Guys, thanks for your feedback about the anti-virus issues: we're investigating them with our web hosts, although from our end there's nothing obvious at the moment... very strange!
Apologies while we get it straightened out: in the meantime, here's the text of our press release:
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Wandle’s returning salmon launch study by local anglers and Environment Agency
Fishermen from a South London angling club, the Wandle Piscators, will be helping the Environment Agency to monitor salmon and sea trout in the River Wandle during the 2010 salmon and sea trout season.
The Thames Region salmon and sea trout fishing season does not start officially until 1st April, and runs until 30th September.
But following accounts of migratory fish being captured in the Wandle in early 2009, Wandle Piscators coarse anglers who brave the winter weather are being asked to take scale samples of any sea trout or salmon that turn up accidentally in their catch, using special sampling kits provided by the Environment Agency.
The fish will then be carefully released to continue their journey, and hopefully spawn. When the scale samples are examined, scientists will be able to determine how old the fish are, how long they have spent at sea and in fresh water, how far they are able to swim up the river past weirs and other obstructions, and even (by DNA analysis) where they or their parental stock originated.
As part of this important monitoring project, the Wandle Piscators and the Environment Agency are also very keen to hear from other local coarse fishermen who accidentally catch out-of-season Wandle salmon or sea trout – and photographs and measurements of any fish caught would be very helpful.
During the Middle Ages, the River Wandle was as famous for its trout as the Thames was well-known for its salmon. As a tributary of the Thames, the Wandle is likely to have supported a population of salmon, and provided spawning areas for Thames fish, until weirs constructed for milling blocked their migratory route, and the Thames itself became too polluted.
Efforts have been made since 1979 to restore a self-sustaining population of salmon in the Thames, and many juvenile fish were stocked into Thames tributaries by the Thames Salmon Trust (now the Thames Rivers Restoration Trust).
In spring 2005 the Wandle Trust also stocked one of its Trout in the Classroom tanks with salmon eggs, and around 20 little salmon fry were released into the Wandle at Hackbridge in May 2005.
Despite a serious pollution incident in September 2007, the Wandle is recovering from its polluted industrial history, and is already a well-known mixed urban chalkstream fishery, with good numbers of chub, dace, roach, and barbel boosted by Environment Agency stockings every year. The Wandle is also a major stronghold for southern England’s declining population of eels.
If the Wandle Piscators are successful in catching salmon and sea trout, and collecting data, this will help local conservationists secure additional funding and make even more improvements to the River Wandle, as part of the 5-year “Living Wandle” project sponsored by Thames Water. In turn, this will directly benefit all species of fish in the river, as well as birds, animals and insects.
Local Environment Agency Fisheries Officer Tanya Houston commented:
“Reports of recent salmon and sea trout caught in the Wandle are very interesting. One of the photos that I was sent in early 2009 year looked just like a salmon kelt (a salmon which has already spawned). There is a very good chance that salmon and sea trout are using the Wandle: if we can show this to be true, it will be another fantastic sign of improvement. ”
Salmon and trout caught as a by-catch from coarse fishing are of interest to the Wandle Piscators and the Environment Agency, but anglers should not be deliberately targeting these fish until the salmon and trout close season ends on 31st March.
Notes to Editors:
1 - The River Wandle flows north from Croydon and Sutton to join the Thames at Wandsworth. It was once a famous trout fishery, but became so polluted during the 1960s and 1970s that it was officially classified as an open sewer.
2 - The Wandle Piscators are a mixed-species, mixed-method fishing club based on South London's River Wandle. Members of the club are committed to helping this historic urban chalkstream come back from centuries of pollution and abuse, running a nationally-acclaimed monthly Riverfly monitoring scheme, and helping London Wildlife Trust monitor mink rafts along the river ahead of planned water vole reintroductions in 2012. Members of the Wandle Piscators have been issued with scale sampling kits to issue to local anglers who may catch salmon or sea trout.
William Tall, the Wandle’s Riverfly Co-ordinator, was recently awarded the Thames River Restoration Trust’s new John S Hills Memorial Award for his work on this project.
For more information, please visit
Fishing London's River Wandle | The Wandle Piscators
3 – The Wandle Trust is a community environmental charity dedicated to restoring and maintaining the health and biodiversity of the River Wandle and its catchment.
The charity organises monthly community river cleanups, rotating through the boroughs of Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth. It also runs an annual educational Trout in the Classroom programme, helping more than 9,000 children reconnect with their local River Wandle every year.
For more information about the Wandle Trust and the “Living Wandle” river restoration partnership project, please visit
Reg. Charity No. 1091000 — The Wandle Trust
4 – Local anglers who catch salmon from the Wandle are asked to contact the Environment Agency on 0208 3054806 so that scales and vital details can be taken to help this important study. Photographs of any salmon, sea trout or large trout caught are also very helpful.
5 - For more information or to request a scale sampling kit, please contact William Tall on 07710 322 800 or the Environment Agency on 0208 3054806.
6 - Close seasons: the salmon and trout close season runs on rivers from 1st October to 31st March (inclusive), while the close season for coarse fish runs from 15th March to 15th June (inclusive).
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Are salmon and sea trout coming back to the Wandle?
Have salmon been spotted/caught as well as sea trout?
. Salmon have been filmed on both Dove and Derwent and we come before both so fingers crossed once the EA finish messing about at the Erewash/Trent confluence, putting things back as they were in the 1st place 
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