River Irwell Old Course Match Aug 2011

Salford Friendly Anglers Society are in the process of being granted the lease for the River Irwell Old Course in Irlam. Once a loop of the main river, now a still water after being chopped off by the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal.
This water suffered a terrible pollution incident in July 2008 when raw sewage backed up from a drain and overflowed into the Old Course killing thousands of quality tench, bream, carp and silver fish.
As a consequence the controlling club, Boathouse Anglers lost the majority of its members and no longer controls the water. However - there are a few chinks of light - and local kids have started catching silvers on a regular basis, some big eels have been caught, and pleasure nets to over 10lbs have been reported.

Salford Friendly Anglers Society decided to hold a fund raising match on August Bank Holdiay Monday and we cleared out about 10 overgrown pegs a couple of days beforehand - together with the already accessible ones to give us a total of about 20 fishable pegs.
16 of us turned up this morning.
I drew peg 33 at the deeper end of the lake and had a little roach on single pinkie first put in on the 6m line. A few more followed and after about an hour i had a dozen fish in the net and was well out in front of the others. Sadly there was another 3 and a half hours to go where i didnt get another bite.

The Boathouse Pub

My 12 fish for 8oz!

Most people caught, though the weights were low. Ken was the clear winner with 1lb13oz of roach on punch bread. In second was Chris Carr with an eel of 1lb3oz, then in 3rd Paul Carr with 1lb 2oz of little roach.
Not big weights, but people caught along the entire length of the venue.

The landlord of the Boathouse pub very kindly made a donation to the stocking fund and provided chips and sausage butties back in the pub after the match - many thanks.

Despite the low weights - most had a thoroughly enjoyable day - which we hope to repeat on Saturday the 1st October. Your welcome to join us.

Peg Clearing For The Match 29th Aug

We've been out this morning in torrential rain clearing 20+ swims for Bank Holiday Mondays fishing match.
Many thanks to Bob, Pete, Matthew and Bob for their time and hard work.
Nettles strimmed, weeds raked, lilys cleared, branches lopped, and pegs cleared.
Recent catch reports show good nets of silver fish being caught so hopefully everyone who turns up for Mondays match will catch.

The EA have promised us a large sum of money towards this water - towards the renewal of fishing pegs and providing disabled access - on the proviso that the council grant us the lease. We've been banging on Salford Councils door now for nearly 6 months regarding leases - and have yet not made much headway. If significant progress in not made by mid September we will  be asking all members to write to the appropriate councilors.

Fishing Match - 29th August 2011

Were holding a fishing match on the River Irwell Old Course in Irlam on bank holiday monday. (its a still water).
Draw 9am. All in 10am fish til 3pm.
Cost £10.

Limited pegs please book on in advance via admin@salfordfriendlyanglers.co.uk

The Society are thinking about taking this water on, so this match is being held to help us find out a little about the water and the level of fish stocks. We know it was polluted in 2008, but there have been good catches of silver fish taken recently - plus some really BIG eels.

Salford Friendly Anglers Monitoring Initiative

Saturday the 23rd July was the first training day for our new Anglers Monitoring Initiative (AMI) on the River Irwell . 12 of us took part - and we had a great day.
What is an Anglers Monitoring Initiative?
An AMI is an initiative which is spearheaded by The Riverfly Partnership where anglers form a co-ordinated group to collect invertebrate samples from the river and use the data collected to monitor and thereby help conserve the river environment.
Anglers as "guardians of the river environment" are in an ideal position to monitor the health of the river we fish - especially on a river such as the Irwell which is disregarded by many locals as a leisure facility.
Whats Involved?
We have identified a number of strategically important sites along the river and we will monitor insect and invertebrate numbers on a monthly basis at these points to form an overall picture of the rivers health. Each sample takes about half an hour to collect so we have recently trained 12 of our members to carry out these samples on a training day held up at Burrs Country Park - training provided by Louis Kitchen from the Riverfly Partnership.


Our data is being collected by members of the Salford Friendly Anglers Society, but is then being utilised as part of ongoing research by Dr Adam Moolna of Manchester University and also by the Environment Agency.
What do invertebrates tell us about the river?
In a healthy river most of the pollution sensitive invertebrates should be present. Declines in water quality are reflected in the declines in abundance and numbers of different invertebrates present as some are more pollution tolerant/intolerant than others. Monitoring on a monthly basis provides seasonal baseline data from which severe changes in water quality can be easily identified.
What happens if there is a decline in water quality?
All of our monitoring sites are registered with the Environment Agency, and the EA set trigger levels in the numbers of invertebrate populations which indicate severe decreases in water quality. Our AMI has been given a call in procedure which will allow early action to be taken by the EA should set trigger levels be reached.
What will the monitoring achieve?
This AMI on the Irwell, used alongside data collected by the EA will ensure that the biological water quality is checked more frequently and widely, and that action is taken at the earliest opportunity should any severe declines in water quality be detected. Evidence collected by the EA suggest that increased monitoring activity provides a deterrent to unlawful polluters.

