the 13th bloody whinge

All seemed to be going smoothly and the Brook was running sweetly this winter. A long lingering high pressure system parked itself over the UK, and comfortably low flow levels with little colouration ran down the Brook. The brushes in the new filter seemed to attract and hold silt, and the bottom of their tank looked scrupulously clean, it was encouraging. An optimistic start.

The temperatures were punishingly low though for plunging your bare hands deep into the ‘drink’ to swish the silt off those long black snake brushes and wring them clean. A peppering of snow or at the least a visit by Jack Frost greeted our every arrival it seemed and persisted through those weeks that then turned into months.

The fashion of that season was layers, lots of them, a sort of Michelin tyre man becomes a Soho rough sleeper in the doorway of a charity shop. Colours were out in favour of whatever seemed best at keeping out the chill. With each visit it was blessed-relief and agonies-end to finally get the damp brushes back into that box and turn the system back on. Then plunge your hands back deep in your pockets out of the chilled wind, desperately seeking whatever remote warmth could be found in some secluded layer, closer in to your core.

But then even longer became that patient wait to observe the system safely running again on your watch. Watching as the Brooks waters refilled that large new chamber, while stamping your feet to keep them warm and watching your exhaled breath immediately turn into little plumes of fog in front of your chapped lips and frozen nose. 

Then with often with a shiver and even chattering teeth, watch for the gurgling surface to appear over the gravels as the fresh flow reached up through the layers before tripping out of the overflow pipes, splashing down into the catcher box, then trickling away into the feeder stream and have that system up and running safely again. Hoorah! The pleasing little symphony complete, now striking the right chord, and a somewhat clearer and sharper sound on these crisp mornings. But now, you could at last, duty done, trudge, like a survivor from the Russian front, across the crinkly yards of crackling frozen grass to some sanctuary of relative warmth and sweet respite in a freezing car.

NOTE; dear reader I am really labouring the description of suffering, I hope it is laid on sufficiently thick for the full emotional effect to register!

That long dry cold spell would also have slowed down the development of the eggs and Alevins too, the Hatchlings would be later this year, but none the worse for it. Maybe even, there will be more food available for them.

The middle of those three stately homes upstream decided it was time to clean up the Mere (lake) that they had borrowed in times past from the Brooks waters.

With the aid of an army of Irish navies (labourers) escaping from the potato famine in the very country that made it a problem and then reaped the benefits. These displaced chaps were asked to dig a lake by hand. Adding a very large temporary pause in the streams inevitable passage eastwards to the seas.

In this winter of constantly frozen finger and toes for us, they now brought in the modern mechanical diggers to dredge out the decades of built-up old silt in that lake, to beautify this ornamental landscape feature on a whim. In an act of conceited arrogance, the mechanical sluice gates were lowered with no consultation or warning to anyone down-stream, they dropped the level of that 58-acre lake and released a flood of silted water, regardless to anyone and everyone downstream who had to suffer the outcomes and the consequences.

So, we found ourselves a few weeks short of our expected miraculous transformation where the Alevins discard their egg cases. Stretching out those tiny matchstick bodies connected to that unwieldy bulbous sack of rich oils and yolk, blinking those big eyes and snuggle the whole conglomeration down into safety between the stones, away from the light, to be gently stroked by oxygen rich clean water percolating past, and just patiently wait and grow. The next generation. 

A dramatic change in fortunes however had just been released....

Downstream those waters came, rising the Brook level by a foot or so only, but for a prolonged assault. As the discharge traced downstream through villages, along paddocks and under the eaves of woods. Dipping under bridges and occasionally lost from view, before again etching a meandering line through ploughed fields and cow pastures. Rising those waters in the shallow Apethorpe lake just upstream of us. It then breached and cascaded its silty load over the dam wall and down into the mill Leat of the Brook where it backed up against the resistance of the solid old water Mill and filled the surrounding feeder stream to breaking point.  

Those waters broke and cascaded over the banks to flood the lower meadows into a wide shallow lake across the valley. Any trace of the Willow Brook and our hatchery box disappeared overnight, and for a few days the hatchery was all but lost from view, just the top of the white filter box still showing above the muddy waters. The flows within the box ceased and the system choked up with silt as we waited for the waters to subside and see what we could salvage.

