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NEWS
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Wilderness Flyfishing News
San River, Poland, and Pioneer Flyfishing:
The spring has been disappointing on San River, though with a few highlights. Very cold water release from the lakes in the National Park have meant pretty high water, though mostly clear, for most of April and May. We had several groups out on the river during these months, with mixed results. Large trout, and grayling to 50cm, have been caught, though probably the best fishing for guests was for John Hodgson who averaged 12 fish a day (mixed trout and grayling), on double nymph combinations and on two of the days exclusively dry fly. This was very good fishing, actually, in what I considered very difficult conditions. At the beginning of June the water suddenly dropped away to more typical summer level, but the air temperature rocketed towards 30 degrees, so the best fishing is now in the late evening, when everybody is already tired from the exertions of the day. Guests have had some excellent fishing in the shaded areas, however, with one catch including a 51cm grayling and four others over 40cm, and some very good trout. All these fish came to size 18 shuttlecock CDC olive. We are very busy with groups now until the end of October and are already taking bookings for 2009. If you are interested in fishing this awesome river, the destination of the 2010 World Flyfishing Championships, then please see our Pioneer Flyfishing website and contact us for information and details.
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Eden:
The rain stayed with us until early May and now we are plunged into drought.
The agricultural drainage has resulted in a river that is barely flowing and
the slurry pollution has grossly eutrophied the waters. The blanket
algae infestation is actually a national disgrace, betraying both the
ruthlessness of the farm and stock owners and the utter uselessness of the
Environment Agency in curbing the farm activities. The fact that the
entire Eden system is an SSSI and a European Special Area of Conservation
means absolutely nothing in affording it any protection from agricultural
activity. We had wonderful fishing last year, then into the winter and
spring. The entire system, with just a few exceptions, seemed to have
recovered. Of course, we had the rain, and stable flows, to thank for
this false recovery. We now see, as we had all expected, that the
river is now so vulnerable.
From the tarn:
While the Eden system is shrinking amidst another drought period,
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Contact Us: Jeremy & Jennie Lucas Tel: 01768 352995 email: jjbrlucas@btopenworld.com Copyright © Wilderness Flyfishing, 2008. All rights reserved. |
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Take away the only protecting feature it has - rain - and the decline is
catastrophic, absolutely ruining four years of recovery within a month.
I took my daughter along with me to fish one of the feeder becks on the
upper river. Much of the beck is essentially a farm sewer, but there
was one pool, deeper than most, with a good run-in at the head, providing a
little oxygenated water. Of course, every trout and grayling in the
beck seemed to be in this pool. We saw no other fish elsewhere.
I fished for a while and caught a grayling and the trout in the photo.
'It is like a leopard', my daughter said. I returned the fish but
could not fish any more - I felt like a criminal plundering this dwindling
resource. Make no mistake, in Cumbria, and Britain generally, we are
allowing the agricultural industry to destroy the last wild waters we
possess, with their irreplaceable trout. And don't think that this
does very much for the economy; the only people that make any serious money
are the big land and stock owners.
and
the blanket algae caused by the farm pollution is infesting the main river,
the waters high up the system are surviving. The tarn has a ring of
curled-leaf pondweed and is thick with this oxygenating plant in the
shallows. The trout are feeding voraciously on tadpoles (a good batch
this year), corixae, snails, midge, pond olives and damsel nymphs.
There are also some caddis around. The rainbows stocked in March have
already almost doubled their weight, while the stocking of two years ago are
now large fish. We caught a rainbow in April that we estimated at in
excess of 7lbs. Just after my return from exhausting trips to Spain
and Poland at the end of May, I fished the tarn for a bit of therapy.
After catching a few of the rainbows I tightened the Diawl Bach into one of
the big wild brown trout and the result is shown in the photograph.
The fish is 56cm (22 inches) long and estimated in excess of 5lbs in weight.
From a high beck in the Howgill Fells, right at the top of one of the Eden's
feeder becks, this is simply remarkable. We have the spring water off
the limestone to thank for this, and the fact that there is little
agricultural damage hereabouts.