The data collected by the Salford Friendly Anglers AMI is being collected and co-ordinated by Dr Adam Moolna of Manchester University. The University intend to use the data we collect to assist the project work of a number of PHD students who also will be conducting chemical analysis of the river water.

We hope to expand the number of sites we monitor across the whole catchment area over the coming 12 months - and will be holding a second training day at the beginning of October. If you're interested in taking part in this initiative please contact us at admin@salfordfriendlyanglers.co.uk and book yourself a place. We already have people interested in sampling the Bolton rivers, the Roch, Irk and Medlock but would love to expand the numbers of sample points on all the Irwell basin rivers.

Taking a kick sample

Counting ther bugs we find
Sore heads but smiling

Some of the bugs are amazing when viewed at high magnification.

Everyones a winner

Sampling will take up half an hour of your time on the first weekend of each month - we provide the training and kit - so come and join us.

River Irwell Anglers Monitoring Initiative

I'm very pleased to tell you that our application for a lottery grant to fund an Anglers Monitoring Initiative on the River Irwell has been successful.

We will be holding our first training day on Saturday the 23rd July - which is being organised by the Riverfly Partnership and Salford Friendly Anglers Society.

For those of you who've never heard of an Anglers Monitoring Initiative before:-

They are a a method by which anglers can monitor the biological health of the river. By setting up a programme of monthly testing of the buglife of the river at pre-designated sites we can establish what species of river bugs (pollution tolerant or intolerant) are found a each site, and the average numbers of key indicator species. We will use kick sampling the river bed to collect these bugs.

A high number of pollution intolerant bugs indicate a healthy river, a low number of intolerants and a high number of pollution tolerant bugs indicate that the river isn't as clean as it could be.

By building up monthly data about the insects which inhabit the River Irwell, we will build an independent picture of the health of our river, also be able to identify any pollution hotspots - and also to monitor the river on a long term basis to identify periodic pollution episodes and assist the Environment Agency in their long term restoration plans for the Irwell.

The initial group is going to be tutored by Louis Kitchen of the Riverfly Partnership, and Dr Adam Moolna of Manchester University has kindly volunteered his time to be group co-ordinator.

We will be running the first tutor group on the 23rd July 2011 at Burrs Country Park in Bury, and are looking to hold a second course (as numbers are limited to 12) in September - also at Burrs.

If you would like to join us and take part in the River Irwell Anglers Monitoring Initiative, please contact us via admin@salfordfriendlyanglers.co.uk or come to our meeting next Tuesday the 21st June 2011 at the Kings Arms Salford.

The cost of the course is over £300 per delegate including sampling equipment - but thanks to our national lottery grant - we can reduce this cost to only £25 per delegate. If you would like to take part - but cant afford £25 please let me know, and we will accommodate you.

We have intially identified 14 spots along the river where we would like to take regular samples (from Waterfoot - down the the City Centre).

Some of the chaps from Bolton Fly Tyers have very kindly offered to join us to sample the Bolton Rivers (Croal, Eagley and Bradshaw Brook), I think we have a couple of members interested in the Roch, Irk and Medlock - so between us all, we can get a very good set of data covering all of the North Manchester area.

Please join us - it will be a very worthwhile and rewarding project.

Action Irwell: Good News - Bad News

Action Irwell: Good News - Bad News: "Good news ! The River Irwell is currently the cleanest and healthiest its been for over 200 years. Bad news - There are still over 300 cons..."

Anaconda

Lower Broughton looked like this in 1968- back then as you can see in the photo, North West Water or whatever they were called at the time, did some pretty major flood defence work and created what we now call the Anaconda Cut.
Their only interest was in flood defence, and getting the water out of the Irwell system into the Ship Canal as quickly as possible - wildlife, and fishing just werent on the agenda in those days. No one could imagine the Irwell as anything other than a conduit for the removal of waste.
Fast forward to 2011, and the river in Lower Broughton is now the main spawning ground for the fish which live in the lower River Irwell and Manchester Ship Canal.

The steep flood defences and 5ft high sheet metal pilings aren't aestheticly pleasing but Salford Friendly Anglers Society in partnership with Vertical Vilages (the local residents association), Salford Council and the Environment Agency are actively exploring the possibility of installing fishing pegs along this section of river.

I bet the workmen and town planners from 1968 would be amazed at how the rivers changed since then.

Wouldnt it be fantastic if we could get them to install some river side habitat as well.

Good News!