Devon Rivers 2007

[robmason]

Well it seems like spring has finally arrived here in south Devon. Three days without howling gales and sheet rain! My first day out (eventually) tomorrow, and a new river for me- the Torridge courtesy of the Half Moon. I've been assured I'll be put onto some fish.

[exerod]

robmason said:

Well it seems like spring has finally arrived here in south Devon. Three days without howling gales and sheet rain!

That'll be the start of the drought then!

[robmason]

Rivers still high and coloured in North Devon. I've been adviced to bring the spinning rod.

[robmason]

Torridge falling nicely- "bloody lovely" even. 1'6" or thereabouts on the gauge. Clear enough for the fly rod.

Brightlea was the beat I fished today. Not a sausage. Nice bit of water, if a little too tree lined for a 12 foot rod. A new experience, fishing my own fly (and then loosing it in the tree opposite ).

Nothing off the Torridge so far, but hardly suprising as it is just coming into order. Shame I didn't get my name in the record books today.

[exerod]

How much does the Half Moon charge for a day on the Torridge nowadays?

Andy

[robmason]

£30

But for that my host treated me to a cup of tea by the fire, free use of the telephone (I forgot my moblie!) and a tour of the beat.

[salmosalar25lb]

Havnt they just restocked the Torridge as there are very few fish there ?

[robmason]

So it seems, on a small scale.

www.rivertorridge.org/news.htm

[salmosalar25lb]

Interesting stuff not dissimilar to our hatchery project,would like to find out more about the gravel cleaning with a pump though

[smigel]

Fished the Taw today, never saw or felt a thing. Water high but clear. The fish have clearly all gone upstream already to avoid the impending drought

[exerod]

salmosalar25lb said:

Interesting stuff not dissimilar to our hatchery project,would like to find out more about the gravel cleaning with a pump though

I used to do a lot of this on the river Axe in Devon. We used a portable pump to pump river water through a length of two inch diameter stainless steel pipe. The end of the pipe was flattened to an oval section to give a powerful jet of water. Using this jet of water silt was blasted out of the gravel beds. The Axe is blessed with very deep gravels in places (up to six feet) and we generally tried to clear the silt out of the top three feet. If the pipe was pushed straight down about four feet and just left there is was amazing to watch silt ‘blowing’ up through the surface up to 10 feet away as the jet of water found it’s way through the gravel. The idea behind going so deep was that silt washing down into the gravels after spawning would settle below the level of the redd. I have seen seatrout redds on the Axe were the pit dug by the fish has been nearly two feet below the surrounding river bed.

I am not sure looking back that the very deep cleaning was that helpful. In a lowland stream most of the gravel seam is going to be choked with silt naturally, with only the top few inches full of gaps between the stones. I once re-cleaned a gravel bed one week after first doing it and got nearly as much silt out the second time. This must have simply washed out of the gravel immediately upstream of the cleaned section (there were no spates between the two cleanings).

However if the top surface of the gravels has become compacted there is no doubt that cleaning them does make it easier for the fish to spawn. When I regularly went out to check it was clear that spawning fish preferred the cleaned gravels. Whether more fish hatched from the cleaned gravels I don't know. On the Axe every spate brings in a fresh load of silt off the fields and I think this is what smothers the redds rather than the silt that is already present in the gravel.

This work was organised by the EA and in there usual way they got their knickers in a twist worrying that the invertebrate population would be adversely affected. However when they checked it was found that numbers and diversity of invertebrates were higher on cleaned gravels. This was thought to be due to the increased surface area of gravel available with all the silt having been blown out.


Andy

[salmosalar25lb]

Very informative Andy thanks, it was mentioned that we use a pump for gravel cleaning but the quote we were given was ridiculous and the pump to big to move down through an overgrown bit of moorland, thought maybe some sort of raft to float the pump on, then we could just go with the flow(so to speak),do the EA have a standard pump for this operation?.

[exerod]

John.

The pumps we used were Honda ones I think. They were mounted in a frame and were light enough to carry short distances by two or three men. We just hooked the frame over the tow hitch on the back of the landrover and draged the whole lot (slowly) up the field if going more than a few yards. The brooks we were working on would have been too small for a raft.

I'll pm you with names and numbers of those who bought the stuff as I have no real idea of the price. One club I was in bought their own pump so they couldn't have been too steep.

Andy

[smigel]

Reference pumps - if you look at:-

www.fly-fishing-club.co.uk/projects.html

you should see some info and a few pictures.


PS I have just heard of one 12lb sea liced fish off the Lower Taw

[robmason]

Any one out this weekend?

I'm gardening

[exerod]

robmason said:

I'm gardening

So you say, don't forget no worming until the 16th of June!

Tried the Lyn today. It's holding at a lovely hieght but very very clear and the pools just look empty, not even many trout to be seen. Had there been any fish in the lower pools I reckon I would have seen them. Of course with all the water we've had any early ones (if there were any) could have run up and be almost anywhere.

Andy

[smigel]

Potential Exe fishers could take a look at:-

www.fishtheexe.co.uk

as the site now seems to have 'gone live'.

[robmason]

Thanks for that. Another new site from the Dart Angling Association:

www.dartaa.org.uk/

[robmason]

The web cam at Thorverton seems to have gone down. Any idea how the Exe is shaping up? I'm supposed to be fishing there this coming weekend.

[exerod]

There is a link to the webcam on the home page (bottom right) of the fishtheexe site.

Tight lines at the weekend.

Andy