Saturday 20 January 2018

It's A Dirty Job...


There is a barrage of crap across the local river, the EA and Local Trusts had been informed - and I believe even gone and had a look - but it's tucked away - out of sight, out of mind!


It has been like this since the summer and it’s only getting worse. So even though it's not a stretch James and I fish often it was time to do something about it - we had no idea what we'd let ourselves in for...


James drew the short straw and went in, I was happy enough to be helper. He passed whatever he could up - recycling & rubbish were bagged and logs were dragged out of reach of the floods.


The smell was horrific, we joked about finding a corpse - until James did! Someone's black & white pet rat, where else would you dispose of you beloved pet? Yeah - just chuck it in the river!


We then used a grappling hook to snag the big stuff - turns out I'm a dab hand at throwing a grappling hook - all those thousands of hours chucking a lure about have paid off.


I didn't get many photos of the clear up, it was bloody hard work, and if I’d dropped the camera in we’d never find it! Plus we hadn't allowed enough time and worked into dark...


I returned this morning to finish bagging the crap and to get some 'after' shots. A real sense of achievement and well worth the effort - I'm still secretly glad I haven’t got any waders though.


There are plenty of branches still touching the water to collect a new raft (good for the fish, especially chub) but hopefully not enough to clog up the whole river again. We'll keep an eye on it.


I did arrive a bit early and landed a couple of little barbel before hand - I thought I might fish after - but it was straight home for a shower, disinfectant and to burn my clothes!

12 comments:

  1. Aww, that was my favourite chub swim :oD

    Seriously, great work you guys, make sure you fly tip the bags carefully.

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    1. Perhaps an eel might be able to get under it, not much else. Yeah, we just chucked the bags in the river :-)

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  2. Nice one Brian and James, remind me where our taxes go again ? Great work.

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    1. I think James needs a medal for wading into that crap - and we both needed gloves!

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  3. Short straw indeed, but it needed to get done, it looks much better now and the environmental impact so that build up removed completely, why don't the powers that be do more about it, a crying shame!

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    1. Think the powers that be prefer to do stuff where they can be seen - but it’s great it’s done.

      Fair play going in there! We’ll try and remember gloves next time though...

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  4. well done men!know the feeling as i've done a few myself there.worth telling the trust and watchers as you never know where and when they'll do next.there's always the hope of finding valuable tackle,plus you get to find out depths-it's always deeper than it looks!

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    1. Cheers, we told the EA and the Trusts hoping they would do it for us :-) ah well. No treasure this time (two broken floats and half a rod) but it’s very satisfying looking at it afterwards.

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    2. ah,never mind.you'll be lucky to find bombs and feeders,but there's usually some plugs and floats,and always half a rod! i did find £39 in £1 coins once at a lea weir-someone was using it as a wishing well!

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    3. It’s always great to find a plug, and even better if you get a pike on it... Has happened a few times - a couple of times on the same day. And you can’t beat free money!!

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  5. the good news is,i don't fish for pike,so i'll hang on to any i find for you.

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    1. Brilliant, I will put them to good use - cheers

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