divided too. Wading up you to it, around a little bend as it comes into view, the water races under some Elm tree regrowth, that shades over the waters. As the sky then opens up above and the pace of the flow drops, within its gentle banks the waters brush over a gentle shallow pool of gravel, half a tennis court, the perfect depth for playing dogs and even paddling infants on rare remorseless, hot summer days, when young families in the know, picnic on the banks here and create lasting memories of those happy times flowing by.

Then this bridge divides as immediately upstream of its shadow, the Brook’s bed plunges down off its clean gravels into a dark, deep, silty depths and swings out of view around a bend, disappearing under the low boughs of a brute of an old Willow tree; stubbornly anchored there, the hub of its world. The Brook, the Path; stream bed; the fields and the plants here, all revolve around its permanence and authority. The old Governor of the Brook.

For those fisherman wading up the stream, the bridge is where you have to haul yourself onto the bankside and find a way, ironically, around this foot bridge and locate a benevolent bankside to lower yourself back down into the stream again.

This afternoon looking down off the bridge, the pool was dark under the shadows and the water looked deep beyond measure, certainly above the top your waders and after all, for an English fly fishermen that’s all that counted, dry comfortable waders. Deep dark and mysterious enough this pool to create malevolent mythical creatures to drag down the naughty infants that wandered too far from mum’s safety and gaze picnicking on the bankside. How many now famous legendry monsters are invented in the heads of mothers desperately trying to grab a few moments of peace. I wonder if the Kelpies, Nessie and the Selkie came into existence this way?

I turned my back on the monsters and lent on the wooden handrail looking downstream to the kinder waters below, the crinkled surface fizzed with a thousand little sparkles, yet still, with a squint, you could clearly see every little pebble and frond of weeds on the stream bed on this afternoon in early July. The Brook was running Gin and sparkling clear, a real tonic as the boffins were due the next morning to teach us how to monitor.  I imagined this would be the perfect spot. Insects hatching, the occasional fish jumping, and the bankside grasses were high. That water below looked refreshingly clear and not a cloud to be seen on any horizon. The next day’s weather was predicted overcast, cooler, but no rain and no problem. 

A few less concerns in my life here over these wooden railings to lose any sleep over. I headed downstream along the hint of the bankside path between the rippling high grasses, to find a few shallower spots for people to get in and out of the banks and to tread the grasses down a little ready for them and to mark the spot. The fronds of grasses and the wild flowers were four or feet high by now in places and hiding the waters from view. Ahead I glimpsed a white swoop of a large soft silky bag the size of a pillow case swooshing down through the grasses and up again, a pause, then swoosh again. As I got closer I could see it attached to a wiry, tall, bald headed chap, with glasses that framed, friendly inquisitive eyes.

His name, though common, Stephen Brooks, was familiar to me. I suspected him to be the name on my authoritative study on Dragonflies that I’d bought from a Natural History book shop. I’d opened it and was immediately out of depth in this scholarly tomb. He was the ‘Authority’ on Dragonflies. And this was him on our river bank catching insects.

“I decided to come down a day early and look at the fly life” He added “we’re doing a class here tomorrow and I wanted to see if I could collect any samples beforehand.”

I introduced myself and explained I too had come down a day early to see if there was anything I needed to prepare.

“Are you having much luck with the insects?”

“Oh yeah, I needn’t have worried, this place is fabulous there’s so much life here, I really must come back when I have more time”.

Time for another silent fist pump and cry of relief for the Avery.

“I was going to collect some samples in case it was a struggle, but there’s no need, we will find everything easily tomorrow”.

We were two chaps on the side of the river bank both concerned about an event which we were linked to at either end of the booking. The organiser and the facilitator, the pupil and the teacher, both dragged in by concern, drawn here prematurely to ease our minds. I explained where the bridge and the hall were, but he knew. he’d been, he’d even peered through the windows of the hall, to check what he was up against I guess, It was all fine. Both of us looking for reassurance and both had found it and could relax a little now.

The stream and the banks were fine, I didn’t need to do anything to prepare, and it was apparently, one of the better the sites they’d visited so far. (‘Of course it was!’ I knew that would be the case, Just didn’t dare to think it). Now all that remained to worry about was the food and that possible input from of our two “elected officers” from the club.

