Tag Archives: Tim Jacklin

Merseyside

01 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Merseyside

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The County of Merseyside has no streams containing trout.

This is the view of no lesser an authority than Dr Malcolm Greenhalgh, and is based on research he conducted in preparation of a scientific paper, as noted in his response to my enquiry of him, which read –

“Dear Tony

First, Merseyside is not a real county but an administrative county! Parts of the County Palatines of Lancashire and Cheshire! But here goes:

There is an angling club, Wirral I think, that has some fishing in that area. There are no river trout in southwest Lancashire = North Merseyside; and Wirral (South Merseyside) may well be the same. In 2004 I produced an account ‘The freshwater fishes of Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire’ for the Lancashire & Cheshire Fauna Society and sought help from many sources, with 0 for Merseyside

The problem is that that is known as Merseyside is low, with lots of urban connurbation. Rural areas in the northern bit is mostly low lying acid peat farmland (= mossland in S Lancashire) and with very few streams. The largest, the Alt, is clean in places, but not trout water.

On Wirral there are even fewer streams, none with trout.

Note, however, that sea trout are now running the Mersey, though they are not catchable in the river here or the Ship Canal!

Sorry!

Malcolm G”

Malcolm Greenhalgh is both a naturalist and a fly fisherman. After reading biological sciences and researching estuary ecology for his PhD, he lectured for sixteen years before becoming a freelance writer on his fortieth birthday, and anglers will be aware of his prowess, and expertise from his many interesting and challenging articles in the angling press.

His view is supported by Tim Jacklin and Paul Gaskell of the WTT, and by Kevin Nash and Gareth Pedley of the EA…., as well as the officials of the many Angling Clubs in Merseyside with whom I have exchanged correspondence.

So…maybe my ‘Mission’ will not succeed, but this sad news is no reason to stop searching.

I could make angling history if…

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NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

06 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by in Nottinghamshire

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Nottinghamshire was always going to be a problem and this required ingenuity. Who did I know, or who did I know who knew someone who might? Where could I seek information which might lead to where…because the ‘Where to’s ’… seemed  unable to.

Julian (Atkins) had a pal who might know…and Tim Jacklin (WTT) offered some really helpful thoughts, but it was a speculative plea on Fly Fishing Forums, which produced a response from, one, Chris Hawkins, who is one interesting young man.  So some words about him, first.


He is a local lad who left school and started a mechanical engineering course which did not excite him. So eager and ambitious, he set about obtaining some ‘A’ Levels, which he did, in order to secure a place at (Aberystwyth) University where he studied environmental sciences, but to what end? Well, already a keen fisher, and also one with a strong conscience, he chose to enter the charity sector, and parlayed his love for fishing in particular, the outdoors in general, and utilise his generous spirit, to try to help vulnerable youngsters by offering some insights into something/anything, or in his case, fishing, so that new learnings might give them an improved sense of worth.

His own fishing journey is evolving  as he moves from coarse to game, excited by the hunting aspects and the artistry, too, and today, he  is generally at the still water stage, but he is now learning river craft , and I hope some of my experience was helpful to him. But, it was his inquisitiveness and eagerness to learn about this new fishing which led to him, finding me, as he used the Forums to learn for himself! He is a special chap.

He  gave me some time during a rare holiday week, and my SatNav got me to the very car park where he wanted to meet in the pretty town of Warsop.

August 2011 – the Meden

We strolled his stream for sometime, he pointing out potential runs on a weedy water where the chub could be seen waiting, but it was only after clambering over fences and wading cross stream, avoiding some outsize cows,  that he excitedly told me we had arrived where I might succeed. And a rising fish excited me, too, but a snagged weighted nymph trailing a dry probably saw him off, from what turned out to be just six inches of water, anyway.

There was just a little fly life (olives and caddis) on this overcast and windy day.

And , not too much farther upstream, I spotted a run which, after just two casts, delivered a Nottinghamshire trout which Chris netted in his outsize net  – “to be sure”! – and on a dry, and on my reliable Adams, the onsurface equivalent of the subsurface ‘hare’s ear’!

His is a small stream.  It is narrow but laden with features, and more than enough variety to engage. Gravelly bottomed, but protected in parts by steep banks, and many a leaning bush and tree to snag poor casts, and at this time of year, there is plenty of overgrowth tumbling into the water to give much needed security. Council owned water abutting an old quarry, and part leased for grazing, this is not a tended stretch. Public space therefore, it was noticeable that strollers and dog walkers, this day, respected our need for stealth, for the trout were all wild, and we saw plenty…in escape!

The upper beat, through farmland, is shared with young lads bottom fishing ‘au maggot’, and  I learned just what specimens this stream holds. One, asked – “Is that a fly rod, Mister?” and the other, his pal, shared proudly, with me, two pictures saved on his mobile of brownies he had caught at the very spot under an old brick rail bridge where they were fishing, which put my solitary 8” tiddler to shame! It also shared with perch, and at one spot, it was lovely to stand and watch a family of them swim fearlessly between my wadered legs!

