Hi, this Saturday Paul Gaskell and Tim Jacklin of the Wild Trout Trust and members of Disley & New Mills AC will be b****ck deep in water building a bank revetment on the River Goyt, in the High Peak area of Derbyshire.

hague bar, new mills - Google Maps

Do you fancy giving us a hand? A desire to help a Trout and Grayling habitat, a pair of waders, some gardening gloves, and a packed lunch are all that you need!

Please drop me or 'Paul G' a PM.

Ta, Andrew

Hi all, there's always a lot of good talking done on the forum about saving our rivers for the future.

Well now's your chance to learn some ways to do it on your own river. If you live within an hour or two of the Peak District (New Mills in this case) then do come along and get trained - whilst helping do some good for the wild trout and grayling of the River Goyt.

March to June this year saw a series of teleconference and on site meetings and submission of project designs/specifications from Tim and myself for another series of habitat improvement works to follow on from initial trial works done in 2008 (as well as aquisition of the necessary consents from E.A. and landowners).

Monday saw Tim, myself, ennio, E.A. biodiversity and three different sets of landowners choosing suitable trees for introduction into the river to improve habitat for juvenile fish - as well as provide refuge from cormorant and goosander.

Yesterday saw first stage in practical works with tree felling for logs (walked downstream over riffles and pools into position for use on Saturday - sweaty work!). Tree "kickers" were also installed to complement/replace those put in two years ago.

Tidying the stump to allow rainwater to drain freely and prevent rotting of the root wad (promotes coppice regrowth)


Petrol wood auger used to drill stump and felled trunk


Threading 12-mm diameter steel cable through trunk...


...and stump


Cable crimps...


Used on overlapped sections of cable to secure


Pairs of crimps used as failsafe


Caution, you are approaching Tim Jacklin


Today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) ennio and WTT bods will be hand-loading/unloading flat bed trailerloads of brashings from a Forrestry Commission plantation and shipping it to site along with the fixtures, fittings and equipment for log and brash revetment work. That is what 3 people have managed so far...

Saturday is your chance to put your gardening gloves where your mouth is (so to speak) - as we're not asking for cash sponsorship; this is wet wellied, hands on contributions. In return, you'll get experience/training/questions and answers about how best to improve and manage your own streams and rivers. We'll see you there from 9:30 onwards (map above in ennio's post).

PG

bloody great work boys, am in n.ireland so sad to miss this best of luck!!!

PS, it doesn't matter if you can stay for one hour or for 7 hours; it all helps. Also, for those not up to wielding a sledge hammer there are fiddly fencing wiring jobs and brash bundle making (quite woodland handy-crafty really) as well as moral support and refreshment runs to take care of.

Jobs for all capabilities will be offered.


If you are fishing your own waters on Saturday; why not do an hour or two with us and then go off with your rod feeling vastly more virtuous than your fellow anglers that you may bump into on the bank (and you have my permission to look down on any of them). Alternatively, perhaps land a fish or two and then come along at lunchtime.

If you've time to fish you've time to fool about and get muddy on the Goyt for an hour.

Thanks for the plug Paul
Andrew

Make that four of us!


Kurt.

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http://koolkurt76.blogspot.com/

Nice one Kurt. I'll be on site tomorrow and Sat.

sorry not to be able to make it - good luck and good work
You might consider pulling some of that balsam while you're there though!!
P

__________________
Trout fishermen revere the trout; trout, on the other hand, unaware of their sublime standing in man's world, revere nothing, including man, a creature they seem to view with special contempt. Nihilism is a rare trait in fish but trout are full of it. The old men liked that.

Thankyou uncle Patrick, the Balsam had been noted you will be unsurprised to hear!!


Today we were promoting the formation of adult holding lies (scour holes) and mounds of spawning gravel (deposition of scoured material). We will have to wait for the next decent spates before the river completes our work for us though.

First reach


A good spot for a mini upstream "V" flow deflector


"You nod your head and I'll hit it"


Each 2-m length of rebar needs whacking a couple of hundred times to break through the cobbles - but they get there in the end (honest).


The locals approve another one we nailed in today




As well as the logs and "v"s promoting scour - there is also the option to sit up logs on low "legs" to provide overhead cover for trout. These are fixed roughly in line with the current


The near bank has a log pinned pointing upstream but pointing down a steeply sloping stream bed to exaggerate an existing pot (overhead log from previous photo is on the far side of the centre of the channel)



It seems that typing is something of a challenge after hitting rebar through rocky river beds all day so I'll go get a beer and a straw now I think!

Come down tomorrow and learn how to do this and also the log and brash revetments

PG

Also - if people are free on Sunday or the coming weeks, there are some more logs that we've cut and pre-drilled for introduction into the reach in the above photos. We've also left the rebar with the club for pinning these in place.

pm ennio to arrange helping getting those installed in the near future.

PG