I have a problem with uniforms, they convey an authority that sometimes I’ll admit, is useful. The statement portrayed “I am the person suited to manage this situation” is fine and effective at an accident, or in war zone “I have Authority here”. But too often it just turns the wearer into a power mad little dictator that’s deeply inappropriate for all concerned when confronted with a ‘bolshy’ little carpark attendant, a courier driver, or on the door of a supermarket, it seems so unnecessary.. Similarly with Fishing clubs system of ‘elected officers’. A weird concept which seems to have the same effect on the bearer. Why? The air is no more rarified for them, we are all capable of making decisions, we all pay the same membership fees and we all fart in our waders. Yet some feel duty bound to lord it over and communicate in a power mad little clique that gravitates around them. I would Imagine it’s the same in golf and lawn green bowling clubs.

However, the next morning this system kicked in and worked like a dream for me personally.

I hate speaking in public. I clam up terribly and say the most stupid nonsensical things. The prospect of introducing a meeting is deeply disturbing as it freezes me, dried up in a dense thumping fug of panic of empty thoughts, where random words and sentences appear out of the ether and then just cascade through my vocal chords. They are as much a complete surprise to me as to anyone hearing them, and thus rendering me completely unsuitable for orating Eulogies whilst maintaining friendships.

Without any prompting, the chairman just stood and welcomed all the members and visitors from other clubs to the Willowbrook fly fishers club.  Then seamlessly the Secretary stood and welcomed the lecturers from the Natural History Museum and the Freshwater Biological Association, introduced them by name and thanked them for coming. It was an adaptation of the AGM meetings and club hierarchy that clicked effortlessly into gear. He added if any guests had tackle with them and wished to fish the Brook later they were welcome to. Which was a complete surprise to me. And then the day smoothly eased away from its moorings and out on its journey. For the rest of the day those two officers blended into the enthusiastic rabble, playing around at pond dipping and got really stuck in.

We had around ten tables for two or three people to work, each equipped with a stereo microscope, trays and lab tools. First job though to collect some samples. And the vision of a bunch of middle aged men and a few ladies set off across a field, rugged up in wellington boots or waders carrying pond nets and buckets was at last realised, and most lined up on that wooden bridge to watch the demonstration below.

The sampling lasts three minutes in all, divided up by the dominance of the habitat types for that bit of water. The ‘kick sample’ is performed by holding the net on the stream bed just downstream of where you gently kick and shuffle your boot back and forth in the gravel or in the weeds, and the current then carries the dislodged bugs towards the mouth of the waiting net.

Where I sample we do 1 minute of gravel, 1 minute of water weeds like Ranunculus ,  1 minute of stream side aquatic vegetation ( grasses reeds etc) and an additional 30 seconds of turning over large rocks and wiping any insects off into the net. Between each section you swish your sample clean in the net then transfer the contents to the bucket with some clean water. This is then taken to the large white tray to be identified and counted. So a session involves usually three one minute samples and takes around an hour of sorting in total with all the ‘yacking’ and the distractions. 

I wondered how many of these men had once been scabby knees, shorts wearing brats,( like me) returning home damp, scratched and muddy with a pond dipping net and jam jar full of delights to ‘thrill’ their patient mothers?

“What in god’s heaven have you brought back?! They’re going to turn into Frogs. No you can’t keep them in your bedroom”!

And that this experience now was a natural progression of a similar childhood fate, finding a similar delight heading back to the village hall with a bucket full of bugs, this time though to the waiting Leica Microscopes and table full of identification charts and sorting trays where our ‘precious’ finds would at last be welcomed home. No need for your father to come up to you later, perch on the edge of the bed and quell the sobs by explaining “They lived in a pond with their Mummy, It’s like this house, we live in this pond with our Mummy, and how would we feel it if someone with a net caught us all and took us away from our Mummy?”. That man did talk some absolute bollocks at times!

The insects were mostly identified in groups not individual species. 8 groups in all; Cased caddis, case-less caddis; Mayflies (Empheridae); the agile Olives ( Beatids); Flat bodied Olives; Blue winged Olives; Stone flies ; and freshwater shrimps( Gammarus).

