The commonsense approach.

Those rumbles echo occasionally years later with a chance meeting in a grocery store, an encounter confined together queuing in a local service station, and more than a few times on the banks of the Brook itself, from an Ex-member walking his dogs, throwing sticks or balls where your fishing so the water ahead becomes alive with black labradors and suddenly bereft of Trout.

The accusations are never direct, addressed to a third person. “They ruined the fishing in that Brook you know, when they stopped stocking, all they catch now is a few little fish.”

But they know damn well they are addressing the very guy that instigated it and drove it through the meetings and eventually won the vote..

It would be easy and honest, and quite actually satisfyingly smug, to say in reply:-

“You know, back in those days an exceptionally good night was 4 trout, and the biggest fish was about 2 pounds. Now I alone, catch more than the entire club used to catch in a season of 500 visits. My biggest wild trout way over 3lb and wild, I average over a season usually 5 trout per visit and we are catching fish all though from the first to the last day of the season.!”, but I resist being gleefully smug and let them get it off their chests. They after all lost the fishing, while we gained it and some!

So I stick to the rules of engagement and neither agree or deny…..”Oh Aye”

There’s a Lancashire  technique to the delivery of the greeting or response of “Oh Aye” With subtle nuances of inflection, the meaning transformed to a myriad of interpretation, learnt and perfected  as a kid. 

In this case I veered away from sarcasm and pitched my inflection towards ambiguity, tinged with warm, slightly credulous undertones. However, to their ignorant southern ears they probably just heard a world weary grunt, and my linguistic master class was wasted on them like the Brook was.

Yearly, since they had joined the club, the members were used to fishing mostly for those few months after the stocking tank had trundled along the banks dropping a 1000 or so startled fish into various pools.

Of an evening catching a few one- or two-pound Browns or Rainbows that they could knock on the head and take a few home for the family or neighbours. Which justified the time spent on the riverbank if needed. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t the Test or the Itchen. It was a muddy midlands Brook draining across farmers’ fields to the even more muddy looking Nene. But it was Fly fishing in a Trout stream in their minds.

Most knew by mid-July it was hopeless. In fact, the members used to meet up for an evening or two at the nearby stillwater lake to eke out a few more fishing trips when the Brook went inevitably dead for trout fishing.

In those days, it was mostly fishing off the banks in stout boots or wellingtons, with typically 9-foot long rod and long handle landing nets to get them safely over the vegetation, with either traditional wets, nymphs or dry flies. It mattered not what so much what fly was used, as knowing where those ‘stockies’ were still surviving, uncaught for a few more weeks.  

At Willowbrook, where the alterative Trout fishing surrounding us for 40 or 50 miles is all Stillwater put and take lakes, this method adopted of Fishing the Brook, was more typical of the kind of fishing done on those waters, with that equipment adapted to meet these needs. And thus, thankfully, the Trout stocked predominantly into areas of Brook where that approach was easiest to employ.

The tail was wagging the dog!

The Three upper beats: the Meadows, the Village and Conegar farm, all suited this fine. Few if any waded, and if any fish settled into any areas accessible only by a wade, under some low tunnel of branches, then these fish were hopscotched over in favour of the next open pool by those on dry fly, or else pulled out by the people using old wet fly patterns, dropped downstream.

Thankfully, the lowest beat the Nassington Road bridge was too overgrown with trees to be able to stand on the banks, and there were few pools to stock, so its sparkling clear waters were spared of the farmed fish.

Above the Packhorse Bridge (later called the Groins) was a canalised stretch of featureless; knee deep; and the banks too high to land or release fish, was also spared.

Above the Culvert bridge, a slow deep channel often choked with weeds, with no chance of landing fish, few ventured there then or still now…. (They don’t know what they are missing!).

And finally, the fragrantly named Sewage Works Beat, that divides these  six beats was mixed meander and pool sequences. Some fish were occasionally stocked down there and it was anticipated that stocked fish from higher up would drop downstream. An old Ash tree, named the Cormorant tree, marked its lower limit and was a testament to these common visitors when stocked fish were on the diet. Three of four were sometimes spotted drying off their wings after feasting on the fruit of the yearly membership subscription.