The Environment agency, who had not been consulted and still had some bite of authority in these pre-Brexit days, confiscated the keys to the sluice and re-established the levels which seemed to thankfully stop that project but probably too late to save ours.

The flood of water was the obvious physical manifestation, the wastage of 20,000 alevins and the endeavour behind them was consequently ‘our’ little tragedy. The chance though of releasing the decades of deeply insidious heavy metal poisoning from the steel industry, until now safely locked away in those silts, was mentioned too. It was always common knowledge of what lurked down in that mud and seemed worthy of real concern and consideration. For it to have been overlooked or ignored in this ad-hockery from the hall seemed irresponsible at best. Why take that risk?

Because I guess, the problems, should they arrive, will only exist for those downstream and may never even get discovered unless someone down there is monitoring.

The top of the filter box now coming  into view on day two of the flood

Years later in the early summer heat, that same estate decided after some landscaping and before some promotional photography, to make the lake look ‘pretty ‘and photogenic. They dumped enough dye in the water to turn not just their lake (which don’t forget is the swollen Brook and flows out) but enough to accidentally turn the next lake downstream and 11 miles of Brook bright turquoise for the best part of a week.

“Harmless to fish”, was the excuse for this, “it says so on the label”. “Not a problem product” so, “No need for us to seek permission or advice.” ….. By now the EA had lost its bite and shrugged any responsibility to censor this or find any fault in it. 

It was a weed suppressant that worked by lowering the light levels reaching the stream bed, however the particles in suspension seem to collect heat, and during that week I measured 21.5 c in the water, the highest known recorded water temperature to that date in the Brook.  A temperature that, according to some research, by shrinking the size of the gonads of male Bown Trout of all ages and stages of development, they then suffer permanent reduced fertility,

So, it suppressed the oxygen giving weeds, and subsequently reduces available dissolved oxygen in the water by raising the temperature, which also leads to damage of the male’s fertility. “Harmless to fish”, “no need to ask permission “. Go figure that one out!

After the flood we got the box running again and cleared what silt we could, but when the ‘temperature days’ were finally reached a few hundred sickly hatchings only made it from the slime and filth below the gravel, and then cost of that flooding was realised by the fishery and by us volunteers and our imagined frost-bitten fingers on those cold miserable mornings.

A recent cut down tree in the garden about to be made into Groynes, ropes ready in frame.

…. Lets face the music and dance!

I carried on with those private projects down at the Nassington Road bridge end, occasionally roping in a willing volunteer or two.

If the change was subtle, I’d not mention anything to see if it was discovered. If the works were obvious like flow deflectors, I’d get them finished and nicely neatened off, and then inform the secretary defiantly that. “I’ve put a couple more flow deflectors in, if you don’t like them, tell me and I’ll rip them out”.

There would be some objection on the grounds of elves and safety or some other mythical imp, or of not asking permission. But I would bat back that it was in the WTT that the EA had approved. And add, “But do look first and see what you think” ... (hoping he’d calm down in the interim).

He never objected later, it seemed to be forgotten and I felt I was getting away with it and started pushing against those boundaries a little bit more.

Laid out and interwoven brush wood ready to bundle.

Then, out of the blue, I was invited by the secretary to meet up and discuss my habitat works in the Nassington Road Bridge beat one weekday morning. “Could we meet next Wednesday” he asked?

I wasn’t sure if this was polite inquiry and chat? Or some gesture a-foot that he had been saving … ‘to be dished up cold!’ 

I pulled up at the appointed 9.30am to find there several cars of the “trusted” members of the Willowbrook clique and the chairman gathered. “Oh good “I thought, “this could be a constructive discussion, there’s an audience”. That lightened my mood as I approached.

I was quickly informed though, that we were awaiting the arrival of Chris Extence the local head of the Environment agency at the time, before we could start. He was the purpose of this ‘meet-up’ it transpired. (others had been told of this beforehand when asked to attend, I found out later. It had , however, been sprung on me ),

It seemed I was being publicly hung out to dry via an official dressing down with an explanation of the legality or otherwise of my actions, and a criticism of what I had been doing by our local official and authority on these matters. Out of hands of the fishing club now, and to be witnessed by a selection of club members and the chairman.

