Life of a Chalkstream: January 2023

Greetings!

I follow cricket a bit, though most especially when England are doing well which does something to diminish the financial pain of a Sky Sports subscription. In the cricket vein the Daily Telegraph is running a discussion to pick the Greatest XI of All Time. Which got me thinking. What would be the Greatest Fly of All Time?

Now, I’m not arrogant enough to think I have the answer so what better way to decide this, as we get ready for a new season, than for everyone to make a contribution?

So, the challenge is to nominate your Greatest Fly of All Time. It can be dry, nymph, lure or wet designed to catch the species of your choice. It might be the fly you have caught the most or biggest fish with. It might be your favourite fly to tie. It might be traditional rather than effective. It might just be your American Express fly, the one you never leave home without.

Whatever the metric by which you choose it, do email me your Greatest Fly of All Time.

Maybe not The Greatest but maybe The Most Expensive.

Hermes $30,000 Fly Box.

Once all the nominations are in (by 29 January please) I’ll put it to a vote in the next Newsletter. If you want to give me the reasons for your pick, so much the better but that is not required. Email simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk

Why the chalkstreams are being sucked dry .... in winter!

I haven’t seen water levels like this since, well not so long ago really – 2014. Thinking back over my nearly 25 years of owning Nether Wallop Mill I’d say this is the fourth super wet winter. There was one in the early 2000’s and another around 2010, which was definitely the most extreme. I think 2010 is the only time in my life when I’ve feared for my life when wading in a chalkstream with a very youthful Si Fields, our head river keeper now but on work experience back then, as we removed trees from the river at Bullington Manor that were causing all sorts of unwelcome flooding.

As is my wont at times like this I tend to drive around the valley just to see how things are going; it is amazing that the water meadows, dilapidated for over a century or more, still operate as the waters spill from the river across the fields in the carriers, drains and tails that would have been dug as long ago as the 17^th century. Maybe be we should be restoring those rather than relying on the random activities of that super rodent the beaver to create flood resilience? Rant over.

On one of my drives, I became perplexed as I followed the Bourne valley, the Bourne Rivulet of Plunket Greene fame which is one of the northernmost tributaries of the Test on the Hampshire/Berkshire border. As I approached, I feared for the George & Dragon at Hurstbourne Tarrant that was inundated in 2014, the flooding leaving the local pub closed for six months. But it was dry as was the Bourne itself along with every ditch and side stream as I headed though Ibthorpe towards the source at Upton.

River! What river?

How could this be? The Bourne is clearly a winterbourne at its upper reaches so you would not expect it to flow all year but surely this of all Januarys should be its moment to spring to life. But not a bit of it. It isn’t even trickle. It was dry, dry, dry. What I saw nagged at me in contradiction to everything I was seeing elsewhere. It surely could not be a rain thing? Nether Wallop is just 12 miles as the crow flies from Upton.

On Sunday I returned because I was clearly missing something, and there it was, as large as life (how did I miss it before?) Southern Water’s Ibthorpe pumping station. As you can see from the photo it not much to look at, but my subsequent research tells me it is important to Southern Water in a region that supplies on the largest and fastest expanding towns in southern England, namely Basingstoke.

Ibthorpe pumping station

Now, it is not easy to get data on pumping stations, but I did come across a Weekly Summary of abstraction in the River Test Catchment for April-July last year. There are seven pumping stations in the catchment the biggest of which is Andover, where the Anton, Dever, Test and Pillhill Brook come together, that abstracts half of all the water drawn from the ground used by Southern Water. The next biggest is Timsbury, on the main River Test proper, that provides the next quarter with the third in the table Ibthorpe that provides just over one tenth.

In itself that might appear slightly shoulder shrugging data, but it needs to be seen in relation to the flow of the river at the respective locations. As of Wednesday this week the River Test at Timsbury was flowing at a rate of 25 cubic metres/second. At Ibthorpe it is clearly zero, so we have to go 10 miles downstream on the Bourne Rivulet to Hurstbourne Priors where, on the same day, the flow is a shade under 1 cubic metres/second. If you run the numbers the essence is that, putting the best spin I can for it for Southern Water, the Bourne is being depleted at 12 times the rate of the Test. No wonder the Bourne is empty when all around are full.

More of the same at of the Bourne at Upton

So, what should we take from all this? Well, firstly we need to be alert to the fact that overabstraction is happening all the time – it is not just a drought or summer thing. Secondly, water companies, and the regulator Ofwat, will always take the path of least resistance. Southern Water take from Ibthorpe because it is conveniently close to many of their customers. However, the truth is they could very easily close Ibthorpe and restore the Bourne Rivulet to something Plunket Green would recognise if they were forced to pump water the 25 miles from Testwood where they would only need to increase the take from the estuary by 4.5% to make up the difference.

Too hard? Well, here’s a thought. During the drought of last year an idea was floated by the Environment Agency and water companies for variable consumer pricing in times of water stress. Perhaps we should turn that on its head with the water companies paying a premium for their raw material when the rivers need it most?

Wet. Wet. Wet

As promised, I have found a way of dissecting the Environment Agency rainfall data for England to compare the chalkstream regions with everywhere else.

You’ll see from the figures that the non-chalkstream region consistently receives more rainfall than the chalkstream region, often by as much as 40%, though both largely march in step based on the long term averages. The long term average is based on, for reasons I am yet to discover, rainfall in the years 1961-1990. There must be some reason why the past 32 years are being ignored. Perhaps someone reading this knows?

As for the more recent you will see December was pretty well on par, though I’m told, again for reasons I don’t understand, that snowfall understates what would have otherwise been rainfall. Aside from that the wet November and December have really boosted the figures with a third more rain than usual in the final quarter of 2022. That made the figures for the period July-December respectable but for the full year you will see we are still cycling the terribly dry start to the year, especially January 2022 when we had just 15% of normal rainfall. In contrast, from just looking out of your window, you will know this January to be very different.

All we need now is an averagely wet February and March to be home and dry, if you know what I mean, for the chalkstream season ahead.

Nether Wallop Mill this week

Video of the Week

I don’t, as a rule, write much about coarse fishing on the chalkstreams and rarely urban chalkstreams but this rather engaging video I came across by complete accident on You Tube, combines both.

You will meet Jacob London Carper who sets out to catch a barbel on the River Wandle in central London and, remarkably, achieves it from the footpath of a suburban street.

It is a fun watch though I would probably fast forward through the first 10 minutes until he reaches the river.

Trout, chub and then barbel on the River Wandle

Photo of the Week

Our very own Jamie Pankhurst forsook the warmth of the office for an early start on Thursday morning to capture this frosty and misty scene at Abbots Worthy on the River Itchen.

Donny's River Test walk

You might recall back in the summer River Test river keeper, Donny Donovan, did something nobody has ever done, namely walk the length of the River Test from source to estuary beside or in the river.

It took some organising with many dozens if riparian owners consulted, Donny sleeping in fishing huts along the way and followed (as far as it was possible!) by a camera crew for the five day journey.

You can watch Donny’s walk, a 11 minute documentary, here. It is entertaining and enlightening, with plenty of places many of you will recognise but plenty I bet you will not!