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See this months news below as well as links to previous articles.

The good news is that there will be no membership subscription increases for 2025.

The Constitution at Rule 7(d) requires the Committee to review the rates for the various types of membership, which depends on the general overall health of the Club’s membership numbers, as memberships provide the main source of income. Then a judgement has to be taken on the future. It also requires the Club to review its financial reserves to ‘mitigate the likelihood of financial difficulties arising in any twelve-month period.’  The Club’s Committee had an initial look at this issue in October and agreed to defer making a final decision until the new Government had delivered its first Budget. It was concluded at the December Committee that as there was nothing in the budget directly impacting on the Club, and as the membership levels were such that income was likely to lead to a small budget surplus, membership rates would not be changed.

Here are the main alterations to the current information and rules contained in the 2024 Membership Book which you need to know. Some are already in effect and the rest will be from 1 January 2025.

So, in no particular order:

Same water different name and some additional rules – Baileys will now be Oakwood Park. For many years the stretch of the river upstream of the Canford School boathouse has been known as Baileys, reflecting the family name of the landowners. However, the land next to the River and the fields to the south, fronting Oakley Lane have been sold by this Family to Cala Homes. The fields next to the river are to be retained as a large open space (a SANG) for the benefit of the new housing development on the higher land to the south. The housing development will be known as Oakwood Park. The Club has negotiated a new fishing rights agreement with Cala Management Ltd, which was signed at the beginning of December, and it is appropriate that this stretch of water now reflects the name of the new housing development.  It will thus appear in the 2025 Book under the name of Oakwood Park. As part of the agreement there are some new rules that arise directly from the fishing rights document wording and are:

• Do not obstruct the walkway/cycle path adjacent to the River’s bank in such a way as to prevent its reasonable use.

• No bivvies are to be used, and umbrellas may only be used in inclement weather conditions.

• Any dog brought to the water by a member must be properly supervised and under control at all times.

These rules are now in force.

Netherwood Mead has improved access arrangements. In the third week of July, I met with the new owners of the field at Netherwood Mead. The land has been bought to enable the exercising of the owners’ dogs, which are Leonbergers. I have met the dogs too, and they are not small.

A better second access for the Club’s anglers has been negotiated and this is now set out in the following way in the 2025 Membership Book:

• Walk around the single bar gate off the main road and along the track. Arriving at the field adjacent to the river, there is a strip on the northwest side about 4 metres wide where members can walk to the River (the substantial fences are to facilitate the owners using the land for dog exercise).

December 2024

The new access between the two fences straight to the river at Netherwood Mead

Members may still access the River frontage by walking under the bridge from the Merley Hall Farm land and through the first arch. However, the barbed wire along the Netherwood Mead field boundary has also been removed, so it is much easier to use this access too.

Trout lakes will be fished with barbless or micro-barbed hooks only on all lakes from January 2025 and there is a consequential change to the membership book 2025 at Rule 2 of Rules on Trout Lakes. This is a matter essentially of welfare and safety for humans, fish and wildfowl and was agreed by the Committee at its December meeting. This change was initially raised in a newsletter from the Club’s Game Secretary, Paul Baker, to trout fishing members. It got mixed reviews. However, it was also clear that many of the Club’s trout anglers already use barbless hooks, as they swap between catch and release waters and catch and keep.

However, some of the existing anglers were concerned that such a rule change was a first step towards catch and release on the trout lakes, where trout may still be taken. There is no intention to make Chapmans at Rawlsbury, or Winterborne Zelston catch and release only. There are a few browns in Winterborne Zelston and it is already requested that, if caught, these are returned.

I support barbless hooks for use on trout waters and my support reflects my own experiment about fifteen years ago, when I started fishing only barbless and, over a season, found no difference in my catch rates. When using really small hooks I find barbless to be a superior option, particularly if I tie flies on strong hooks, like those used for carp fishing.

I have hooked myself and I have also been hooked by one of my flies being used by another angler. I have also got fly hooks stuck in clothing, landing nets and bankside vegetation all, no problem, because of the use of barbless hooks. As the Club’s officer who spends more time on risk assessments than any other, it is a nonsense if the Club fails to recognise the potential for harm, when using barbed hooks.

