Dredging.

[neil cooney 10,416]

Been watching the news in England a lot lately regarding the floods and there's a lot of people crying out for a lot of dredging to be done on your rivers.

How's this going to affect angling ?

I remember the OPW here in Eire years ago went dredging mad for a few years. It took the rivers years to return to any of their former glory.

[gonetoearth 5,144]

Neil Its not the dredging its the whole care of the catchment system of water and its journey to the sea from mountains and moorlands to the Burns , streams , drain, ditches , we had a the water board Who maintained the water courses and its eco system the powers that be got rid of that and created the monster that was the NRA Witch then went onto pontificate over the nations Water courses. After spending fortunes of trying to reinvent the wheel. The powers that be created the EA Sacked every fooker and privatised every thing leaving suits and uni eco grads in charge who sold off the crown duels . , Resulting in a powerless organisation with know knowledge of regional Water courses , the break down of maintenance throughout the country has played a major part in the flooding , areas of flood plane that would never have been aloud to be built on have been sold off by the very organisation that is supposed to Manage them , dreging. Done in the right way and in the right areas is benifisal , To fish. , The damming and intntrodution of pumping stations and the reclamation of salt marsh and fllood planes is now coming back to haunt us

[BIG G wheton machine 1,594]

It just shows that us humans are not the high n mighty, Mother Nature just turns on the taps and mankind is fooked . Nature is all too powerful

[chrismdd 787]

We run a fishing club on the upper stretches of the river Parrett in Somerset (www.stoke-sub-hamdonaa.co.uk) and are well used to all this flooding. Years ago the levels would flood and one of the main crops was withies, however, there is less market for this crop so farmers need to make more use of the land throughout the year and so keeping it clear of floodwater is a priority. The river needs to controlled through all the sluices so that the control of the river levels is better. Hopefully they will try to hold the water back for longer which should benefit the fishing further up.

[neil cooney 10,416]

I always got the impression in England because of the Washes and massive estuaries as well as a whole way of life along these flood plains (one of my favourite books when I young was about the Fen Tigers) that the old timers of yesteryear knew exactly how to control the waters and send them in the direction they wanted them to go. Nowadays as Gonetoearth put it, we have university engineers who's experience has come from books and greedy county councils which makes an awful lot of the problem a man made one.

Where I live it's always been prone to flooding. A few years back it just got too bad which resulted in a lot of houses getting flooded and a couple of deaths.

The answer was to dredge the local river and tributaries.

But in all the old fields along the river valley you can see the remains of old channels and there's even old humpback bridges out in the middle of fields. This tells me that in centuries past that our ancestors could sort the problem with pick and shovel and without the university degree.

[gonetoearth 5,144]

You can not buy experience and local knowledge , Google earth uni grades lol.

[chrismdd 787]

All the old mills on the upper parts of our section of the river Parrett has the old mill workings all the way along. Talking to the older members of the fishing club all these gates, sluices and floodboards were operated by individuals who contacted each other to help control a gradual release of water down the river. Now there are just a few operating sluices left and these are controlled by a central control somewhere. In recent years at the sight of rain these are opened and left to allow the river to get very low to clear the water as quickly as possible and wash all the fry downriver and expose the riverbed in places. The gates would then be closed too late and then levels up again without any good environmental control, as one of the old timers the rriver levels "are up and down like hoares drawers". We managed to get the EA to survey our best section and got a free stocking of 2000+ roach to boost stocks, and they are due to give 1500+ perch to help counteract the minnow and crayfish issues that we get. They are also of the opinion that trees that fall down into our section are now left in the river to hold the river back in the sparsely populated areas up here to prevent flooding further down towards highly populated Bridgwater where they need to build on the floodplain.

 

In the clubs experience the EA (fisheries section) have been excellent to us and helped us a lot and we are due to do piece for Angling times / mail to show our gratitude and counter some of the stick that they do get.

[J Darcy 5,871]

Dredging upper and middle reaches promotes flooding, not prevents it.

[neil cooney 10,416]

Funny JD I thought of yourself earlier when writing my last post.

Wont the barbel be the main species to suffer if dredging was to take place in some of your main rivers ?

[gonetoearth 5,144]

Dredging upper and middle reaches promotes flooding, not prevents it.

. Depends on the river ,circumstances, tidal , if theres flood planes, Sweeping statement are partly to blame for the. Disgrace thats occurred , every river can not be managed the same. The centralisation of. The EA has brought the chickens home to roost