Carry on up the Nutt Brook

Earlier this week myself and Trugg (and his faithful hounds) took a walk alongside a potential spawning tributary of the Erewash; the Nutt Brook.

The Nutt brook flows above ground for about 1/4 mile before it disappears underground to reappear besides the derelict wastegrounds around the Stanton ironweeks. The brook has obviously been engineered by the hand of man in recent years, but withstanding this, has greatpotential as an area for trout to carve out their redds and spawn; in short an ideal nursery ground for the wild trout of the Erewash. There is a lot of work to do to achieve this, but this is achieveable.

Trugg has already asked for ideas on what we should do on a couple of obstructions in the brook. But it doesn't look too bad as is. I spotted a chub just upstream of the 2nd blockage Mick took a photograph of. Typically I soon as I mentioned the chub to Mick, it hid under some debris and Mick couldn't see it at all!

Whilst walking the brook some rises where also spotted, where these the rises of trout?

Rumours have been heard of trout from the Nutt brook, but as yet these rumours have yet to be confirmed. Do any of you have photos that could prove the existance of trout in the Nutt brook, or even the Erewash?

There is more to come from the Erewash Restoration project, watch this blog, exciting times are ahead!

WTT Visit - August 19th 2008

The project was recently visited on the 19th of August by Tim Jacklin and Paul Gaskell of the Wild Trout Trust for advisory visit. Mick and Del of the project accompanied them along the project's stretch of the Erewash and Nutt brook.

The WTT report can be viewed at:

http://www.wildtrout.org/images/PDFs/AV2008/erewash2008.pdf

The report is very encouraging, and as the conclusions states:

1.0 Conclusion
This section of the River Erewash has habitat which is capable of supporting adult trout. Their absence is probably because of the following factors:
· intermittent water quality problems (as described in section 2.0)
· limited trout spawning habitat in the form of suitable gravel riffles because of the low gradient of the river, past river engineering works, and the flashy runoff regime
If trout populations could be found within the wider catchment and actions targeted at improving and extending these populations, then it may be possible to return wild trout to this section of the Erewash.

In short, with the projects's continued hard work and efforts the Erewash once again will be a river with it's own self sustaining wild trout population.

River Erewash Flood video

Whilst surfing through the net I came across a short video on You Tube featuring a flooded River Erewash, I can only presume it was filmed on the upper reaches near Pinxton, unless of course you know better!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM2eUeSw-7o

The upper reaches of the Erewash

Jonnyboy from the Flyfishing forum visited the upper reaches of the Erewash this weekend.

A location near Jacksdale was visited, the river here looks fabulous averaging between 6 and 8 foot in width. The gravel bottom looks sparkling, possible area for spawning trout to make their redds.

The plant growth along the margins looks healthy, apart from the Himalayan Balsam, although this will be trimmed on work parties on the project's stretch.

Chub and perch were spotted in this stretch, along with what looked like a sizeable rudd!

A second location was visited between Ilkeston and Cotmanhay. The river here is made up of shallow gravel runs, and deeper pools.

Water voles have been spotted here swimming across the river, this will ceratinly be of interest to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust who are supporting the project in many ways.

Sunday 3rd August

On Sunday 3rd August a fish-in was held on our stretch of the Erewash pending the Wild Trout Trust visit later on in the month. Members turned up armed with fly and coarse fishing tackle. The group's stretch was walked, the hard work done by Mick and others was evident. Where once the river was full of rubbish, there was now prolific plant growth, clean gravel and more importantly fish. Pike, chub and roach were all seen.

I didn't catch any fish on the fly, but fish were caught on the humble maggot trotted by Mick. Fishing a swim near the sewage works, Mick caught a chub first cast followed quickly by more, roach were caught as well. Rumours are abounding locally of up 10 trout caught at a time during impromptu matches on the river, these as yet have not been substantiated by any firm evidence.

The Project has visitors!

Mr Warren Slaney recently visited the Erewash........

We’ve all done it. Driving down the motorway we see a bridge coming up in the distance. Perhaps it’s a river bridge…and a sign confirms its name. As you cross over it you sit up in your seat and flash glances while keeping your eyes on the road in front as your family rolls its eyes in unison. Between Junctions 25 and 26 on the M1on the border between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is a bridge, a sign and a river called the Erewash. The bit you we see as you speed past has been fitted into a straightjacket by the Civil Engineers but further upstream and down this little river now has friends. Dennis has very kindly offered to show me around and one Sunday morning in June we found ourselves walking down a busy road on the way to the river. Breaking left we are immediately in a flood plane with the river up in front defined as a twisting double row of willow, poplar and thorn. Steep banks and a meandering channel would have my Geography teacher ticking the lower river box and she would be right. This is a coarse fish zone and to confirm this my guide points out half a dozen chub who see us high up on the bank and turn their black tails downstream. What is interesting is that the group who now look after this river are all fly fishermen with a wish to one day see trout amongst the coarse fish. The gleaming beds of ranunculus are interspersed with ribbon weed and there isn’t too much algae so there is hope.Around the corner comes a thick set spaniel followed by a beagle followed by Mick. We shake hands and my questions pour out; I want to know more. Mick does his best to answer me by drawing on the hours, months and years of walking this stretch. If this group had titles Mick’s would be a do’er. He proudly explains what it used to be like, before all the hard work started and shows me the results of their labour. From what I gather the river here and there was blocked almost completely by urban rubbish in the form of barrels, pallets; well you name it. Now lets get one thing straight, this isn’t chalk stream but it does have advantages. The local EA, once they realised that these men were serious, came and tested the water because the top boundary is defined by a sewage farm. The local Wildlife Trust is on board and they are coming to see how they can help. When someone takes the trouble to do something quite often their enthusiasm is infectious.A female sanitary product hangs from a branch well up in a riverside tree telling me use the high water to dump the ‘rags’ they are paid and trusted to dispose of properly. I’m not allowed to muse for long as someone spots a pink pelvic fin that’s attached to a golden flank, with a forked tail and head with whiskers. Three more barbel hang below a submerged willow tree leading us to discuss large woody debris and cover. The group have control of a tributary and a piece of upper river with a history of trout so this could be a good mixed fishery to pay back the hard work dished out. One thing is for sure these men aren’t ‘fly-by-nights’ with a short term aim of piling in the stock browns, they want to do it right, to build from the bottom, up. They have the long term health of the river in mind. As we walk back to the car, under the M1 with its wonderful graffiti on the walls, it occurs to me that there must be a hundreds of miles of river like this with thousands of fishermen just waiting to get stuck in. The Erewash Restoration Project could be a blueprint for maximising the potential of any river, anywhere, rather than turned their backs and saying it can’t be done. No pressure Lads!One thing is for sure, if I was a small brown trout, a barbel, chub, perch or water vole I would be healthier and better off thanks to this group.

Photographs

If you have any photographs relevant to the Erewash and the project I would be interested in hearing from you. I am also interested in documentation from the past concerning the river and it's fisheries.