TheThe FishingFishing 2015 Edition Over 230 miles of salmon, sea trout, brown trout, grayling and coarse fishing in Wales and The Marches, along with some of the area’s best stillwaters The Wye & Usk Foundation Registered Charity No. 1080319 1 Tel: 01874 712 074 www.wyeuskfoundation.org Participating Rivers www.wyeuskfoundation.org The Wye & Usk Foundation Unit 4, Talgarth Business Park, Trefecca Road, Talgarth, Brecon, Powys LD3 0PQ Tel: 01874 712 074 2 Introduction elcome to the 2015 Fishing start work earlier and may even have to visit WPassport, our 13th edition. Over twice if the growth is anything like last season. the years the Passport has got bigger and However, our intention is to keep the essential bigger as new fisheries have come on board wildness of our banks as much as possible. and in case someone drops one on their foot, You are our eyes and ears on the river and we we have had to reduce its size! This year, are very grateful for all the feedback received each river fishery, lake or pond will simply be during the year. Our annual litter pick in the listed without its full description. Instead, the spring is focussed on the section downstream key fishery information will be in the fishing of Hereford. This is a bit more of a challenge section of our website. This gives us the but you can help by taking away anything we opportunity to keep our fishery information might have missed and ensuring you do not up to date throughout the year and to use leave anything behind. the Passport for more articles and general We will continue to send you our e-news information about the scheme. with details of activities and any changes What we aim to provide is a comprehensive to fisheries. Our monthly fishing reports (via service that combines your feedback, up to e-newsletter and in the fishing section of the date river and weather information with a wide website) have been well received in their first and varied range of places to go fishing and year and unlike some reports, you don’t have to stay. Some fisheries are very much “tried to wait a month just to hear bad news! So, and tested” others are there for those with a for the 13th time, it’s my very great privilege keen sense of adventure and it’s important to wish you all a successful and enjoyable that we match these with the right angler! It fishing season. is a great skill arriving at the right place at the right time but you will always get good advice from the Booking Office, even if this is “don’t go until the weather changes”. We take very careful note of your comments. One of the most frequent is about the amount Dr Stephen Marsh-Smith OBE of vegetation, trees and branches that emerge Executive Director from mid-May onwards. This year we will The Wye & Usk Foundation Contents Improving Your Fishing .................... 4-8 Guiding & Instructors .................. 29-33 Passport Questions and Answers ........9 Biosecurity ........................................34 Salmon Fishing ........................... 12-13 Minimising the Impact of Canoeing ... 35 The 365 Day Season ................... 14-15 Canoeing .................................... 35-37 Trout & Grayling Fishing .............. 16-17 Where to Stay .....................22 & 38-45 Big Browns in Remote Places ...... 18-21 The Booking Office ...................... 46-64 Sea Trout Fishing ........................ 24-25 The Wild Streams ........................ 66-78 Coarse Fishing ............................ 26-27 Fly Fishing Small Streams ........... 68-69 Front cover photo: Matt Dunkinson 3 A WUF habitat team working on the Dayhouse Weir fish pass on the River Lugg in October 2014. The Wye & Usk Foundation: working to improve your fishing The Passport is only a part of our daily removing as many barriers to migration as activity, though as fishermen ourselves, a possible. We found a staggering number very important one! Our main mission is of barriers in our walk-over surveys. To to restore the fisheries and environment date, with our various partners, we have of our two rivers and with that, create new completed 64 fish passes and easements, opportunities for anglers and ensure there 51 barrier dam removals. 