There was a short and uneasy awkwardness in the air. A pre-execution shuffling silence in the gathered throng, quite apt really, a few hundred yards from where Mary Queen of Scots lost her head ( probably for lesser crimes than fixing faggots in a stream). But soon broken when our professional overlord arrived, and the Secretary brought him immediately to the first evident pair of Groynes.

“Without any permission” he started without wasting any time. “And this has got nothing to do with our club, he’s taken it upon himself, to fix these flow deflectors here” pointing and adding for good measure… “we had no idea what he was doing it…not a word.”

Our official looked at the scene and offered a non-comital “ Oh Ok?!”and shuffled a  “Oh is that it?!” sort of shrug of indifference.

The Secretary quickly added,” And, there’s much more just upstream to show you, that he has been up to. And none of this, at all, was sanctified by the club “!

There were some murmurs of dissent from the assembly behind me, but ‘Oh heck’, I was enjoying this moment!

“Um, just before we move up”, I interrupted “can I just point out to you a bit more of what I’ve done just round here?.... you’re missing out some good bits!”

Everyone looked back at the Brook. The far bank was a tangled, impenetrable wall of trees and brambles, fringed close on the water’s edge. I pointed out a few overgrown bundles of branches spilling off the bank and down through the water surface and into the shallow silt bed on the far side.

“Those trees on the far bank were growing too close and I picked out the two weakest ones and felled them into the stream, I then bored through trunks with an Auger and passed a braided steel loop through to tie in securely. If we get any high flood water, it may float up but now they can’t drift away because I’ve secured them around the Old Sycamore and hidden the wire in Brambles”.

I explained how I then let them swing into the bankside and then pegged them there as a silt trap in the slack water to catch the sediment from the flow deflectors and trap the silt into the slack at the side of the Brook to build up, and added for good measure. “The flows too wide here anyway and the WTT recommended we squeeze the banks in narrower around this area when we did the walk with Tim and Vaugn”.

“Oh Ok ?” Our guest still wasn’t saying much. ….Maybe the strong silent type.

…” And then.” I got in quick before anyone could comment.  because there’s no Ranunculus growing down in this end of the Willowbrook”.

“There is Ranunculus!” Chipped in the Secretary. “look its growing mid-stream .. that’s Ranunculus there!” contradicting me and pointing out a small patch of it.

“Yeah, it looks great, doesn’t it?” I agreed. “ I planted that Ranunculus there …. it’s doing well, isn’t it?”. I added looking across and engaging our guest.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“I eased a bit out of the edge of some large clumps growing much further upstream……You don’t need too much to do it,” I added quickly before anyone could accuse me of ruining habitat elsewhere. (I knew how the logic and running order of these arguments worked by now.)

“I get an engineering brick and force the roots through the holes then secure the plant with a wrap of wire. Then I just wiggle my boot down into the gravel deep enough, place the brick in the hole and cover it over with gravel so that you just see a few fronds on the surface to catch the light, and off it ‘grows’ hopefully”.

“I did that other one at the edge a few months back” pointing out a much bigger patch the secretary seemed to have missed.  “it’s getting established quite well. Any more clumps you see upstream like that small one. I’ve planted, I did about twenty, they didn’t all work, I lost a few but some have settled in great”.

Relieved, I thought I’d got away using the bricks, which I had worried may be objected to, but carried on waffling to nip any dissent quickly in the bud.

“I did play with frames made of willow stems, a bit like weaving an old carpet beater or tennis racket shape, thinking it would be better than the bricks, but I couldn’t peg them down well and the roots kept coming away. In any case we have old Brick rubble in the banks in places that tumble into the stream, it’s not like I’m introducing a material we don’t have already”. I said looking directly at the secretary. (Thinking to myself…. “Go on argue that!”)

He resisted and moved off upstream, “Let’s have a look at the next things he’s done, …. without any permission!”

