Your integrity is beyond reproach, your casting, near trees..........

__________________
"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

www.monnow.org

After reading that bit of crass conceit, I am now convinced that they do need a rest and everything I've read since that bit of hubris, regarding huge numbers caught, just goes to consolidate that conviction. The river needs to be given some peace to settle back a bit, to a degree of peace nearer to what it was, before it was decided to market it. Carry on like this and stocking will be the order of the day.

No doubt in my mind, the Monnow needs a rest, needs to relax and needs some privacy again, for a while.

I did promise to publish the catch returns from the social:

Grayling 12
Wild Browns 212
Stocked Brown 106

on stocked beats:

wild 82 44%
stocked 106 56%
total 188

I am sure they would have been much higher but for the fact that one of the beats was denied the close attentions of a certain celebrity fishing pair. Apparently the designer camping boutiques of Abergavenny held more appeal for Fly Fishings most well known WAG, much to the disappointment of the assembled paparazzi who had lined the banks of the Monnow at Walterstone in anticipation.

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"A homeward tramp thro' mist wrapped night,
With heart and creel in common light,
Complete content, the day has brought it,
They fished for pleasure - and they caught it"

P F Morgan
taken from the catch record book at Llanthony Hotel, Honddu Valley, Aug 1942

www.monnowlogue.com
www.monnow.org.uk

Now then...
Cothi, the principle of giving a river "a rest" is an interesting one. Nobody, myself particularly, likes to turn up at the riverside feeling or knowing it has been caned recently. Firstly there is the feeling that the inhabitants will be the better for a break, and secondly there is the feeling that I might have a **** days fishing


This is probably the busiest time of the year, yet the evidence of my clubs catch book is of a river which has been lightly visited by anglers - maybe a three or fourover the space of a fortnight. I have fished the clubs waters three times this month, including one days guiding for the WTT Auction. I imagine Cranefly has managed similar. The social saw a few rods catching numbers of fish which represent a small fraction of the Kentchurch population. The majority of fisherman I encounter on the Monnow are thrilled if they catch five or six fish. People who manage double figures on a regular basis are few and far between. Mr D and CF's returns are polarised exceptions. ANother feature of this time of the year is that the fish will return to the feed very quickly after being caught - good from the fishermans point of view - but what effect on the trout? I wonder if the waters of SADAC, Wilton or other well known southern chalk streams receive similar attention?

The Upper Beats are different beasts. Longtown is newly onto the WUF passport scheme, and with the greatest respect, needs to be succesful in terms of attracting fishermen. However, the evidence of the fishing returns suggests that it is visited a couple of times a week at most, and that people are not catching huge numbers of fish there - not because they are not there, but because they are unfamiliar with the water or the appropriate way to fish it.

Pandy, where I love to fish, is also lightly visited. Last year saw only 22 visits all season - and half of those were me and Quicksilver That said, I was gutted to see that other members had clonked nearly a dozen takeable wild fish on the head.

The Honddu beats... well some of those are only recently opened up and are virtually virgin territory.

Whilst it would be easy to pop down to Kentchurch every night in May and fill my boots, I like the idea of water getting a rest and try to alternate my fishing around different beats and stretches in order to fish with some sense of responsiblity, and I believe that other regular rods do likewise. Selfishly, I want to fish regularly and nothing gives me more pleasure than fishign somewhere I know has hardly been touched, but realistically such experiences are rare.

The Monnow system is huge with plenty of water for all kinds of fisherman to enjoy, and if we fish it responsibly, we can also fish it regularly.

I would be interested to hear what you think constitutes overtly pressurised fishing, and how it should be managed?

__________________
"A homeward tramp thro' mist wrapped night,
With heart and creel in common light,
Complete content, the day has brought it,
They fished for pleasure - and they caught it"

P F Morgan
taken from the catch record book at Llanthony Hotel, Honddu Valley, Aug 1942

www.monnowlogue.com
www.monnow.org.uk

On the Tregate water in 2006 the largest number of angler visits on any one day was seven and this was at the height of the mayfly. TP, Madcaster and myself accounted for three of these and as we were fishing close together there were only another four anglers on over 3 miles of water.

We had 228 angler visits over 210 possible fishing days so call it one angler per day over 3 miles of water.

The average catch per angler/day was about 3.4 and although some anglers like Mr. D catch significant numbers, even so I don't feel that the pressure on the trout is excessive.

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Cothi,

Ignoring my ham fisted attempt at responding to TM's reference to the fishies getting no peace and quiet and concentrating on your opening question "Does the Monnow need a rest?"; The answer is no, in fact it needs to be fished more, much more. That is the only way that farmers will come to realise the value of their river and so maintain the improvements already carried out and treat it with the respect that it deserves. Rather than it being a forgotten asset treated indifferently at best or, at worst and by a few only, as a dump for rubbish and a sump for sheep dip.

The marketing was and is an essential requirement for the £1.1M Defra grant for the habitat works.

The river got peace before we started to market it because it had or was perceived to have so few fish in it.

The numbers of wild fish are rising again. The Monnow is a small step towards its former glory when not a fished was stocked or needed to be stocked. A time when catch and kill was the norm and catches of over 75 fish to one rod in a day were not uncommon. And that rod went out and did it again each day for the week that he was staying in the area.

The numbers of fish killed made no difference to viabilty of the fishery. The decline was due to poor water quality, the loss of habitat management due to the ending of coppicing and the intensification of sheep and arable farming.

Our challenge is to bring back the habitat managment and to encourage farmers to futher improve the water quality and that will be acheived by more people fishing the river.

Will there still be peace and quiet from the swish of rods in the Monnow valley? Yes, plenty. As you can see from Sewinbasher's and Tm's replies that cover club beats with memberships of 25 at Garway, 40 at Tregate and over 100 at Pandy the numbers fishing the river are tiny but their impact, in terms of funding of the habitat works, is great.

__________________
"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

www.monnow.org

I have now received serious and thoughtful answers to my simple yet important question.

Firstly, as I'm sure Sewinbasher realises, I was not addressing it to those associations that had been fishing the river for decades - that I would regard as having become the status quo that the river has adjusted to.

Secondly, when asking if the river needed a rest, I was not only referring to the fish but to the entire eco-system of the river - its flora, fauna and insect/invertebrate life. That was not addressed in the initial responses.

I feel that, following the melee of the "social" and a series of reports of huge catches and frequent angling, my question was moot. Its main purpose however was to induce those who are responsible for the recent surge of interest and activity in the river to pause and reflect on the merits of what they are doing and the pace at which it is happening. The original response I received from NoBrainfly highlighted the need to ask such a question.

It would appear that objective has been achieved. Good. Thank you.

Fortunately it is a no brainer. The fish and the eco-system on the Monnow are not under any pressure from anglers, in fact, on the contrary.

As to the pace that the river is being opened up and fished, I refer you to Tm's post. Longtown may only get fished a couple of times each week for three months of the year. I would estimate that only 50% of the fishable water on the Monnow is fished at all or by a very occasional rod.

__________________
"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

www.monnow.org

Glad to hear it but, as my old headmaster used to write, infuriatingly, as an addendum to my school reports:

"David must guard against complacency".

I did not realise you were so easy to infuriate. I must take more care, now that I know how sensitive you are.

__________________
"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

www.monnow.org