A new venture for the Association in 2007 has been our decision to begin a systematic programme of riverfly monitoring. The reason for this is twofold.  Firstly we can begin to build a much better understanding of the invertebrate life that exists in the river and what this can tell us about the health of the river and its capacity to hold wild fish.  Secondly we can offer information to members about the species present at different locations and seasons so that they can better match the artificials they use to the predominant prey species.

We can learn much more from these studies such as whether the conservation measures we are taking are helping to increase the populations of invertebrate species and if so which ones. This is vital if we are to succeed in our plans to make this a truly self sustaining wild fishery

We began by doing some training. Six members and the keeper gathered at Horton pavilion in May for a day’s intensive course in riverfly capture and identification techniques.  This was a fascinating experience and showed that the river at Horton is clean, healthy and teeming with riverfly.  We had an inspirational teacher in Dr Nick Everall who supervised 7 gentlemen of mature years reverting to small boys given the chance to play with water, lots of bugs, a microscope and magnifying glasses.  The event was sponsored by the Wild Trout Trust to whom we owe a real debt of thanks.

Immediately following this course we set about buying the equipment necessary to do our own monitoring and selected key sites to survey.

We will now do a standard six month survey at three sites: New Inn Bridge, Cragg Hill and Selside. These are the beats most frequently fished as well as being dispersed along the fishery and offering a variation in habitat and substrate. Selside is particularly important as it lies in the newly created buffer strip and will show us over time whether the erection of the fence and planting of trees here has delivered any change in riverfly numbers or range of species.

In addition we will do a monthly bankside check at Turn Dub and New Inn Bridge.  Again, Turn Dub is a beat with good bankside fencing and recent extensive tree planting.  The aim is to record findings against eight key species that are used nationally in riverfly monitoring programmes.  In fact we will monitor nine species as our first sample has shown that we have a recordable number of Turkey Browns present which are fairly rare nationally and indicate very clean water.

Results are posted on a broad logarithmic scale and our 3 minute sample at New Inn bridge on the training day produced the following data (white X):

Group     A   B   C   D   Ephemeridae 0 XXX 1-9 X 10-99   100-999   1000+   Ephemererillidae 0 XX 1-9 XX 10-99   100-999   1000+   Heptageniidae 0   1-9   10-99 XXX 100-999 X 1000+   Baetidae 0 X 1-9   10-99 XXX 100-999   1000+   Stoneflies 0   1-9 XXXX 10-99   100-999   1000+   Gammaridae 0   1-9 XXXX 10-99   100-999   1000+   Caseless Caddis 0 X 1-9 XX 10-99 X 100-999   1000+   Cased Caddis 0 X 1-9 X 10-99 XX 100-999   1000+   Turkey Brown 0 XXX 1-9   10-99 X 100-999   1000+

In addition to the above we found a large bullhead, a number of minnows, some water beetle, various chironomids and assorted other invertebrate species all of which were recorded on a separate biological data sheet.

We will share the results of or monitoring with the local EA biologist since it seems that the authorities hold very little current data on the distribution of upper Ribble riverflies.

We did our first full check at the 3 sites on 8 September and the results are also shown above using the following Key:

New Inn bridge X
Selside X
Tay Bridge X

 The September results may be suspect as this was our first ‘solo flight’ and the water conditions were too low for effective sampling, but it will be interesting to validate these results as we become more proficient at identifying the creatures we catch (especially Turkey Browns!) and more adept at chosing suitable water conditions.