On the way upstream to my next transgression, I pointed out more Ranunculus plants getting established and the sites of a few of my failures for balance, and then the evidence of the occasional hidden silt trap.

I pulled the group up by some shallow water and pointed down to the twigs now barely visible just under the bank from up here, pushing back the vegetation you could see a series of loose finer brushwood bundles pushed into the bankside. I showed them where I had dug a little pit back from the bank towards the path and had driven an anchor post in below ground level. I then secured the bundle closest to this anchor with wire connected in a shallow trench. Then back filled it all in with soil and replaced the turf. Hidden again from view, nobody had a clue about this bank protection, unless they were wading in the stream early in the season before those banks got covered in tall plants and grasses .

I pointed out that just upstream of here was one of the gravel banks that were used by the Trout as redds and there was not enough Fry habitat nearby, so this along with some lose bundles under the far bank was my attempt to add some. I added that the banks had started to undercut and erode here dropping silt in the stream, so I was protecting the farmers bank too.

“I’ve told the Farmer about it” I added, he’s really pleased I did it”.

By the time we reached my next ‘misdemeanour’, I got the word in first and described what they were looking at and what I was trying to achieve.  How I’d angled and dipped the faggots to get the effect and added a kicker off the far bank up stream to get the water angled right into these Groynes and create a gravel mound suitable for future redds. (I must admit I laid it on a bit thick. I guess it sounded like the finely tuned work of a master craftsman the way I sold it, instead of just the noodling of a nutjob gardener buggering about with bunches of twigs, and learning on the hoof).

Finally, it was time for the Environment officer to say something. He seemed to have seen enough to make a judgement of the situation and seemed impatient to leave us and get on with life beyond our club politics.

I don’t remember his exact words now, but the gist of it was. “Look, I’m not sure what advice you think I can give you here as a club. This is all great. Chris knows what he’s doing. I’d just listen to him and let him get on with it.!”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t smile, didn’t smirk, didn’t shrug, don’t think I moved a muscle. I consciously refused to react or to meet anyone’s eye. But inside I gave a big fat fist pump and silently screamed “Get in there, you little beauty!”.

This end of the Brook was now my playground, my project….as good as Officially sanctioned as such. I only had to answer to the farmer and the EA. The club secretary was off my back. Well sort of…..for now!

Wrestled together and roped up ready for wiring.

The most important thing though, was I'd stuck my neck out and had got on with it and as this dust-up settled, my relationship with the club and the Secretary changed. We were starting to pull in the same direction, I got the feeling he was coming round to the idea of the concept of a wild fishery. That was the main thing, showing people what we could practically achieve, what our potential was, not an abstract concept to be procrastinated over in a series of meetings until the momentum was lost.

Get on, do it, and then say, “Look, it’s done!”

It was just with the secretary that he was contrary to any suggestions of either, the correct ways forward, or to the methodology or execution of a simple task, for whatever reason or agenda he would always push that opposite.

Oppositional defiance, if it comes unexpected, out of the blue, can sucker punch you or knock you off track. If, however, it’s like a disorder and consistent, your always ready for it, it rarely surprises you and actually, it makes you prepare your thoughts more thoroughly. You work it to your advantage.

I’d now get consulted by the club on issues and policies.  I’d go off to conferences and workshops, sometimes traveling with the secretary.  Members would come up to me now on the banks and talk about wild fish and whether I thought we could ever make Willowbrook truly wild. Chris Extense would occasionally bump into me at conferences and discuss the latest and see if I needed any materials or help. He was letting me know he was keeping a weather eye on it, but felt no need to interfere.

But I still couldn’t trust that AGM system to get things moved or approved. So I played the game in the AGM knowing that occasionally it could be a benefit, and that my ultimate battle to cease all stocking was going to happen in that meeting room, voted for by the majority of whichever members where present on that evening. So, I persisted with it until the timing was right to get that over the line at least. The next AGM to come however, I found another trap waiting, seemingly laid in yet another attempt to contain me.

Wired up tightly and ready for duty the service of the Brook

Hope your all having a wonderful week Happy Wednesday y’all … Pom