Piping the wildness back into the River Wissey

It might look like a great big pipeline - but it pipes wildness back into our landscape.

When I look around me, I see more than 100 people hanging on Charles Rangeley-Wilson's every word.

Officials, scientists and conservationists have gathered for an afternoon of talks and presentations about the recently-completed Wissey Fish Pass project.

Charles - better known as TV's Accidental Angler, fly fishing correspondent for The Field, author and passionate trout conservationist - is the keynote speaker. And what an incredible speech.

"If I'm bonkers about sea trout, I'm particularly bonkers about sea trout in Norfolk," he said.

"The very idea of sea trout in this flat, root and crop landscape is a strange one. The fact that sea trout run in these mazy, lowland rivers is endlessly surprising."

Norfolk boasts more chalk streams than Hampshire. We have the Little Ouse, the Babingley, the Heacham River, the Nar, the Wensum. But the queen of them all is the Wissey, a river beloved of pike anglers as well as sea trout hunters.

Yet like its neighbours which criss-cross the Fens through man-made banks and altered courses, there are sluices and all kinds of obstructions which block the way to the sea trout's spawning grounds in the Wissey's headwaters.

"It's amazing that the sea trout has been so resilient in the face of so much change, that a few make it back every year up the Wissey," said Charles, before he gave the new fish pass his eloquent stamp of approval.

"It might look like a great big pipeline, but it pipes wildness back into our landscape. May God bless this siphon and all who swim in her."

Earlier Toby Willison, Anglian regional director for the Environment Agency (right), explained how flood defences like sluices could inpact on fish like sea trout and eels.

"Some of these massive structures on our rivers form a barrier for fish and other aquatic species," he said.

Toby paid tribute to partners including Aquatic Control Engineering (ACE), who built the fish pass, and King's Lynn Angling Association, which controls fishing on the Cut-Off Channel, which the new pipeline connects to the Wissey.

"What the system will do is help the passage of fish, help their passage to spawning grounds, to nursery areas," he said. "I see no problem protecting the environment for its own sake.

"For many people, the environment is all about their enjoyment of it. Being able to see fish in our rivers, being able to catch fish in our rivers is part of their enjoyment. This great news for fish and I hope it will be great news for fishermen as well."

Over the last few months, several people have noted a sea-change in the EA. Most of its top fisheries staff were there today - Kye Jerrom, Paul Wilkanowski, Roger Hannford and Karen Twine - aka the Barbel Lady. When you speak to these people about our fisheries, you can hear the passion in their voices.

I wonder briefly why I'm the only pike angler there. For as the apex predator in our rivers and drains, the pike is as much of a baromoter species as the sea trout - one whose fortunes are just as closely linked to the health of our waters. 

Marjon Van Nieuwenhuyzen, director of ACE, gave a presentation outlining how her company had pioneered fish friendly slackers, elver passes, pumps and sluice gates.

Her company installed the strobe lights in the pumping basin at Welches Dam on the Old Bedford, along with an array of fish friendly features elsewhere including a fish flap in the tidal gate at the end of the River Stiffkey, in North Norfolk.

I have a feeling fishing's going to get to hear a lot more about ACE in the near future, as it provides the engineering know-how to do what anglers and conservationists have wanted to see for years.

Barry Bendall, regional director for the Rivers Trust, outlined some of the work undertaken by its staff and 15,000-strong army of volunteers around the country. While the movement to restore and safeguard our rivers is gaining pace, the powers-that-be are also putting their money where their mouth is.

Barry said government funding for catchment improvements had increased from £1.9m in 2009, to a £10m a year commitment for the next three years, via a catchment restoration fund.

A kingfisher flashed past the marquee where we adjourned for lunch. Rudd were topping in the river. Charles Rangeley-Wilson told me he's drawing up a catchment management plan for his favourite river, the Nar, as we compared notes on the ups and downs of our recent pike fishing. Something similar is planned for the Wissey, with Kelvin Allen, the chairman of King's Lynn Angling Association, the driving force.

In many ways, the future's looking good for both fish and anglers in the Fens. The Wissey Fish Pass will hopefully be the start of a long-overdue revamp of our river catchments. What it does is enable fish of all species to pass between the Cut-Off Channel, dug to relieve the system of excess water after the 1947 floods, and the Wissey.