Despite continuous requests from Paul Baker, Game Secretary, to use strong tippets there are regular reports of fish getting away, when tippet material has broken. There is a speed and strength to the trout, which the Club stocks, that continues to be underestimated by even the most experienced anglers from time to time.  Often it is due to the fish using weed to gain the advantage and there is lots of it! A fish swimming with a hook in its mouth deserves the opportunity to dislodge it and this is more likely to be achieved if the hook does not have a barb.

Please bend the barbs over if you want to fish and your favourite fly is dressed on a barbed hook.

From a wider public-facing perspective this change brings the Game Section into line with the rest of the Club’s coarse fishing too.

The River Crane at Edmondsham is a fly only water, and this has always been the understanding with the Estate. The Club’s rules for this water have been clarified by stating that this is the position. Do not forget you also need to contact the Game Secretary before fishing.

Longham Lakes – leave a copy of your membership page on the car dashboard.

Following one of our members having a problem, it has been suggested that to prove a member is there fishing a copy of the membership page of the member’s book should be left in plain sight on the dashboard.

The EA Water Situation report for November 2024 advises:

‘The 12-month cumulative totals show that many catchments are classed as having received exceptionally high rainfall for England as a whole; the December 2023 to November 2024 period is the fifth wettest since records began in 1871.’ In the south-west from December 2022 to November 2024, eighteen of the 26 months showed above average rainfall, with spring 2024 being particularly wet. The flow in the River Stour during this period was 191% of the long-term average and the Rivers Avon and Frome were higher.

For November 2024, in the south-west ten sites in the Wessex area showed river flows to be ‘notably high.’ This in turn is a reflection, in part, that there is practically no soil moisture deficit anywhere and the aquifer is full. In short everything is soggy and, when we have an Atlantic depression bringing further rain, it runs straight off as the ground cannot absorb it.

The southwest received 139% of the long-term average rainfall between December 2023 and November 2024. That was 1417 mms.

For the Club in the last year it has meant that bankside vegetation has never stopped growing. Grass has grown all the time, and the ground has often been too soft to allow the use of machinery. The mild, moist, conditions have particularly suited the growth of some plants that would otherwise have stopped, such as those in the rain shadow of trees and hedges which normally suffer.

The Pinnock Lakes at Edmondsham suffered badly from an escape of horses from the adjacent heavy Horse Centre on Boxing Day 2023 and the Club had to wait until 25 May 2024 for the ground to be dry enough to be stable and get it cut and rolled. It meant anglers had to be careful at the start of the season walking around these lakes, due to the deep hoofprints and mud where the horses had galloped back and forth.  The further rains meant that the Club had to defer some wet dredging of Julia’s to 2025. At some time the west bank will dry out sufficiently to get large machinery on it.

Water weed grew at a fast rate in all our waters. The classic example was at Rawlsbury where the Canadian pondweed, aided by some blanket weed, was almost out of control in the two bottom lakes. The runoff from the field into Chapmans left a bright green blanket weed bloom along that edge of the lake in the early part of the year, even though this field had not been treated with fertilizer for a number of seasons.

Unfortunately, the remedial work to the silt pond immediately upstream of this lake was not completed until October so silt continued to arrive borne by the heavy upstream flows, as the valley above continued to be very wet. However, in this wet year, the good news is that our landlord got the work done and if Chapman’s can be dredged, sometime in late summer 2025 then it will be restored to its former glory. That is the plan.

Of course, there were some significant advantages to the amount of rain we had. The most significant was the way in which fishing for trout took place all through the summer at Winterborne Zelston. The banks of this lake are like a sieve and as the water level drops in the aquifer, the springs that feed it cease to run, and the water level drops away. By late June or early July fishing, in previous years, got really difficult as the rampant water weed filled the ever smaller volume of water. Then the water quality starts to suffer as it heats up. Generally, the last stocking for the year has been in the first part of May. But for the first time I can remember stocking took place regularly through the summer, and the water continued to flow over the weir cill, which governs the height of the lake until early August and even then did not drop as would have been expected based on past experience. By deduction, the aquifer still had good reserves in it and the lake continued to benefit from rainfall. The water levels rose again after six weeks coming over the weir by the first week of October.

In the May newsletter I mentioned that with warmer weather fishermen needed to be on the look out for algal blooms that could kill fish. However, the rain kept coming to flush through our waters and the summer did not really, ever arrive. So, the threat from algal blooms receded.

