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Dorchester Fishing Club - Newsletter July 2003
News
Many congratulations to Peter Ward who won the wonderful Thomas
& Thomas rod. The raffle helped raised a staggering £1,000, which
helped pay for the Upper Water fencing. Many thanks goes to the Wild Trout
Trust (have you joined yet?) and Tony Fordam of Thomas &
Thomas, for their generosity and of course to all of you who bought
tickets and donated extra prizes. I hope you have had the opportunity to
venture out and see the fence, which will keep those pesky bovine bank
destroyers away for a good many years. You may also have noticed a bonfire
like construction tucked against a large willow, just upstream of the
Fishing Hut. This is an otter holt, built in conjunction with the Dorset
Wildlife Trust, for more details see Bronwen's article.
Low water again greeted us on the opening day, along with bright sunshine and a chill wind. There was little fly evident and this kept the fish down, until the mayfly arrived. (Did anyone enjoy a good black gnat/hawthorn fall this year?) Mayfly was a little later than normal, but I heard some good reports from anglers who had been out fishing the last week of May. Now it’s summer evenings, falls of BWO's and hatching caddis ….
Stocking was delayed for a few weeks, after the Environment Agency decided not to tell anyone of their change in procedure when requesting consent. But in their favour, they did deal with the application in double quick time. The fish were stocked (marked with a blue spot) on the 9th may and many thanks to Dr. Keith Lancaster and Jim Chalmers for their help.
The new Wolfeton Fishery is a magnificent stretch of water and those who have fished it will be impressed with the fish holding qualities. This just shows how a lot of hard work (by the owner) repairing years of neglect, really helps the trout population. Let’s hope all our work (past & present) will have similar results.
The Honorary Secretary's report from 1964, highlights that some of our current problems have been around for a good few years. Although I'm sure we would not be as keen as they appear to have been, for Lower Water to be dredged. There are another couple of 'slightly' worrying comments, such as - "We must stock and stock" and "experiment with rainbows", thankfully both heavy stocking, especially with rainbows, are now seen as detrimental. But, they were on the right lines with the gravel cleaning and keeping as much weed as possible in the river for the invertebrates. I wonder what our future guardians of the River Frome in another forty years, will think of our attempts to improve the river... I do intend to stick around and find out!!!!!
Thank you for all your replies and suggestions on the AGM. format. There was an overwhelming response to keep the AGM. unchanged i.e. on a Saturday, along with a guest speaker or two.
Diary Date :- The AGM has been booked for Saturday 22nd November. By special request, the River keeper John Aplin will give us an illustrated talk on his year along the river bank. The Honorary Secretary will then talk on his "impressionist" style of fly tying (see Flies for the Frome). Followed by an optional buffet lunch, more details in the October letter.
Peter Leatherdale & John Aplin (AGM.
2002)
Keepers Corner
By
John E. Aplin
One of my projects for the winter was Cormorant scaring.
After several failing attempts with scarecrows etc I was advised by those who know better to use my shotgun to scare these large black birds from our fishery. Well after blasting away like Rambo for part of the winter, I quickly summarized the exercise as follows.
1. Scared the living daylights out of every living creature in the river corridor, including my dog.
2. After a short time the Cormorants soon learnt that they were safe, so took longer to scare but they soon returned.
3. We need a licence to cull a bird or two, up to fifteen birds present at times.
The hatchery again went well despite the Frome being in full flood, the water was 2ft over the hatchery, and the eggs went in through a piece of drainpipe. This all happened in January in a not so dry suit and one torn neoprene glove, chilly or silly!
We have a superb new fence on the upper water, a few new seats, stiles and signs. A fair bit of tree trimming was done, and we built an Otter Holt, with the Dorset Wild Life Trust.
We had heavy rain before Christmas, again ripping out the weed resulting in less Grannom than I hoped fore; the weed is now growing well below Whitfield.
As I write this, the rain is falling (first for a while) its good warm Mayfly rain, the Frome looks good, get out with a rod soon, before we know it will be AGM time again.
I am having a river walk with the Ponds, Lakes and Fisheries Association on the 17 July 7pm Long Bridge, please come and join us.
I hope it dries up tomorrow, the grass needs cutting again!!!! I also hope you enjoy your fishing this season as much as I enjoy my river keeping.