To kill or not to kill

 

Greetings!   I write this from the departure lounge of my favourite airport, if it is possible to have such a thing in the current era of that torture we call international air travel.   Jackson Hole Airport lives up to the cowboy country heritage of Wyoming, America’s least populous state. The single storey pinewood buildings that house it are barely visible amongst the sage bush landscape until you get up close. Inside, the lounge would fit nicely on the set of a Western movie with a blazing log fire and brown leather sofas. Across the hall is a shop selling kitsch that harks back to cattle country, the early settlers and a life on the open range. It seems all very idyllic now, but I suspect that in a state that spends five months of every year under many feet of snow the reality was very different. It is no real comparator but yesterday we were caught out on the river in an hour of hailstorm; for a while I hated fly fishing.

 

 

I’ve been coming here for close on fifteen years, first to compete in the US One Fly but more recently just for fun. What makes it worth 16 hours in a plane? Yes, the fishing is good, but you won’t catch much more or bigger that you might on an average chalkstream day. The techniques are a bit more fluid – upstream, downstream, across stream or whatever as your drift boat covers maybe as much as 20 miles of river in a day. Most people like foam, huge buoyant flies that imitate grasshoppers and their like or ugly, luminescent streamers that would work well on any a British reservoir. But equally a size twenty Parachute Adams will do the business as you beach your boat to prospect nervous water, back eddies and side channels.   But most of all it is the big sky that draws me here. The immensity of the landscape in which you fish. A geology carved millions of years ago. Elk, moose, bears and bald eagles as your regular companions. And the fact that how totally dialled into fly fishing everyone here is, whether they fish or not. New Zealand is the only other place in the world I have ever found this. Even in my adopted home of Stockbridge, arguably the world capital of fly fishing, we fluff chuckers still arouse a certain curiosity as we go about our business.   The guides here tend to be very much younger than a British counterpart; the vast majority are in the 25-45 range, fishing guides in the summer and skiing guides in the winter. Neither of these are professions kind on the body; rowing is hard, and the days are long. I asked one guide what he was doing that evening. “What I do every night May to September,” he replied, “eat something and sleep.” Really, I questioned, imagining beer nights in the Victor Keg House as closer to the truth. “Oh,” he conceded, “sometimes I tie a few flies.”

 

 

You learn a lot about a person in the confines of a boat for 10 hours. Trump or Biden always passes an interesting hour, albeit you need to know a guide well to get the full experience. 401Ks, personal pension plans to you and me, along with the machinations of the stock market is another constant. Famous clients always make for a rich seam as Teton County, the region in which the town of Jackson lies, is currently the wealthiest county in the US. It shows in the prices of everything from a sandwich to a modest home. It is no surprise that most of the guides commute daily an hour plus across the Teton mountain pass from neighbouring Idaho. We did get to share the takeout ramp on day two with Mötley Crüe founder and bassist Nikki Sixx bizarrely dressed as a 19th century Western undertaker; it is that sort of place.   But the real hot topic was the recent advisement by the US Game & Wildlife Park Service to kill all rainbow trout. Historically the rivers around these parts, and the Snake River in particular, is the home of the cutthroat trout with both browns and rainbows being recent imports. German browns and cutties as they are generally called get on just fine but rainbows not only crossbreed with cutties to produce cutbows but outcompete them for the prime spawning areas. After 50 years of rainbow stocking the cutthroat has gone from dominant to decline in its own native river. So, the plan is to reduce the rainbow population by the cessation of stocking, electro fishing and the killing of all rainbows caught on rod and line.   Frankly, I could not bring myself to do it. These are not ‘stocked’ rainbows in any sense. They are the poster children of past stocked fish: bright, rainbow silver, lean and hard fighting. I offered to give mine up for the cause but the guide was more sanguine. He’d done the math as they say here. On any given day the Snake has 200 guides out on the river. It is reasonable to assume, figured our guide, that every boat will catch at least two rainbows a day. That’s 400 a day, 2,800 in a week so somewhere north of 50,000 in a season, every one of which makes for a happy client. Thousands of grip and grin portraits for Instagram. Fish equal tips and guides, not unreasonably, like tips.   It seems to me that the Wyoming rainbows are safe for a while to come.

 

 

 

Going underwater   Snorkelling in a chalkstream is not my idea of fun (brrrrrr) but for filmmaker and photographer Jack Perks going underwater is his thing. So, last week, as part of a crowdfunding reward for his film Britain’s Hidden Fishes Jack took two intrepid souls who had bought a day with him at Bullington Manor.   It is going to be a long project. Filming will continue well into 2023 with the one-hour film slated for release towards the end of that year. Narrated by River Monsters Jeremy Wade Jack’s film is to be a celebration of our native fish showcasing their remarkable lives in all manners of British waterways.