Habitat work in those days, was a yearly group tramp, pre-season, along those upper stocked beats, hacking back brambles and taking out low over hanging branches to expose more fishable water.

Members would wait patiently for the stocking truck to start the season, as nothing seemed to have survived over winter. Feast for a few months of fishing fun, then famine would inevitably follow and the evenings of blank catch returns set in.

Excuses were searched in stocking levels, the state of the stocked fish, weed growth, predators, poaching, weather, anything and everything..

Anything, but the idea that fish from hatcheries, grown up on pellets in overstocked ponds were maybe completely unsuitable for flourishing or even surviving in this type of water.

The fishing wasn’t great, it was what it was, and worth the yearly subscription when no other stream fishing existed, And how bad would it become if nothing was stocked?! Far better that devil you know...!

Willowbrook started stocking in the later part of the 1950’s when the Angling Times founded the club. Disguised in the paper as Maybrook, initially the aim to rid it of course species and introduce 300 small 9inch browns, in the hope that they would breed and establish a population in the Brook.

They didn’t establish. And each year they added more, experimenting with longer lengths, maybe thinking that larger fish would be more fecund, establish better, survive the rigours… who knows? Those men have since long passed on and the meeting records left behind are sketchy.

Willowbrook has a fine population of insects, a wide variety for trout. There were extensive samples done in the 50’s, (and subsequently over the decades). The records of those are immaculate and thorough.  The species noted, a broad church of upwings and caddis, alders, also rich in Gammarus shrimp; underappreciated Black fly ( similium); midge larvae, and much more.

It was both rich and diverse.

Actual numbers of insects in those days we are not sure of, though there is compelling evidence that it improved considerably for a variety of reasons.  

The obvious indicator species, the Mayfly Ephemera Vulgata was, when I joined the club, seen in the few dozens, soon hundreds, then thousands, now tens of thousands, of the large dark males are seen dancing up and down in clouds along the banksides.

A visiting entomologist from the Natural History Museum years later said he was staggered at the variety of insects he’d caught in an afternoon with his large billowing sweep net, wafting through the tall bankside vegetation..

However, a 12 inch Farmed brown trout that’s been grown in the free-for-all of a stock pond on pellets, is in my mind, less likely to manage to sustain that weight suddenly finding itself in a stream situation with flowing water, scarcer food, and no predator awareness.

Older members at the time, who made the decisions used to talk ‘Sagely’ of how it took the fish  “a few weeks to learn the way of the water and become wild”. I think at best it was wishful thinking,. If asked how they knew that? The answer always lead back to common sense.

Common sense is the basis of so many poor decisions when it comes to the laws of the natural world,

It’s little surprise that a nearly 100% failure rate to over-winter, never mind making it to breed. Year after year,  paying for 40,000 large stocked fish during the existence of this fishing club, with a tiny Brook to populate.

Deep inside her a female buds off the number of 1mm eggs and follicles in March for the later breeding season. A number of which is dictated by her size and condition. Mid way through a season the female stops putting the food energy purely into growth and weight, but then into the very energy expensive ripening of the tiny immature eggs in her body cavity. Over the second part of the season, building them with the yolk from food extracted from her blood circulation and from the fat stored in the gut wall. By the time she is ripe, 20% of her total weight is hundreds of 5-6mm eggs in her swollen cavity ready to chance they’re luck in the gravels and the fry habitat then waiting for them.

The females stocked in Willowbrook in May had already budded off the number of eggs she would mature that year when still in a stock pond fed on the pellets. By the time she found herself in the stream, she had a month, maybe two, left to gain weight and then put the energy into egg development, while probably expending too much energy on a food source, unable to sustain her condition..

Come the 1970s when a total of ten thousand stocked fish had been added in all to the stream in more modest numbers. The change to start adding Rainbow Trout, I guess, showed that they had finally given up on the breeding Brown Trout experiment. They realised a yearly stocking was essential to maintain or improve the fishery.  Would this species be more robust in the stream conditions, surviving the year and overwintering? It wasn’t!

So they chose the numbers game.

