[CovMark]

“Hi Mark,

Salmon fishing through the Fishing Passport was suspended yesterday on beats downstream of Hereford. All rods have been removed from sale. Due to be reviewed on Monday.

Kind regards
Allyson Williams
Fishing Passport Manager”

 

[golantman]

Sad that you had to remind them

 

[peterchilton]

ask them what the temps are above Hereford?

 

[CovMark]

I did - no response. Pretty poor I think don’t you. Besides which even if you irresponsibly wanted to fish my experience/learning is the fish won’t take anyway so why bother ?

 

[golantman]

Looks like another week of no fishing with high temperatures

 

[peterchilton]

Maybe the season should start on 1st Feb then we can fish for non existent salmon in a cooler river?

 

[CovMark]

23.7 C at Ross now - worryingly high hopefully it peaks today and the slightly cooler weather next week will see temps fall before serious trouble for the salmon

 

[OURTREV]

23.7 C at Ross now - worryingly high hopefully it peaks today and the slightly cooler weather next week will see temps fall before serious trouble for the salmon

Can't see it falling Mark. Tomorrows weather forecast is for temperatures 3 or 4 degrees C higher than today. The River is really low at 0.08Metres at Ross implies our local farmers up the River are giving the potatoes a good drink!

 

[CovMark]

Yes another hot one tomorrow 🥵

 

[CovMark]

Over 25C recorded middle Wye yesterday and way over 24 for several hours at Ross.

Too high I think even for coarse fishing on the river for chub and barbel but WUF have set the bar at 25

 

[peterchilton]

Bit cooler today, im gonna complain its only 23.3 at 11.00 am at Ross

 

[golantman]

I have just had an e mail from WUF that contains the CEO,s report. I just gasp in astonishment that they can still believe that they are contributing to the welfare of the river.
Just how out of touch can this organization become, they are deluded.
How can they continue to waste public money and generous grants and have the audacity to make the comments they do in this report
Most of you will get their e mail ( it concludes with the usual begging letter) A few highlights are copied below. My comments may appear to be harsh but we have to face reality .

After bad news outweighing good news for a few years, the last 12 months have seen reasons for optimism to emerge. There are eight things that stand out: 1) Last year saw the best electrofishing results for salmon for well over a decade and on par with the very best years in history on the Welsh Wye. In Recent years the best results have seen 50 fish caught in 5 mins, this year we were catching 100s at site after site. These juveniles were produced by salmon in the same year that we had the lowest rod catch on record. There were fish and if we can get the conditions right (see 5.), there will be a fishery. 2) We also had sites where there were no or few fish and the CaSTCo project has allowed us to understand why this happened and we can focus our work on ensuring we replicate the conditions that the fishery needs everywhere, every year. 3) The ranunuculus is starting to reappear and some of it has flowered in the middle and lower Wye for the first time since 2019. This is critical to the maintenance of the world class coarse fishery that the river supports. 4) The Welsh Government has put up the money to fund the creation of an evidence-based, bottom-up plan for the river Wye that will allow us all to work together to solve the defined problems. This, combined with the recommendations of the Cunliffe and Corry reports, provides a clear and practical roadmap to support the effective delivery of lasting solutions. 5) Companies and wider society are increasingly aware of what the environment and the river do for them. Combined with the catchment markets we are developing, we will soon be able to reward farmers for farming for water as well as the production of food. This will deliver cultural and system change and allow us to solve the problems of: Extreme floods which are devasting to the ecology. Increasing frequency of spring droughts; spring flows are the main driver for smolt survival. Increasing water temperature which is threatening the ecology and the fishery. Soil loss to water, which will then lead to increases in invertebrate numbers, diversity and egg survival for the gravel spawning fish species. It will also reduce the number of fishing days lost to the river being filled with soil. Crucially, this will enable us to support land management practices that mitigate, rather than exacerbate the impacts of climate change. No longer will we be putting patches on a broken system. This is fundamental. 6) Farming culture in Herefordshire is changing. When combined with the work of the poultry supply chain, which is being led by Tesco, Avara and Noble, it is becoming clear that Herefordshire now has the lowest rate of applications of phosphorus in the UK. It is getting close to applying less phosphorus than crops need. This will allow the legacy phosphorus, accumulated from decades of over application, to be used by crops rather than leaching into the river. 7) The Ithon, previously the poster child for everything that could go wrong, is getting better. The Wye Algal Project showed that manures getting into the river was the problem in this part of the catchment and the work of the WUF, the supply chain, NRW and the farmers has reduced the amount of manures that are washing in. We can see this in the visible improvement in the health of the Ithon and where the algal bloom started. In 2020 it was at Llanbadarn Ffyndd, this year it was at Bredwardine (where it always used to be). 8) After tracking work by Swansea University, supported by WUF, Hinkley Point has reverted to installing bubble screens on its offtakes. This was an existential threat to shad which has been averted. All of this is being led by WUF. We are taking the risks to make this happen. We cannot afford to take these risks and collect the data that informs others, and brings them with us, without your support.

It is my understanding that the electrofishing results were skewed and uncomparable to previous data as it was deliberately taken in an area that they knew would hold the largest concentration of par and smolts at the time they took the survey.

