We took a weir out of the Leek & District section of the Dove today.

I thought I would post it as a separate thread as many of you maybe interested.

It took a lot of work both in backs and politics - this is a triple SSI site, owned by the National Trust.

So thank you very much to everyone who helped today.

Anyway - as it started:



By lunchtime:



Behind the weir the effect was dramatic:






Now looking upstream:





Closer in:





Round the corner from the tree on the right above:





And looking upstream from there - so around 100 -150 yrds or more from the weir:





And best of all about 70 yards from the weir - the river gave us this - makes a trout horny just looking at it (you can see it in the pictures above).



Anyway - thanks again to those that helped - I'll post the science when I have it.

Alex

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"The quarry is not the point of the chase, but merely its pretext, and the chase, purportedly a means to an end, is actually the end itself."Pascal 1961

Hi Alex
This is a fantastic post. I really hope that your work opens a few eyes amongst the NT and a few ears amongst the hard to reach. Just look at the dynamic of that stream now... absolutely fabulous. I can really appreciate how much of an effort - particularly politically - it will have been to enable this. Watch out for the diversity of fly life increasing and also the holding spots for a wider age range of fish. It looks fab... congrats to you and your associates.
bfn
Dave

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Alex,

It's going to be really interesting to see the results from this. One thing that's concerning me, what happened to the fours guys in the first photo? You don't see them again, they didn't get washed away did they

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Fantastic work and a truly enviable result! Well done all!

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Blog: Fly Fishing in South Wales

Just to add my congratulations, a nice piece of work.

I'd also like to point out that the NT for the most part aren't the bad guys when it comes to fisheries. They have some really good stocking and access policies to their waters and I'm lucky enough to have been looking at a few habitat projects with them. What there is, however, is a number of rural surveyors (land agents) who don't understand the ecology and mechanics of rivers and just see the value of something in pounds and pence.

On top of this, there is the issue of the NT having to be whiter than white (squeaky clean) when it comes to doing things in SSSI's, every single hoop has to be jumped through, every I dotted and T crossed. When you're already managing an estate where every penny counts, and every member of the team is stretched and someone comes along and says 'we'd like to remove the wier' there will be collective groans, even from those who can see the reason for doing so. The lesson from the inside, is that if you want to do something with a busy NT property offer as much assistance in the planning and delivery stages as you can, it'll open doors for things to happen.

We're very lucky in todays fishing environment as our aims, for the most part, seem to align with conservation aims and it's making your local NT team see this that is a good place to start.

Malcolm

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Very impressed, - the strange thing is they're still building weirs across rivers in Wales to power mini hydro electric generators.

I hope to show similar pictures illustrating the effects of the removal of this one - built in 2008 across river in a Special area of Conservation with the blessing of the Environment Agency - in the near future.






It transpires that this one was built without planning permission so fingers crossed!

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Musha rig um du rum da

Are those Gabion baskets installed to produce a head for a mini-hydro?

---------- Post added at 10:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:42 AM ----------

Read Viktor Schauberger to understand the true effects of impounded water.

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Fantastic stuff Alex. I'm sorry I wasn't available to help out, the first to come out of many at Dovedale I hope.

Roger

Indeed they are Warren - further pics here

I've been reading papers by Butterworth to get an idea of the effects of impoundments, all rather bad I'm afraid.
If you like I'll forward them through to you.

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Musha rig um du rum da

Alex

I would be very interested to see what your observations are over the next year.

There are many similar small weirs on the upper section of the Derbyshire Wye. The Wild Trout Trust AV described the adverse effects of impoundment, and promoted alternatives
Andrew