I am fed up with John Bailey 'selfish' demands for a clean Wye,I want all UK rivers to be as clean as they possibly can be ,having seen several poorly rivers this year in particular,I read these columns in despair,or am I seeing something that isnt there...
A passion for a cleaned up Countrywide river network!!!
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mikench
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One has to start somewhere so why not the Wye. Lao Tzu he say " the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet.
But the Wye has been in brillant nick until recently,that is 'wye'(sorry)he moved there,other rivers have been on a downer for many years,but I didnt hear him blowing his trumpet for them then,nor do I now....hey-ho,I see it very differently,as a river not fished deserves good health...maybe if a wild swimmer gets seriously ill maybe then,just maybe,someone who really matters will actually get something done,another maybe for luck...
As an aside, re the wild swimming.........
I thought it ironical there was one BBC programme, ie Country File promoting wild swimming and another BBC programme The News lamenting and discouraging wild swimming due to the number of deaths in the waterways this past summer.
steve2
Well-known member
Every river and stream in this country needs protecting not just the Wye. But unlike the Wye no one cares about them.
I know that John Bailey for years went on about the destruction on the Wensum another river he fished. So maybe in some way he is looking after his own fishing but we have to have someone somewhere looking at what's being allowed to happen to our waterways.
I know that John Bailey for years went on about the destruction on the Wensum another river he fished. So maybe in some way he is looking after his own fishing but we have to have someone somewhere looking at what's being allowed to happen to our waterways.
Hang on a sec - surely the fatalities were due to drowning? In which case the state of the river ecologically is neither here nor there. Unless, as people used to say about rivers like the Don and Mersey, those who died were poisoned or dissolved.
It never occurred to me to criticise John Bailey for his active involvement - ie not just writing - with particular rivers. I think he should be praised and respected for it.
I'd say he's an example of active commitment to be emulated by others, not a superman who can fly in to rescue us all.
But I do understand totally the frustration of living near a river in a sorry state. Twice I lived for lengthy periods near the Welsh Dee, a beautiful river that contained dismally low level of life/fish thanks to water management policies that rushed stone cold water from mountain reservoirs through the system to feed lower river water treatment plants. When anglers all over the Midlands were filling their boots with roach, bream, chub, you name it, we were scratching for bites. Only small groups of nomadic fish roamed the lower stretches. Blanks were common. Match fishing was cancelled. The Dee was just something you drove over en route to a decent river. An angler qualified for a final in Denmark with a wining catch of an eel and a flatfish. Etc. Thankfully, the Dee has improved greatly - but it waited til I'd left the area.
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Maybe he is Kev,the Wye is where he has just moved to,many other rivers are in very poor order,especially this year.... I may not be understanding the post above my previous one correctly but I took it that it was relating to poor water quality,not the risk of being a poor swimmer and drowning...
I am not saying the Wye shouldnt be fought for and that John's not doing a good thing,its just the other rivers that we all now are in poor order not being mentioned,let me go further,the Wye wont have lots of people using it for recreation if it carries on,like all the other rivers in the country that have been allowed to be filled with effluent of all sorts...
When I had a quick look on the topic of fatalities and our waterways, there was a fair bit about rises in deaths by drowning, but nothing on other causes. Of course, we may well find cases where water quality is damaging people's health. Weren't the campaigns for river swimming prompted by swimmer's stomach problems from exposure to poorly treated sewage, backed up by independent analysis of water samples?
I don't disagree at all about our need for people to champion the cause of our rivers, but I think we need more like Bailey.
I saw him give a short talk years back at a Barbel do. He was describing his attempts to protect at least some of the Wensum roach from cormorants, and his actions included, amongst other things, regularly getting up in the dark to be on the bank at first light to try and make the cormorants move on. This was at a time when nearly all anglers agreed "someone needs to do something", but they always meant someone other than themselves.
steve2
Well-known member
I remember when we had the ACA fighting the anglers corner but it was swallowed up by the AT. I don't think the ACA membership was ever more the a few thousand so most have always left it to others to fight our corner. Nothing will ever change.
markcw
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Kev.regarding the Mersey. I lived in Warrington for 64 years, parents and grandparents from Warrington
They remember it going from a decent river to one of the most polluted in the country. I remember clouds of foam going over the weir at Latchford. Then in the 80's a friend started fishing it upriver from there, he was having some good catches, the fish were travelling down from Manchester area ,Urmston was being fished as well. The gudgeon were like mini barbel.
