Yesterday a significant step was taken in the control of Japanese Knotweed in our catchment. The WUF spray team joined us to spray all the known stands along the Monnow and her tribs.

Last year and earlier this year we mapped the extent and spread of the big three, Himalayan Balsam (HB), Japanese Knotweed (JK) and Giant Hogweed (GH). We are lucky that, currently the latter two are relatively uncommon and in small localised areas so we were able to spray the GH this spring as well.

HB, however is out of control, for the moment, but our work spraying and hand pulling it on the Honddu has shown that it can be controlled in one season very effectively with a combination of spraying of large dense stands and handpulling of small light infestations with follow up pulling in the late summer and autumn, resulting in very few plants germinating in the following spring.

Our thanks go to the EA, Brecon Beacon National Park and Keep Wales Tidy and their teams of volunteers, who together with the MFA, the fishermen of the Monnow and the Wye and Usk Foundation have helped enormously to prove that it can be done!

Plans are afoot to tackle the HB problem in a much bigger way next year and make the Monnow a beacon for others to follow.

What we need you fishermen to do is report any JK or GH that you might see to me, Tigermoth, MrD or Quicksilver and, next year to continue pulling 50 HB plants a day.

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"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

Took a while to find this thread!

With the onset of winter, progress is being made with the MFA's Water Framework Directive Project to reduce silt in our catchment.

Farmer consents have been obtained for all the sites, European Protected Species surveys and assessments have been carried out, trees marked and felling licences on all bar one of the sites have been applied for and are on the public register.

If you want some more background then have a look at Projects page of our website MFA Projects

I will try to keep you up to date with progress.

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"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

The big freeze has been good for one thing only: before the snow came down we were able to sneak out and fell some trees and understorey hazel on a very sensitive site, on the Olchon whilst the ground was frozen and before the daffodils were foolhardy enough to poke their tips out of the ground.

An early start but the main work, to reduce siltation of; soft revements, silt traps and coppicing and fencing begins next week.

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"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

Crane fly what are you using for the silt traps, and how do these work!

We are using/working on several.

The best thing is to stop silt getting into the river in the first place. Coppicing and fencing creates a buffer strip, which slows the run off and allows the silt to drop out but what I was talking about, above was a log silt trap created on a bank, where the water runs off a sloping stone and mud track. It would otherwise just run off the track, down the bare river bank into the river. Logs are used to effectively create a dam, this one happens to be along a fence line, which will be beefed up and have chicken wire added to it so that it will trap leaves and debris and silt once the original log dam is full. The other part is to coppice the overstorey so that the bare banks and trapped silt can recolonise with grass and slow the run off further.

In stream we have installed a few small log dams on small spawning streams to back the water up and allow the silt to drop out before it can get to the spawning gravels. Sedgeking suggested this simple idea.

Soft revements, hazel, willow, thorn and other trees layed into river not only provide cover for trout and habitat for insects they also trap silt, as do well clothed river banks.

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"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

Well put and congratulations on a great thread, bang on the money for me at the moment.

Mick

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"I will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men"
http://derbyshireonthefly.blogspot.com/

CF and I spent another hard and wet day clearing the new passport beats today. A lot of the "offending" branches were laid in to the side of the streams not only to protect the banks and discourage erosion but also to provide great cover for adult and, more importantly, juvenile trout.

We can now officially report that the new beats on the Olchon Brook, Upper Escley and Upper Longtown (Monnow) are dreadful - don't look at all trouty - rather shallow, muddy ditches - generally not worth wasting your time on fishing this year.
So, you'll all have to find somewhere else - sorry for raising your hopes.

P

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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.

Patrick

What a team you and Denny are ......you just shouldn't be let loose!
Is this your idea of habitat creation....beat creation...by driving the fish from one river..... to populate another.....certainly a concept of a new stocking policy.

Ever thought of daming the river somehow..make it more ...stillwater....and so they cant get away from the anglers?




Thanks for the tip of where NOT to fish anyhow

Seriously...well done it sounds fine work thats going on and I'm sure the benfits will be reaped.

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Two things to have in life - A good bed and a good pair of boots -and if you aren't in one you should be in t'other

Does this mean that these beats will now be withdrawn from the WUF passport scheme or will they continue to sell tickets for rubbish fishing as they do elsewhere?

woosh!

What was that?

Dunno but it was way over my head.

Glad you're finally able to inject some humour into your critique, Geoff. It's so terribly tiresome when you're so serious all the time.

Thanks for your continued support.

P
Patrick Lloyd
Monnowphile and Supporter of the WUF Passport Scheme

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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.