839km of stream are fish to be caught. Ultimately, this boosts has been re-opened to spawning fish. This the local economy and brings in future crucial aspect is nearing completion. Salmon investment. We think it is important to take and trout have been the major beneficiaries a holistic approach. All species of fish and a of this work although eels too require free wide range of other wildlife benefit, as do all passage up and down rivers. We are glad types of angling. Our website gives full details to say that this species has been enjoying a of all the issues we face and the projects resurgence in the past few years. used to fund and create the improvements. The emphasis will always be on restoring Habitat river habitats. With our workforce of 25, this is Our next task was restoring the habitat of the how we do it: streams themselves. Heavy grazing results in Fish Access wide and shallow streams and a loss of their Our first action in 1996 was re-opening tree cover. Our restoration comprises double the tributary system of the upper Wye and bank fencing, pinning as much hazel and other wood as possible into the stream and 4 tree management so that we end up with a project to cut back on abstraction by the range of species and varied age structure. water companies that will take effect this year. Water quality concerns take different We rely on natural regeneration and the forms in different parts of the catchment. key aspect of re- establishing tree cover is At the uppermost extremities of the Wye, fencing out stock animals. These renewed commercial forestry plantations, with their stream corridors reduce the amount of silt coniferous trees and extensive drainage in the tributaries and the amount washing system cause severe acid events. These downstream into the main stem. A cleaner result in the loss of all fish and most river is better for all species. invertebrate life in over 62km of main stream and tributaries. Water All anglers know that good water quality Our liming programme has allowed trout and quantity is vital. Demands for water and salmon to recolonise and breed in these for domestic supply and agriculture have areas. Grayling have increased their range reduced flows at critical times on both too. We are recreating some of the original rivers. WUF has been part of a successful (continued on p8) Habitat staff installing a revetment on the Afon Llynfi, an upper Wye tributary. These willow revetments shore up the banks, reducing erosion and sedimentation in the rivers. 5 Blocking forestry drains and sand liming (pictured below) within WUF’s recent ISAC project has helped reduce acidity problems in the river Irfon, an upper Wye tributary. 6 Discussing soil damage with Herefordshire potato growers. WUF and partners are working with farmers to reduce diffuse pollution from agriculture. A WUF team electrofishing on the river Arrow. Monitoring is an important part of our work. 7 wetlands in the forests to increase base flows We also try to clear all the bankside litter. This and reduce flooding. Both these actions year we are completing the final stretch of the affect the whole river. Wye (Luggsmouth to the estuary) and then we hope to keep it litter free, again with your Other water quality issues stem from farming. help. Maybe we can then look at the Usk. Pesticides (especially sheep dips), nutrients and phosphates, along with heavy sediment loads enter our rivers and streams as a result Get Involved! of farming. We are working with farmers to This work only happens because we are correct this but perhaps there are not the able to use core funding from anglers and incentives yet for this to happen as it should. others interested in the rivers’ wellbeing to bid for and support projects that carry out the Monitoring various works previously described. All of this work gets monitored. Electrofishing Whatever you fish for - barbel, chub, pike, shows whether we have improved habitats dace, grayling, trout or salmon - please enough to increase fish densities. We also support the efforts to restore and protect the use diatom analysis (the slime you find on rivers by donating to the Foundation. A Gift stones are diatoms and the various species Aid Form can be found on the reverse of the indicate presence of a whole range of accompanying letter with the Passport, or pollutants) to see if our farm pollution work is you can donate online via the “Get Involved” improving the situation. section of our website: www.wyeuskfoundation.org/joinus Other Activities You can help in other ways too, being Every year we spray Giant Hogweed and involved with our volunteer schemes, Japanese Knotweed. We are winning this war for example. Details of our volunteer and hope to expand our activities to include opportunities can also be seen on our Himalayan Balsam. If you find Hogweed website. (which is poisonous) or Knotweed please let us know on [email protected] The lower Wye “showing its bones”. WUF are working to improve water quantity as well as water quality. 8 Fishing Passport Q & A We receive hundreds of questions about the Passport scheme. Here are the answers to some of the more common ones. Where does the money from my day ticket go? The majority goes to the fishery owner with WUF retaining a commission fee. This is used to: design, write, print and post the Passport, run the Booking Office, visit fisheries and owners, sort out bank clearance, update the website details and so on.