The search commenced to find the Goldilocks stocking level, and soon over a thousand or often more, expensive stocked fish being put in yearly. Trying various combinations of Brown and Rainbows. By doing one big stocking really spread widely around the stream, or spread over two stockings per year in selective areas. All based on this “common sense” from people who didn’t even keep goldfish.

The Annual General Meeting, held in a quiet room behind a pub, would be a nod to old British officialdom. And a quick read through of its agenda for the casual observer, could have looked like a meeting of anything from a Golf Club; the local allotment society: Rotary club; small-town council; even a branch of the local socialist workers collective intent on redistributing wealth, or if not that, then the annual village fete committee meeting.

An old-time honoured agenda of petty bureaucracy at its most dilute, was the common denominator of all the above. The right established way of running a meeting and managing a committee of ordinary folks. 

On one hand dogmatically adhered to with politburo strictness, precision, and occasional verbal brutality. The other hand, polite, a “discrete gentle charm of the bourgeoisie”. Usually depending upon who the chairman and secretary were managing the affair.

I guess the evening for our members actually starts at home with the apologies to the wife and partner that they were reluctantly going to ‘have’ go to the Annual meeting for the fishing Club, on this cold dark Thursday night, but they wouldn’t out be too long,

Apologies and shrugs that, “We’ll just get it over with, for another year”, a feigned reluctance to leave, and a race to the pub early for a quick pint before it all started, a natter about last season’s fishing, or that Mrs Thatcher and “the bloody miners”!. Then as the pint pots empty a sigh and a trudge into a little customised committee room to “Get it over with, for another year.” Steeled against ambivalence by that first long pint.

And so it runs;- 

The Chairmans welcome to all, the apologies received for those who couldn’t escape home duties, a list of shame of those who sent no apologies. Followed by some strange formality when all the executive officers stand down to be again proposed and then seconded and then voted back in for yet another year.

Oh, how they congregated did chuckled at these formalities! The beer was still leaving its aftertaste and glow and these old familiar customs were really, well rather jolly after all!

Then the secretary would announce or question, “Were there any matters arising from the previous year’s minutes (record) of the meeting”?  The empty mutterings politely prevented an embarrassing silence descending upon the room. There never were any ‘matters arising’!…. Though no one could remember anything on the minutes of the last meeting. But it had to be done it was expected.

Then the atmosphere under the cloud of the treasures report, shoulders sunk round the table, shuffling in the uncomfortable stackable chairs and a collective sigh was felt through those congregated.

Every-bloody-thing was about to be read out aloud on a list that had been printed and passed around and that nobody, but the treasurer cared in the least … the benefit of that last pint was unable to numb this, and the next pint was starting to feel a long way off. And at this rate downed a bit quicker when it finally arrived. ‘Grief there might only be time for a ‘Half’!’

The stress rose despite the fine balance of the funds and ample surplus…. Drink!

Finally the treasurer closed for another year. Then the race commenced through the meeting; Subscriptions; membership numbers; the waiting list; other pressing issues like Otters; Cormorants; Poaching; other gossip; all flowed swiftly passed like a Brook in flood, racing for those quiet waters lapping at last around the Bar. The meeting back on track, treasurers report long gone. Relief, maybe time for a relaxed second pint after all!

Then came the catch returns, which never sounded great especially when the next item on the agenda was stocking policy for the coming year.

And so, a group of men who lived in the country, with a collective understanding of some rural matters like; mowing lawns; ferreting; catching moles; hedge laying; pheasants; growing broad beans; got to decide on how many Trout would be stocked next year in the hope of increasing the catch return figures.

Someone would suggest an extra 300 on top of nearly a thousand would be the answer to finally achieve fly fishing nirvana, based on previous years disappointments with the 645/630 combination of rainbows to browns. And then this seasons 770/770 had failed to improve, that the way forward was actually increase rainbows to 825, keeping the same Brown numbers.

The proposer was whoever was most vocal and dogmatic, there was no research or fishery management advice sought or referred to. And, more important the prospect of the final guilt-free pint was again slipping away fast again with this discussion. Somebody quickly proposed the motion, a flurry of volunteers seconded the motion, and the fate of the Brook, the fishing and of a struggling wild population striving to get a foothold, was voted through for another year.