CAMBRIDGESHIRE

08 Sunday May 2011

Posted by in Cambridgeshire

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Tim Jacklin is a stalwart of the Wild Trout Trust, he is on the Executive Council, is Projects Coordinator, a Conservation Officer, and Editor of ‘Salmo Trutta’…..and, the WTT   website….that’s all!  A complete enthusiast, and a man I would like to meet, both Rob Hartley (see ‘Staffordshire’) and Mark Owen (see ‘Leicestershire’) suggested I contact him for thoughts on ‘where’, in those counties not known for their trout streams…

So I did, and he replied –

“I had heard of your quest from Mark Owen – quite an odyssey you are   undertaking!”

and with ideas for several such counties, but as far as Cambridge is concerned, he put me in touch with Rob Mungovan, a conservationist and another ‘stalwart’ of the WTT, whose work has been written up in Salmo Trutta (2010)…

 “there’s more of them (trout) than people think (in Cambs)”, Rob wrote.

…how enticing is that?

My day with Rob was exciting, instructive, rewarding, relaxed, warm, and so much more.

He is a cracking chap. Brought up in this county, he returned after graduating, and is now an Ecology Officer with South Cambridgeshire District Council, and has therefore managed to combine his career and his passion, and for that he is grateful to his Grandad who introduced him to the gentle art when a fourteen year old. He is a ‘giver’……a rarity today.

And he told me of secret places, and so they must remain!

Our day together started with a walk along the banks of the Shep, a glorious but tiny chalkstream (rarely more than ten feet wide)

which is faring better thanks to the efforts of the ‘Friends of the River Shep’ who have used conventional techniques to promote spawning grounds, encourage weed anchorage, ensure security from predators (at least from most…there are an alarming number of American Signal crayfish here)

and a habitat for the population of wild fish to flourish. And we saw several fish, but they were so alert that our bush craft approach was insufficient to stop them skidaddling, even when we were downstream and fifteen meters away, they saw us.

Then we drove to the headwaters of the Shep which are contained within the RSPB’s Fowlmere Nature Preserve, and with juvenile trout, well used to bird watching walkers (humanoids), it was lovely to spot the most beautiful of small wild fish, fearlessly holding station, and occasionally, coming up to feed off the surface –

This was/is so special….the Friends of the River Shep should feel truly proud of what they are achieving, in the name of restoration, and their clearance program has produced much weed growth and we identified water crowfoot, starwort, burweed, fool’s water cress, water cress, mint, and lesser water parsnip…and there is probably more!

This river may never be a fishery…but it is testament to all Rob believes in making these ancient streams become again, an essential part of the rural scene for the enjoyment and appreciation by all, of our glorious countryside.

Then we went to fish-

May 2011 – the Cam

The disturbing fact about this river, which rises near Linton in Essex, is that flowing through arable land, in this year of an April of the highest temperatures ever recorded, it is being overly abstracted (raped) of its flows. The potato fields are being sprayed by the eccentric arcs of plumes of river water for hours on end which means that river levels are now unusually low and fish stock is vulnerable to cormorants et al. Weed has not grown to give trout the cover and security they need, and aquatic fly form is insufficient in volume to provide them with the food they need, although I did see my first Mays of the year which are at least two weeks earlier than is normal. We watched two good sized trout which were agitated and not by our presence, and it was the arrival of a large pike which reminded us that these trout have more to worry about than aerial predation.

Not too much fly on the beat we fished near Whittlesford,

but when we spotted some movement, and  nymphing using a copper headed bug, tied by Rob, produced my Cantab trout. And shortly afterward, and at about 3 pm., when a hatch got them coming up, another of Rob’s creations, a mosquito yellow klinkhamer, produced another.

It was not easy fishing, though, and accessing the water required slipping down nettle laden banks, which put my felt soled wading boots to test. So much so, that my next purchase will be rubber soled boots, which will, in any case, be needed in July when Fraser and I fish Montana. I predict that felt will disappear (just as have metal studs on golf shoes, albeit, for totally different reasons)

I had to leave Rob for a dinner date in North Norfolk (of which more), but was happy to receive a note from him later that evening, confirming that the fish which eluded us, had been netted by him –

“I went back to “my beat” of the Cam at 8pm. A few fish were rising to hatching sedge by 8:30.   I picked up that larger one near the over hanging willow on a grh.ear cdc emerger which about 11inches.   Then I manged 2 more at about 8inches in an pale deer hare sedge in the faster run where you were waiting for a rise.”

Thanks, Rob, for an inspiring day….and I hope your trip to New York the next day, was as exciting an experience, as you hoped.