It is amazing when you first peer in the tray and all you can see is a few snapped off weeds, bits of gravel and sand, decaying old ‘matter’ and what can only be politely described as miscellaneous debris; with just a couple of home sick and dejected looking shrimps circling forlornly around wondering where it all went so terribly wrong in their lives. It’s really rather deflating the lack of activity and the sparseness against that stark white tray.

Then either your eyes tune in, or the insects wake up. But suddenly there’s hundreds and hundreds of critters darting, crawling, and burrowing around. From the miniscule right up to the “Oh My Goodness. How Did I Not See That?!” And such a variety of life forms that it’s hard not to get distracted and to stay disciplined to those set 8 groups your supposed to be seeking. “Oh Wow!! It looks like a little leggy dinosaur.”

When you consider that the many thousands of creatures in those sample tray are only the ones dislodged from what is about a square yard of habitat, and that happened into the mouth of that little 8 inch net opening. They represent just some of one typical square yard of stream bed in the tens of thousands of square yards of the small stretch that our Brook covers. Then the place is absolutely teaming with life beyond imagination, no wonder the Trout are happy and resent getting pulled out of it.

Identification under a ‘grands’ worth stereo microscope with the 3D like depth is obviously going to be impressive and fascinating. But just looking through a hand lens down by the waterside transforms these little bugs into incredibly complex and very beautiful creatures that are each a masterpiece of design for their niche, especially those Olives and the Mayflies. As a fishermen it makes you realise the nymph patterns we tie of wire, silk; fur; and feathers, are far too big, too fat and lacking the natural balance. These are creatures evolved to be supreme in this environment they have a streamlined, slim and faultless. If you haven’t looked, you really should.

And then there’s the life stories you learn. One creature which does not immediately qualify for my descriptions and the praise above, is very common in the kick samples and can by its very nature, cause absolute bedlam in the sample tray. Its looks like a skinny elongated hour glass about the length of your little finger nail ( if you bite your nails down). It is mucky, blacky; grey’y; browny; boring, in colour and with the naked eye has no discernible parts or interesting bits. Its completely mundane and unloveable. But under simple magnification, a different story. On its head it was two raised pillars holding exotic palms like fronds,  like huge curvy false eye lashes fluttering seductively in your direction. 

When the Angling times first looked at the Brook and studied its life, it was noted as full of these Simuliids; the Black fly. They honestly look like discarded poops  from a very tight little bottom. However they have an ability to create silk out of the mouth end, a small length of it when they are disturbed, drags along until it catches on the stream bed where the creature can then anchor itself safe and secure with more of this thread. In the tray the thousands we get in each sample, now disturbed, unanchored, and I guess agitated. Desperate to re-establish some security, start firing out this little thread, tangling around the legs and bodies and antenna of the larger lovely Beatid and Mayfly nymphs. Soon we have pandemonium of little creates struggling in a chamber of cobwebs.  The silk is not wasted and is often carefully gathered back up and reabsorbed as life and security, returns to normal.

When the time comes to turn into an adult, the little nymph, secured to the stream bed surrounds itself in a little bubble of air (don’t ask me how dear reader, it’s nature, I can’t bloody explain everything to you!) It then cuts its anchors and that pocket of air carries it up the few feet to the water surface. Here up pops the bubble and now as it bursts in the air. Abracadabra!  A complete adult fly instantly appears and flies safely away. As neat tricks go, this is a showstopper!

For another silk using insect above the surface of our water, life gets even stranger and can be a proper horror show!

In a scene like a 1950’s prom dance as narrated by Stephen King. The characters are agile voracious little carnivores, that fly around above the water surface, with knife like mouth parts that stab through their hapless prey before devouring the choice cuts. Over the water, or some times over the trees that are over the water, and sometimes just over a random muddy puddle, there are clouds of them swirling around each other in a movement that earned them the name of Dance flies, and dance they certainly do. And also known as Dagger flies and stab they certainly do!

A typical  Male, let’s call him Eric,  small, diminutive with a waspish little waist, huge shoulders,  develops forearms like Popeye and has slicked back quiffed hairs under his wings. The bulging forearms are silk sacs and he can wrap presents in silk. These ‘nuptial gifts’ are to present to Mrs Dance fly and keep her distracted and gorging herself while he’s sneaks around the back of her and is taking advantage..  