As you know the Club is part of a public science initiative being organised by the Angling Trust to monitor the Country’s rivers. The large volumes of rainwater did not seem to make a great deal of difference to the dilution of nitrates and other key pollutants, and the water was dirtier  about 70 metres downstream of Wimborne Sewage Treatment works.  The Club has just made a donation to Wildfish. Despite the Labour Party understanding the problems with rivers, the new Government has not withdrawn the appeal on the initial findings of a judicial review that found that the EA’s plans to restore rivers, based on the particular situation of the Pickering Fishery Association and the pollution of the spring-fed Costa Beck in Yorkshire were too generalist and thus inadequate.

Rolling the bank adjacent to Medley’s lake at Pinnock Edmondsham 25 May 2024.

This autumn the R. Stour was in flood early due to ‘named’ storms. (photo from P Houghton).

This watercourse is “failing” under its Water Framework Directive designation and the Court of Appeal will now potentially hopefully provide a groundbreaking decision about what EA plans should look like within a few months. It should mean clear plans with real targets to improve rivers nationwide.

The future rainfall forecast for the net few months remains uncertain, but higher rainfall seems to be something which seems quite likely to be a major component in British weather due to global warming

If you go on to the Club’s website and scroll down through the menu, you will find the list of ‘pages’ and the one immediately above ‘Contact’ is ‘Cormorant Watch.’ (Please see below).

If you are out on our waters and see a cormorant(s) it is an immense help if you can go to this page on the website and record the requested information. If you complete the form and submit it, I will get these details via the Secretary’s email address and add it to the evidence I need to send to Natural England, when I submit the Club’s licence to deter and if necessary shoot these birds that are otherwise protected.

- Please go to this page and report your sighting

Photo courtesy of Brian Heap

If you own a 12 bore and would like to shoot, normally on winter mornings just after dawn, at Edmondsham, Kingsbridge or Winterborne Zelston please let me know. I may be able to put you on the Club’s licence in due course.

At the AGM I asked for members to step forward to help with the running of the Club. The Club would benefit from additional help and there is always room for fresh ideas. The Committee would like to strengthen our team and the particular skill sets we see as being useful are those who already work with children and then office skills; after all, whilst the Club is a not-for-profit organisation it only works if the volunteers run it efficiently!

My priority is to find somebody who can help Jan, our Treasurer, who is not able to get to the Committee regularly. Whilst Jan is happy to continue updating the spreadsheets upon which her reports to the Committee and forward planning are based, it would be a great help to her, and me, to have somebody at the Committee who can report to Jan about the debates with special attention on the finance side of things, and of course raise financial issues of relevance in the Committee. Having a two-person finance team will also make the management of the Club more robust too. So, if you can manage spreadsheets and would like to help as Jan’s eyes and ears in Committee please email the Club Secretary or telephone me for a preliminary discussion.

The Committee has recently co-opted Greg Steele and he will be standing for election at the AGM which will be on Tuesday the 25th March 2025 – please put the date in your diaries and come along to the British Legion at 19.30. [The annual Game Section meeting will be two weeks earlier on the 11th at the same venue and starting at the same time]

The Environment Agency (EA) runs the National Fish Farm at Calverton, which is north of that large built-up area based around Nottingham, Sherwood, Bestwood and Mapperley. It is paid for out of rod licence monies and enables fish to be bred and reared up to about eighteen months old to be used to help re-populate rivers and lakes affected by pollution or predation.  Angling Clubs, known to the EA local offices, are also contacted to see if additional fish are needed for any waters. Requests are submitted from all over the country and assessed against the fish that are available. Iain Scott your Vice-Chairman submitted a request in the summer, on behalf of the Club, and of course it is one of those things you are then inclined to forget about.

So, imagine my surprise to find the Club was going to get some fish. In the first week of December, Brian Heap, Martin Dunn and I rendezvoused with the stocking truck at the smaller of the two Creekmoor ponds and made 500 new tench welcome. As far as we know there has never been a tench population in this pond, and it has now got the potential to become a tinca water in a few years’ time.

A week later Martin and I met a truck from Calverton at Edmondsham and stocked Julia’s with bream, tench, rudd and roach. They were lovely young fish, and it is hoped they will do their part in continuing to make this estate lake an attractive place to fish.

In 2026 it will be the 75th anniversary of the Club coming into existence. If you have an idea about how the Club should mark this anniversary please let the Club Secretary know.

Have a great 2025

Mike Hirsh

ANGLING TRUST  -  SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN ANGLING

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