It is now a brilliant ring river, very clear once you get below the surface.
It has salmon in it around Warrington, the match record on there is 75lb, this was a catch of good bream and some roach. Like the Dee it has improved greatly, Whereas the Weaver has seemed to go downhill, predation or pollution I am not sure.
Yes, the Mersey around Warrington was vastly improved before I left Chester in 2004, and the Mersey trib's through and around Manchester were also reviving after their long history of industrial poisoning. Good luck to them all.
The Dee was an altogether more puzzling tin of worms, with no significant towns/cities along its length, and only some pollution threats where it skirts the industrial estates outside Wrexham. The best explanation I came across was that the river's topography - if that's the word - meant the upper and middle reaches came "downhill" fast, bringing the cold Reservoir release water down without warming up to the coarse fishing zones of the lower reaches, and the long-term lowered temperatures knocked out much of the food chain. So the finger pointed at the use of the river as a conduit to take water to the drinking water treatment works. When I pressed the authorities for their explanation of the dearth of fish, they cited the tree-lined banks as contributing, as they inhibited marginal growth and kept the sun off the shallow margins, both depriving fry of the conditions they need. I didn't really go for that as the Dee prior to the Reservoir Release scheme had just as many tree and tons of fish. But I guess Welsh Water, as was, were reluctant to investigate and find themselves guilty.
Sadly, the Weaver, my favourite, especially together with the Dane in Northwich, is way too far for me now. I remember you saying a year or two back it was deteriorating. But oddly, when I looked up some match reports for that year, they were as high as ever.
dorsetsteve
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I think the drastic and rapid decline of the Wye and that it is currently in a position that it could be turned round before it’s too late are important considerations. There’s a very clear and measurable cause and effect.
Many of our rivers have been in decline with few provable sources or smoking guns for decades.
Many of our rivers have been in decline with few provable sources or smoking guns for decades.
Sewage has been pumped in raw for years,at illegal times(bad enough in periods of highish water),anybody with half a brain cell knows that this can only cause major problems environmentally,if every angler stood outside the houses of parliament the foriegn companies who own most of our treatment plants would do nothing,it shows now that they laugh in the face of the law,they say that improvements will be made by 20xx but by then the population will have risen again and the poop will be floating back into our toilets by then...
I think it's natural that we tend to care more about what's happening on our own doorstep. Whether it is the Wye or Wensum or the river linked below, there is literally nothing stopping others, you and me, doing the same in our own area. Ideally it needs a more holistic, nationwide approach, however who should takes the lead on that, I have no idea?
Regardless, environmentalists will always struggle against big businesses. With little help from successive governments in terms of legislation and enforcement, and with prosecutions no more than a slap on the wrist, we're more or less toothless.
Sadly, I think 50 odd years of intensive farming and excessive use of fertiliser has caught up with us and we're probably decades away from seeing any wholescale improvement, even if genuine change started today.
www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk
Regardless, environmentalists will always struggle against big businesses. With little help from successive governments in terms of legislation and enforcement, and with prosecutions no more than a slap on the wrist, we're more or less toothless.
Sadly, I think 50 odd years of intensive farming and excessive use of fertiliser has caught up with us and we're probably decades away from seeing any wholescale improvement, even if genuine change started today.
Clean-up underway in algae-covered river which sparked disgust
The Environment Agency is getting to work in the River Ancholme
www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk
markcw
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The stretches around Anderton are notvery good. The Red Lion and Aerosol lengths seem to be stable over the years,
The meadows on the bypass seem to have lost a lot of fish from what I have heard.
Te City Centre stretch of the Dee where the band stand and bridge are were full of fshwhen I was last there, trouble is cormorants are on the weir picking a few roach off.
steve2
Well-known member
The biggest problem with anglers and rivers is that very few fish them. Most are sitting by a lake waiting for the next fish to hook its self so why would they worry about the state of the rivers that they never are going to fish. Those on here that regularly fish rivers are in a very small minority. Those that really care are in an even smaller minority.