 

 

Who are we? See quiz question 3

 

I don’t suspect it will be easy film to make. Last week Jack spent a week in the Hebrides filming basking sharks. Or not. He didn’t get a single second of footage. Likewise, his aim to film spawning chalkstream Atlantic salmon, something we both agree has never been done, also looks a tricky task. But thanks to the £30,000 fund to which many of you contributed Jack has the time and finance to do what he likes to call his Blue Planet on a budget.   I’ll keep you posted but here are a few shots from the snorkelling day.

 

 

Grayling rootling for shrimps

 

 

Mystery hare deaths   We’ve seen a great many hares this year around Nether Wallop; I think we are lucky in that we are surrounded by open downland that makes for perfect hare habitat. However, earlier in the week our Parish Pump, the email round robin that connects the village with news of everything from suspicious cars to village film shows told a sadder tale of multiple dead hares.   In the space of less than a month five hares, three leverets, a female adult and a juvenile, have been found dead in pretty well the same spot. Various theories were examined: shooting, snaring, disease or illegal coursing being the most common. However, none of the corpses had any visible injuries or myxomatosis symptoms which very occasionally transfers across from rabbits to hares.   In common with many British wild animals the hare has, relative to population at the start of the 1900’s, seen a significant decline. The most commonly cited figure, which I have sometimes quoted myself, is 80% with the current total number somewhere just under a million. However, having done a closer examination of the figures the decline appears to be closer to 65%, still bad but hiding some unexpected variations.

 

 

The population was fairly stable around 2.5m from 1900 to the outbreak of WW2 when the massive expansion of agriculture put to the plough millions of acres of open grassland, just the sort of landscape the hare requires to live and breed. The decline was also exacerbated by the decline in fox hunting during and immediately after the war, foxes being the main predator of hares. However, when hunting and predator management returned to more normal peacetime levels the hare population saw a significant recovery until the mid-1960’s when the decline set it again to a low point in the late 1980’s with hare numbers below that of WW2.   That’s all the bad news. However, since then hares have been ever so slowly clawing their way back with the population now above the lows of the 1940’s it is now on an upward trajectory to levels now higher than anytime on the past half century. Why? According to the Game & Wildfire Conservation Trust, “the introduction of set-aside and agri-environment schemes that have restored some habitat diversity to farmland.”   As to our hare deaths we contacted Paul Duff at the Animal and Plant Health Agency which is tasked by the government to look after health and welfare of animals, as well as the general public, from disease. He concluded that if infectious disease is the cause of the deaths then although there are several possibilities, the likely one is EBHS (which is viral hepatitis) or its more recent manifestation, RHD2 (Rabbit haemorrhagic Disease), originally found in rabbits, now in hares also.   Hopefully we won’t find anymore dead hares but if we do the Agency has asked us to ship it to them for further examination.

 

 

Quiz The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter.   It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.   1)     Complete the title of the Aesop Fable, "The …….. and the Hare".   2)     On this day in 1869 a Wall Street Black Friday securities panic was precipitated by the decline in the value of which commodity after a market manipulation by two financiers was stymied by the US government?   3)     What are the two species fish in the photo above?   4 (optional) Spot and name the birdie in the photo below. You may only be able to do this if reading on a smart device.     Have a good weekend.   Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

 

Quiz answers:   1)     The Tortoise and the Hare 2)     Gold 3)     Roach and minnows 4) Bald headed eagle

A plague on all your rivers

 

Greetings!   Do you remember the plagues in the Book of Exodus? The ten disasters inflicted on Egypt by the God of Israel in order to convince the Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to depart from slavery. The waters being turned to blood, plagues of frogs, lice and locusts, three days and nights of darkness …. all eventually working up to death of the firstborn.   I am beginning to think that something similar is being visited upon us so that eventually the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will release all those that love rivers from the servitude of the Environment Agency (EA). The fishing community has been rarely well treated by the EA but the yoke of oppression has become ever heavier with each passing month since the start of the pandemic. Let me take you through some of our new hells.

 

 