Now Mrs D is a big girl in comparison, Before she turns up at the dance she decorates herself by various disguises to make herself look even more fecund, like bloating up her abdomen to look properly ripe. She enters the dance swirling around with the other girls waiting for a suitable bloke to turn up. Meanwhile our Eric has options.

In some species he just kills another nearby Dance fly  and drapes it over his arm as a present for the prospective Mrs D. Others though take more care and lavishly wrap up in layers of that silk thread, a fresh killed gift for her. Or they carelessly attempt to fool her with dried up bit of old kill wrapped in silk to attempt to keep her distracted long enough while she’s unwrapping it. Some even grab a bit of willow seed and hastily wrap it up, desperately hoping she won’t notice this “faux pas” in the insect worlds version of flower bunches from the filling stations, romantic gesture.

Some brazen little buggers even turn up with empty silk packages ( like ballons) a hope, and a prayer, and a lot of wishful thinking.

So Eric turns up at the dance looking sharp and wiry with his present on his arm and his oversized dangly bits hanging out. And with all the other Erics, he gets on the dance floor, busting some moves and throwing some shapes in a funky Fandango.

Mrs D is besides herself at the sight of young Eric, ignoring his dangly bits but eyeing up that present, and without much introduction or waiting for the final slow number, drags him away to a secluded spot. Here her gold-digger intentions realised, she grabs his present  and starts greedily unwrapping it, while wee Eric and his huge dangly bit get to work around the back. If the present keeps her occupied long enough there then follows a fairy tale happy ending with thousands of baby maggot Erics frolicking in the mud and leaf mould by the side of the stream, or a nearby muddy puddle, Mrs D is not too fussy with the chosen real estate for her sprogs it seems.

If however Eric has tried to dupe her and its discovered too soon, his intentions are rudely interrupted. One option for the deceiving Eric is to fly off hastily leaving his beloved Dangly bits behind plugged into Mrs D, thus preventing any other Eric’s from occupying that particular space. Thats if he’s lucky, he just has his dangly bits ripped off!

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury, like Mrs Dance fly scorned”! …. As Charles Darwin certainly never said. 

A furious Mrs D turns around to the hapless little cheapskate Eric and shadows over the quaking apologetic little wretch. She mercilessly stabs him through with her huge stiletto mouth part and either devours his best bits or flies back to re- join the girls on the dance floor looking out for yet another young Eric baring gifts.

Meanwhile, a few yards away from this death disco. I am gently wading up stream in the sunshine on my shoulder, admiring the wild flowers, entranced by the bird song and the fluttering butterflies while probably humming to my-self, “ I see trees of green, red roses too…”, What a wonderful world it is!. Blissfully oblivious to the cruel carnage and barbarity that’s happening a few yards distant at the Dance fly Boogie. I mean, you’d expect these tales in the darkest Amazon basin wouldn’t you? But this is rural Northamptonshire for goodness sakes!

Anyway, these magicians and psychopaths are not in our Target groups. The eight target groups are then sorted through with the critters appearing in low numbers separated and counted individually, the larger numbers are estimated, then scored.

1-10 insects is an #1, 10-100 is a #2, 100-1000 is a #3 and over a 1000 is a #4. When all parts of the of the kick sample have been analysed the scores are added and valued. We on Willowbrook generally score 12- 16.  

There is variation from July through to spring as the Blue Winged Olives are absent, or actually they are so small they can’t get identified especially in the short time used to sort samples in the field.. And the cased caddis species though really numerous, are quite specifically located, even in a certain area and can be hard to dislodge. Much variation can be down to the method or technique of the boot. Generally out in the field we use the same person kick sampling each time so there is a consistency of technique. And then a same person always doing the estimates, especially when dealing with tens or hundreds so there be a consistent leaning of error.

When I attend now I keep quiet and have a number in mind, say 400. And wait to hear the estimate, its usually surprisingly and reassuringly close to mine.

We have a low Trigger score set by the Environment Agency , if we drop to that we contact them immediately. Twice we have had to over a dozen years, once the shrimps disappeared and the other groups numbers were low. That was a human waste problem form a smashed sewer in a housing estate. Another time the shrimps were thriving but the other groups dropped very low, that was agricultural waste. So the various groups are sensitive to different problems and help identify the nature of the source.