This report is is delusional, full of self gratification and offers in my opinion final proof that WUF are quite simply not fit for purpose

 

[gwelsher]

I thought I was past being surprised by the totally inadequacy of WUF but they are now scraping even lower in the barrel of excuses for failure.

 

[Loxie]

I have just had an e mail from WUF that contains the CEO,s report. I just gasp in astonishment that they can still believe that they are contributing to the welfare of the river.
Just how out of touch can this organization become, they are deluded.
How can they continue to waste public money and generous grants and have the audacity to make the comments they do in this report
Most of you will get their e mail ( it concludes with the usual begging letter) A few highlights are copied below. My comments may appear to be harsh but we have to face reality .

​

​ After bad news outweighing good news for a few years, the last 12 months have seen reasons for optimism to emerge. There are eight things that stand out: 1) Last year saw the best electrofishing results for salmon for well over a decade and on par with the very best years in history on the Welsh Wye. In Recent years the best results have seen 50 fish caught in 5 mins, this year we were catching 100s at site after site. These juveniles were produced by salmon in the same year that we had the lowest rod catch on record. There were fish and if we can get the conditions right (see 5.), there will be a fishery. 2) We also had sites where there were no or few fish and the CaSTCo project has allowed us to understand why this happened and we can focus our work on ensuring we replicate the conditions that the fishery needs everywhere, every year. 3) The ranunuculus is starting to reappear and some of it has flowered in the middle and lower Wye for the first time since 2019. This is critical to the maintenance of the world class coarse fishery that the river supports. 4) The Welsh Government has put up the money to fund the creation of an evidence-based, bottom-up plan for the river Wye that will allow us all to work together to solve the defined problems. This, combined with the recommendations of the Cunliffe and Corry reports, provides a clear and practical roadmap to support the effective delivery of lasting solutions. 5) Companies and wider society are increasingly aware of what the environment and the river do for them. Combined with the catchment markets we are developing, we will soon be able to reward farmers for farming for water as well as the production of food. This will deliver cultural and system change and allow us to solve the problems of: Extreme floods which are devasting to the ecology. Increasing frequency of spring droughts; spring flows are the main driver for smolt survival. Increasing water temperature which is threatening the ecology and the fishery. Soil loss to water, which will then lead to increases in invertebrate numbers, diversity and egg survival for the gravel spawning fish species. It will also reduce the number of fishing days lost to the river being filled with soil. Crucially, this will enable us to support land management practices that mitigate, rather than exacerbate the impacts of climate change. No longer will we be putting patches on a broken system. This is fundamental. 6) Farming culture in Herefordshire is changing. When combined with the work of the poultry supply chain, which is being led by Tesco, Avara and Noble, it is becoming clear that Herefordshire now has the lowest rate of applications of phosphorus in the UK. It is getting close to applying less phosphorus than crops need. This will allow the legacy phosphorus, accumulated from decades of over application, to be used by crops rather than leaching into the river. 7) The Ithon, previously the poster child for everything that could go wrong, is getting better. The Wye Algal Project showed that manures getting into the river was the problem in this part of the catchment and the work of the WUF, the supply chain, NRW and the farmers has reduced the amount of manures that are washing in. We can see this in the visible improvement in the health of the Ithon and where the algal bloom started. In 2020 it was at Llanbadarn Ffyndd, this year it was at Bredwardine (where it always used to be). 8) After tracking work by Swansea University, supported by WUF, Hinkley Point has reverted to installing bubble screens on its offtakes. This was an existential threat to shad which has been averted. All of this is being led by WUF. We are taking the risks to make this happen. We cannot afford to take these risks and collect the data that informs others, and brings them with us, without your support.

It is my understanding that the electrofishing results were skewed and uncomparable to previous data as it was deliberately taken in an area that they knew would hold the largest concentration of par and smolts at the time they took the survey.

This report is is delusional, full of self gratification and offers in my opinion final proof that WUF are quite simply not fit for purpose

​

Surely the electro fishing sites are the same every year. This is standard EA methodology and used on every river in England: The EA do not consent electro fishing unless it adheres to that methodology. Is it different in Wales?

 

[peterchilton]

On the Wye I believe that the EA do Electrofishing same places and same standard every year either Q Quantitative, SQ semi quantitative or ME 5 minute quick test. NRW are much the same. The WUF do their own EF using the ME 5 minute method and they don't seem to say precisely where, they lump the results together and also lump fry and parr together. In 2024 WUF used a new pair of electrofishers. Their system started in 2016 which was the worse year ever for EF results, they may be comparing to that or to previous years that were Quantitative sampled. Good story though and many people on the Wye aren't convinced
Maybe you could ask them for the details Loxie, all it takes is a quick email?

 

[CovMark]

Looks like the temps might just be low enough early mornings for a few days but next heatwave set to scupper it come weds evening Thursday onwards

 

[peterchilton]

Looks like the temps might just be low enough early mornings for a few days but next heatwave set to scupper it come weds evening Thursday onwards

it certainly seems that way mark

 

[steved]

Algae levels going up temps hardly below 18

 

[peterchilton]

Sadly it likely to get worse towards the weekend

 

[steved]

Something going in above Ross