The same old shit happening, yet again!

The final bit of fun, a bit of excitement. The oldest member drew a name of the collected throng out of a hat and a cheap bottle of rubbish whisky was won.  

Though completely random it usually went to the chairman or the Secretary who was now regretting being such a skinflint earlier in the off-licence and wishing he’d bought a single malt for the raffle instead, as he was now stuck with this cheap poison. Muffles and murmurs of “good meeting” etc in a hurried shuffling exodus to the waiting barmaid and that longed for and very well-earned pint at last!

The room was empty, matters moved on, a status quo maintained to the satisfaction of nearly all with no feathers ruffled. Countryside commonsense had prevailed and next year would be the same as every other.

One at least left the room and avoided the self-congratulatory mood thronged now around the bar; He wondered if anyone else felt something obvious was amiss here. He had resisted bringing it up in the meeting room, fingers burnt before, unable to take on years of gathering complacency without compelling evidence, whatever was suggested would be quickly snuffed and the members would noddingly follow those vocal few leading the pack.

That season he had bought some old thigh waders in a car boot sale, and tired of the stocked fish after the initial few months of the season had moved downstream and now from the middle of the stream started exploring two lower beats and found them with his new purchase, completely accessible, and was quickly joined by a 7’ rod. The tree-lined Nassington road bridge section, with tunnels of low branches, the little cascades and dark pools, and glorious solitude. Every visit brought a new encounter with nature, Catching a trout became an incidental bonus. Some of the few trout caught were plump little fish just under a foot long.

Before the AGM he had mentioned this to the Secretary and some of the older members to see if others had found this in the past. He was told forcibly, with an air of authority, and in front of a group of other members, that, “No, there had never been any Trout breeding in the Brook….ever”. And either he was either obviously mistaken about the size of the fish or that maybe these fish had dropped downstream and shrunk.   This seemed commonsense to the throng gathered.

That humiliation informed the path ahead, he would not take them on as a group till he was sure of his ground and had answers prepared, but first he needed to find allies and sympathetic ears within the club and start seeking advice form other clubs and fishery managers, who had similar experiences.

During the next season two interesting things happened.

One , was that he no longer had Nassington Road Bridge beat to himself, a few less-ancient members who had overheard the conversation decided to try it for themselves, and see if he was right. Hoping to find a fishing experience more like the Trout stream fishing that they had imagined and hoped for when they joined the club.

Now away from the AGM they could talk about it unhurried on the bankside. The evidence seemed that it was likely fish were breeding, but their numbers supressed by the stocked fish, and that the fishery could be steered towards a wild population, native to the stream if possible. But on the evidence gleaned from research in America, Australia and Canada, this was not going to work if a thousand plus stock fish were to be put in just upstream yearly.

To be even discussed at the AGM needed some backing up and support. A lone voice didn’t stand a chance of getting a discussion started or any policy created to explore the option of bringing in professional advice. 

By the end of that season those few others were joined by an older doctor with a science background who made for a receptive ear and would go on to be chairman of the club in future, and one of his sons enthusiastic to move things forward. Another couple talked to at the upper beats seemed interested but could go either way at a meeting.

An AGM for this club of 30 members usually had 12-18 members show up,

There was 5 definite on side and 2 maybes. Enough backing to put a suggestion forward and be able to hold the floor long enough to discuss it and maybe force a vote.

The Chairman had the boast of having a Trout stream at the bottom of his garden, how much better that would sound if it would be a Wild Trout stream, he would be easily turned if necessary.

The second thing that happened that year was catching the perfectly marked tiny parr Trout, with a camera in my pocket, that evidence I knew instantly, could turn the fortunes of this Brook around. Had I known in that triumphant little moment of validation, quite how much effort I was taking on, how consuming it would be, and the wrangling with a petty officialdom, would I have lifted the lid off?!.

I am sure I’d have probably just smiled at the startled little Trout across my palm, and before gently slipping it back into the water, whispered to it  “Don’t worry about it little friend, this will be our secret”! 

All best to all out there.

WP