Life of a Chalkstream: I bring you good news

Greetings!

At last, some good news about the water crisis as I have the definitive answer to why our rivers and reservoirs are lacking water. You must not doubt what I am about to say as I know it to be true for those modern day water soothsayers, the government, regulatory bodies and water companies, have spoken.

The problem is, and please do not be angry, YOU. As human being living in a country famed by tourists from around the globe for being rainy you have had the temerity to take a shower, run the washing machine and possibly, at the dead of night away from prying eyes, water the tomatoes in your greenhouse. We are all truly bad people. Forget Partygate. Soon it will be Watergate all over again as Rishi Sunak is run out of office for owning a swimming pool.

Probably coming to you very soon .......

And all this in a country where the annual average rainfall, an average which has, incidentally, barely changed by a fraction of an inch in the past three centuries and is set to remain the same even on the Environment Agency worst case 50 year prediction, provides six time more water that we actually consume. To put that in a number, we have 31 inches a year but only need 5 inches. But despite that you, me and every person in Great Britain is being blamed for the lack of water supply.

Now, it is true we have been daily consuming more water per head (roughly 32 gallons/144 litres) than any time in history, with the amount rising from less than half that in the past fifty years. However, household consumption, thanks to efficiencies in machines such as dishwashers and more metered homes, is now on a falling graph. But the elephant in this particular watering hole is overall demand which, thanks to a growing population, is predicted to rise from a daily consumption of 14 billion litres to 18 billion litres by 2050.

Now in most capitalist endeavours the suppliers would be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of demand for the product rising by 28%, not least when you get your raw material for free! But in the weird hybrid socialist/capitalist model forced upon the water industry by government and regulators there is no appetite to satiate demand by any other means than sucking our rivers dry. Desalination. Reservoirs. A national grid for water. Since 1991 the population has risen by 10 million but not a single new reservoir has opened, the £250m Thames desalination plant has mostly been out of commission including during the drought of 2022 and, despite a few local schemes, there is no meaningful plan for a national water grid.

So, in some weird Orwellian manner, it apparently falls to us to take the blame for the failings of others. But we should not accept the narrative being forced upon us. We are a water rich country who deserve better.

Also your fault ..... the River Ver, Hertfordshire in summer 2022

June is weed cut month

I think it would be fair to say that June is the month every river keeper dreads. Weekends, holidays and family days out all go by the board as, just to add to the woes of the bankside vegetation growing like crazy, they have to dedicate every working hour to weed cutting.

The chalkstreams are unusual in having such a regimented weed cutting regime but, such is nearly two hundred years of intensive management, it is now an essential part of river ecology. People sometimes ask why the weed cannot just be left to its own devices. Well, it can, but you’d soon have a clogged river that would be unfishable, be degraded from an ecological standpoint and, in some circumstances cause localised flooding.

Weed cutting collage

The best analogy is a wildflower meadow. A truly wild one is managed by the grazing of sheep or cattle but for the most part what you see is created by human intervention. If you wanted your front lawn to become a wild meadow you would not just let it grow rampant; it would soon become a weed infested mess. You have to cut, seed and manage it to create those ‘wild’ spaces much beloved of lifestyle magazines. But back to the river.

The time of the cutting varies from river catchment to river catchment. On the rivers Itchen and Test the owners agree specific weed cutting periods in June, July and August when the rivers close to fishing and the cut weed is allowed to flow out to sea or, in the case of the Test upstream of Romsey, to a weed boom where it is removed for composting. We used to have something similar on the River Avon but in a recently announced change to policy the Environment Agency have withdrawn their provision of a weed boom on the grounds of health and safety for which you can read budget saving and the general abrogation of any river care duties.

So, the Avon, in common with most other chalkstreams, now follows a policy of what we call ‘cut & pull’. That is to say you cut whenever you like but you have to gather and remove all cut weed before it drifts on to the water of your downstream neighbour. Obviously, the cutting causes plenty of disturbance so neighbours usually try to march in step to minimise the disruption.

How you cut depends on the nature of the river. The best way is hand cutting with a scythe, which is done on all sections where wading is possible with a chequer board cutting pattern used to optimise fishing and bar cutting to maintain river levels. If it is too deep to wade, we bring in a motorised weed cutting boat that does the job a great deal quicker than the chain scythes of the past which required huge amounts of labour (and effort) with a muscled team on either bank hauling linked scythe blades, connected by chains and ropes, from side to side.

As you read this we are on (signs of relief all round) the final Friday on the June cutting period. The Itchen is done, as are the upper reaches of the Test. This weekend will mark the final push to clear down and tidy up before Monday marks a return to the more mundane river keeping work and catching up on the backlog of mowing.

Weed cutting boat in action

Video of the Week

Jamie Pankhurst, one of our river keeping team and a keen photographer, took time out from the cut to fly his drone to capture his colleagues Si Fields and Charley Portsmouth, cutting at Upper Clatford on the River Anton last week.

Click to watch

Angling caught in culture wars

Never in my wildest imagination, which has plenty of capacity for such, did I ever imagine that angling would get caught up in the culture wars that is sexual identity, so when the Daily Telegraph ran the headline last week that read “Anglers quit England team after trans woman picked for female squad” I was truly flabbergasted.

For those of you who did not pick up this story it is that, in a nutshell, three anglers have quit the England team in protest after a trans woman was called up to join the women’s squad of a major competition. Three members of the six-strong squad stepped down after Becky Lee Birtwhistle Hodges, who was born male, was chosen for the Home Nations shore fishing championship that takes place in July.

For me the most disappointing aspect of this was the reaction of Jamie Cook at the Angling Trust, that once used to style itself the independent voice of angling. He was quoted in The Telegraph,

“Naturally, we were sorry to hear that the three women have taken the decision to step down from the team. Increasing women participation in angling is one of our key goals and we will continue to ensure that we offer opportunities for all anglers to participate regardless of age, sex, colour or orientation.

“As the national governing body for angling, the question we are required to address by Sport England is whether the sport of angling is gender impacted to an extent where fairness overrides inclusion or safety.

“The view of the Angling Trust board is that as a noncontact sport, the safety concern is not deemed significant within the sport of angling.”

Hiding behind the coat tails of Sport England is no way to show leadership. Has Jamie not heard about British athletics, cycling, rugby and swimming with rules that ring-fence the women’s category for women only?

Flies for June & July

June is absolutely my favourite month to be on the river amongst the abundantly green English countryside. It may not the easiest month from a fishing perspective as we relearn that fish don’t always thrown themselves at a size 8 Mayfly. However, the one thing for sure is that you will see no river for want of water – in all my three decades of Fishing Breaks I have never seen such sustained levels in June.

My general rule for mid-late June is to be eclectic in your fly choices and be prepared to change a lot. Earlier in the month I fished with everything from a size 10 French Partridge down to a size 18 Greenwell’s Glory with a variety of sedges and unwinged flies in between with no single fly predominating; in fact, all the fish I caught were on different patterns.

Where you cannot yet nymph try work those deep fish with a surface fly. It is amazing from how far below, once you get the right fly, they will move.

Chalkstream nymph selection £16.75

June selection £16.95

July selection £17.95

Summer 2 Pack £34.90 including two leaders

Summer 3 Pack £51.85 including three leaders

To review the full fly pack selection including the Ultimate Chalkstream Fly Selection (box of 78 flies £149) and the Hatch Calendar Selection (all seven packs £119) click 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 did the United Kingdom vote for on this day in 2016?

2) Which British band were No. 1 in the US album chart with Breakfast in America on this day in 1979?

3) If you suffered from hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, what would you be in fear of?