The plague of the homies: EA officials were confined to their homes as visiting river pollution incidents was deemed too dangerous in the early months of Covid. Turning your money into EA money: fishing licence fees were retained by the EA even though fishing was banned by law during lockdown. Death of common sense: weed booms were not put in place as EA officials failed to work out a way of working outside whilst 2m apart when construction sites were fully operational. Infestation of sewage: water companies use rivers as open sewers.   I’m sure, given a bit of time I, or you, could fill up the other six but let us suffice with the latest bit of EA madness when they announced on Monday (6/September) that water companies would be allowed to discharge effluent that has not been treated to levels stipulated in their environmental permits if they’re unable to get the chemicals needed to treat the sewage due to “the UK’s new relationship with the EU”, “coronavirus” or “other unavoidable supply chain failures”.   Don’t think (or hope) this waiver applies just to the lowest risk waste; both A (low risk) and the B (medium risk) discharges will be allowed with only C (high risk) exempted. However, I’m sure the cynic in many of us might well wonder about this tiered system allowing the possibility for comingling.   Now, if we had a water industry with an exemplary record you might just say, OK exceptional times/ exceptional measures. But we all know from the recent Southern Water fines, BBC Panorama investigation and the 400,000 discharges that annually ride a cart and horses through the current permitting scheme that the water treatment companies will likely grasp this legitimisation of many already dubious practices with both hands.   Perhaps what worries me most is the open-ended nature and inherent vagueness of this supply chain waiver. There is no end or review date. It is essentially self-certificated. Harm to water, air, soil, plants or animal is only limited to being ‘significant’. And towards the end of the new regulations, it becomes clear that the water companies will also be able to apply the waiver for not just supply chain failures but also staff absences and contractors being unavailable.   Maybe I’m being overly paranoid but it does seem that the EA has been taken hostage by the very industry it is meant to police.

 

 

 

Robina Thompson   I am sorry to bring you news of the death of Robina Thompson, owner of Fisherton de la Mere on the River Wylye, who passed away peacefully on August 29th.   Robin as she preferred to be called, was something of a Fishing Breaks legend not so much for her fishing knowledge or prowess (I’m not even certain she ever held a rod in her life) but for the afternoon teas she served visiting anglers. On the lawn overlooking the river, or in her conservatory, she plied all comers with tea and cake. Twenty years after the event she still talked of guests Brad Pitt and Vinnie Jones. Which reminds me, I must rescue the photo of that occasion from the rod room.   My connection with Robin dates back to the early days of Fishing Breaks. She was then (this is the early 90’s) still in her 50’s, already a widow having bought The Dower House, the fishing and land a few years prior with her husband when they retired from farming and horse dealing to one of the quaintest Wiltshire villages you will ever find. It is not exactly off the beaten track, just west of the busy Salisbury to Warminster road, but the village is effectively a dead end and the locals jealously guard their anonymity. The highways authority long ago gave up replacing the Fisherton de la Mere sign which repeatedly disappeared in the night.   Robin loved that about her village; there was always something of a mischievous streak in her. I’m pretty sure that if there is a sign on the way to heaven that might likewise disappear just so she might watch the rest of us get lost. Goodbye Robin. It was tremendous fun.

 

 

I'm a vole who lives in a hole   Many of us miss Jaffa, the Nether Wallop Mill cat, who died last year. However, not everyone appreciated his 17-year reign of terror.   Jaffa’s food of choice was small mice. There are literally hundreds who inhabit the thick margins around the lake and along the Brook; a breakfast toll of four to six was pretty normal fare as he ate them whole in just a few crunching bites. But he often didn’t eat what he killed. Frequently I found dead rats, moles and water voles intact bar the puncture wounds that did for them.   Why cats don’t eat these I’m not entirely sure. Moles I can guess at; a diet that entirely consists of earthworms probably doesn’t make for tasty flesh. But rats? They are pretty high-level eaters. And water voles have a blameless vegetarian diet. But killed they are. Maybe it’s a territory thing. Or simply for fun. However, in the absence of a cat our water vole population has spiked, so much so we have a resident living right under the house.   He has cleverly constructed a run behind the boards that hold up the bank chewing away some openings in the oak timber to allow him brief forays into the open to feast on a vole favourite, ranunculus. I assume he’s mostly a dawn eater but who knows really? He’s pretty nimble so spying on us as he does from behind the boards its really anyone’s guess as to what happens when our backs our turned.   However, I have some bad news for our cautious vole ..... we have a new cat.

 

 

 

Half Term Kids Camp   I know it is hard to believe but your current domestic tranquillity only has a six-week shelf life - half term looms towards the end of October.   This will pretty well be our last gasp here at Nether Wallop Mill as we close for the season at the end of October, so we’ll have plenty of fish to clear out ahead of the winter and we might even deploy the odd mouse pattern (!) or two for a last hurrah.   The Kids Camp takes on Monday 25 October (8-11 years), Tuesday 26 October (12-15 years) and Wednesday 27 October (16-17 years).  There is a 10% discount for sibling or groups. Details here .....

 

 

 

Quiz The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter.   It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.   1)     What is the origin of the Dower House name?   2)     In what book was Ratty, a water vole, a central character?   3)     What was the name of the single released by Nirvana on this day 30 years ago often dubbed the anthem of Generation X?     Have a good weekend.   Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

 

Quiz answers:   1) A house intended as the residence of a widow, typically one near the main house on her late husband's estate 2) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame 3) Smells like Teen Spirit. PS The video has been viewed 1.3 billion times.