Incredibly - for what's basically a Fen drain - the Cut-Off gets a small run of sea trout, which find their way in via the Relief Channel and its enormous tail sluice where it meets the tidal Ouse at Saddlebow, near King's Lynn.

But their path is blocked at Stoke Ferry by a sluice which remains closed except at times of high flood risk, along with young eels ascending the system. The new fish pass will enable both to complete their migration, along with bread and butter coarse fish species like roach.

I know of only two sea trout which have ever been caught in the Wissey or the Cut-Off - both of them by pike anglers. So will they become a viable target for our attentions in years to come..?

Charles Rangeley-Wilson admitted his pursuit of salmo trutta to date in Norfolk had not been as successful as some of his forays to further-flung corners of the world.

"You hear rumours about them," he said. "But I've seen even fewer and I've only caught one."

Click here for a bit more about the fish pass and some of the scientific work going on to survey fish movements in the Fens.

Off fishing, then off to write about fish

Off fishing for a couple of hours, then off to cover the official launch of the Wissey Fish Pass Project. I wonder how many of the media will turn up for what's a fairly ground-breaking, first of its kind in the country kind of announcement...?  

I have a feeling what's a fairly significant development for the Fens will struggle to make it onto the news agenda for both angling and mainstream media - mainly because it's in the middle of nowhere and mainly about fish.

Pipeline will help scientists study fish migration

A £400,000 pipeline between the Cut-Off Channel and the Wissey will help eels and sea trout move to and from their spawning grounds - and help scientists learn more about how these rare species and commoner varieties of coarse fish migrate around the Fens.

As well as connecting the two waterways, the hi-tech siphon is rigged with sensors which can tell when a fish which has been implanted with a special tag passes through it. As well as tracking devices, the pipeline also has infra-red cameras, allowing Environment Agency fishery officers to keep a watch on which species are using it.

The EA-funded project, paid for by efficiency savings within the agency, is the first of its kind in the country. Similar schemes are planned elsewhere, as the agency steps up its work to conserve rare species and monitor the health of our rivers.

"It's an all-species, all-singing and dancing fish pass," said Kye Jerrom, a fisheries technical specialist with the EA. "It's a massive project. It's such a significant site it needed something like this."

The pipeline (right...) was designed and built in Holland, before being shipped across to Stoke Ferry in sections. It has a series of baffles and pools inside, to ensure the flow remains negotiable for all species. It also has a special eel lane, which helps anguilla ascend on its way inland, where it spends its life before returning to the sea for the long journey to its far-flung spawning grounds. 

It also contains sensors which can detect PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tags. Around 150 fish have been caught and tagged as part of a special research project. The EA plans to tag a further 200 each year, to build up an ongoing picture of fish movements. So far roach, rudd, chub, tench, trout and eels have been tagged at Stoke.

Scientist Karen Twine, from the International Fisheries Institute at Hull University, is known as the Barbel Lady for her work radio-tracking barbel on the Great Ouse. The study showed that barbel in the river were not being predated by otters, but were declining because their spawning grounds were silting up.

Now she's shifted the focus of her research to the Fens, where she'll be keeping an eye on Eel 2, Trout 3, Roach 19 and other tagged fish, to monitor their movements as they travel from one part of the system to the other.

As well as the PIT tags, Karen said she'll be using acoustic tracking - along similar lines to her acclaimed barbel research - to learn more about what's going on in our rivers and drains. You can just about see the tiny tag in the picture.

While there are no plans to study pike at present, the PIT tags might just do so by default. For the gizmos should keep on working if Roach 19 happens to get eaten by one.

This is exciting, cutting edge stuff. Meet Kye and Karen and you can't fail to be impressed by their passion for their subject matter and their drive to advance our knowledge of how fish in our rivers and drains are faring.

There are hopes that similar siphons will be installed elsewhere - the next location which has been pencilled in is between the Ouse and the Relief Channel, at Denver. Maybe, just maybe, the future of our fisheries isn't quite as bleak as it's sometimes painted.

One thing's certain - we're going to find out a whole lot more about our bread and butter coarse fish, as well as rarities like eels and sea trout, over the next few years.