With the collected data now from over the years, I should be able to go down the Brook in each month and know roughly what score I should expect from the various groups. Our scores have slightly increased over the years. When we started we were told no Stoneflies or Flat Bodied Olives had ever been seen in this part of the country. 

I can’t tell you how many fabulous newly discovered caddis fly species I have caught and preserved in good gin and posted off proud as punch to a caddis fly boffin for identification, excitement growing by the day. Only to get a note back saying; “Thanks for the Gin what do you want me to do with the dead Moth?”. So when I saw what I thought was a Stonefly in flight one year, but couldn’t catch it. Based on what we had been told, it was dismissed it as just another weird Moth sent down to make a fool of me. 

Then, next year one turned up in nymph stage in a kick sample. Over the years they have become more common in the samples and are now regular scorers. This particular species, the Willow fly, is a weak flyer that gets blown off course, but these flies are really choosy about where they ‘hang out’ together and seem to select certain stream side bushes to congregate in numbers.

They are not obvious like the Mayflies, unless you’re in the right spot and actually looking for them. But under and downstream of those particular bushes, the Willow Brook Trout has learnt about them now, and last year I started hastily tying a simple pattern to take advantage of this hatch. I had discovered a few of these bushes and saw the numbers of flies in them, hundreds and hundreds of them, and the trout feeding downstream and realised what was happening. This discovery not through may own ingenuity to be honest. The genius in this was Stuart Crofts, I’d rang him to discuss this species a few months earlier and he described the behaviour to me that made it easy to discover where to find them.  There they were, just as he described, the kind of places, and when they would be there. He has a habit of being right which is awfully handy if you have his phone number.

Meanwhile back in the make shift village hall Laboratory the one word you could use to sum it up was ‘Enthralled’, those short wearing brats had now grown into senior school kids with long trousers, now back in the science lab. Engrossed in their chosen subject and delighting in using lab equipment again, sharing discoveries down the microscope with each other. Behaving much better I would think than when they were teenage rabble suffering a double Biology lesson after a hasty drag on a quick fag behind the bike sheds, and longing for home time.

And then it was over, done, home time for us! The chairman stood up and thanked the visiting boffins on behalf of us all , thanked our guests from elsewhere for visiting Willowbrook and sharing the day with us, and then thanked Chis Avery for the effort of organising it and feeding us all so well. The secretary waited back as everyone left and helped me clean up and tidy everything away and then said “ That was a great day Chris, I really enjoyed that”. It was over, done and dusted. He, the old secretary, is still the main driving force behind the ARMI monitoring within the club, I had to let it drift for a few years with work and relationships but he has kept it alive and has kept the data coming in, once a month, regular as….bless him.

So, how good is it as a scientific technique and just how reliable? Around 5 years ago at 13 monitoring sites around the country, a team of qualified researchers and Entomologists shadowed groups like ours  and did thorough structured kick samples on the same sites to compare results over 3 consecutive months. The cased caddis problem was immediately obvious as was the ability to detect Blue Winged Olives in the earlier stages. However the overall scores were close enough between the amateurs and the better consistency of pros, that the study concluded that the ARMI system worked well and succeeded in its aims as a warning of water quality. It was worthy of being heeded by the authorities, and should continue to be funded.

As an exercise for the club, It succeeded in starting monitoring, which has continued and we have broadened our scope. The interest in a workshop day seemed to be very popular and I could have run two or three of the days based on the number of inquiries.

In the past the club had tried having ‘meet-ups’ with an annual dinner in a local pub to bring people together, they’d even suggested inviting wives, which must have been a thrilling prospect for those partners…”So that’s your idea of a rare night out is it Bucko! listening to blokes talking about fishing in a pub?”

They weren’t well attended and people lost interest. It seemed a workshop day was another way of getting some connection and communication. So I started looking ahead to how we could follow this up.  

I had an image in my head of a bunch of comparative strangers within our club, and from other clubs, and other walks of life, holding buckets and nets, connecting with their past and with each other on a bridge looking down at the water below, all considering the marvels in the stream. It seemed a way of creating a significant moment, it seemed a way of building a much needed bridge.

May the insides of your waders be ever dry, your loops as tight as you like them, and you partners be ever patient, understanding and incredibly tolerant of our ridiculous pastime. ( and avoid those filling station flowers if you value your dangly bits!)

The Pom