FISH 133 Spring 2019

Another Grand Tour
Holmfirth, Manchester, Sheffield, Warrington,
Edinburgh, Colchester, Grantham, Loughborough
(three times), London and Warwick have all
been graced with my presence over the last few
months. The tour has included everything from
zander to carp with a bit of electric fishing,
weed control and a fishing show thrown in for
good measure.
Starting at the beginning, we held the largest
specialist workshop to date, with the IFM and
Environment Agency Aquatic Weed Control
Workshop in February. Over 130 delegates from
across the north of England, and as far south as
Nottingham and Derby, made the rather windy
journey to Holmfirth for the day. I am pleased to
say that those who battled against the elements
had a thoroughly informative day, which hopefully
gave them all the knowledge they need to be
able to manage problematic aquatic plants in
their waters.
During the following weekend, Mike Lee and I
were on the road again, this time we headed to
Manchester for the Northern Angling Show at
Event City.
We were very pleased to be asked to join the
Environment Agency, Canal and Rivers Trust,
Cefas (Centre for the Environment, Fisheries
and Aquaculture Science) and The Angling Trust
in Info Corner again. Just like last year, it was
another really useful couple of days, which kicked
off with the largest queues I have ever seen on
the Saturday waiting to get in. I was very pleased
to have exhibitor wrist bands so we could walk
straight in.
After a very busy first day, I’m not sure the
organisers were overly pleased with the Premier
League on the Sunday, as the show clashed with
the Man United versus Liverpool game, and, as
you can probably imagine, the crowds started to
drift away just after lunch so they didn’t miss the
kick off.
Following the Northern Angling Show, I was on
the road again to finish the second round of the
IFM’s Fishery Management Workshops that we
deliver on behalf of the Environment Agency. The
last three were held in Sheffield and Warrington in
the north and at Marsh Farm in Godalming in the
south. As always, they were very well attended
with representatives from clubs and fisheries from
across each region.
I am pleased to say that following the success of
both the weed control and fishery management
workshops, we have been asked to run another
series of events this coming autumn and winter.
The venues and dates for these will be released
shortly so please keep an eye out if you are
interested.
In between the workshops we held our annual
IFM Certificate and IFM Award field course
weekends. These are for students enrolled on
the IFM Certificate or Award Courses (as the
name suggests) and take place at Rempstone
Village Hall. There is a full write up in the training
report, so I won’t go into too much detail here
except to say they were both action packed
weekends and this year it never snowed, which
was a bonus!
At the end of March, I was very pleased to attend
the Fishery Management Scotland Conference
in Edinburgh. Aside from the rather depressing
news on the returning salmon numbers, which
I’m sure you have seen in the mainstream press
since, it was a really interesting day with some
excellent presentations. I joined the session
on predation and it was interesting to see the
range of predators and associated management
strategies that are in place to try and protect
salmon at their various life stages. The one
predator that didn’t get a mention however, was
the otter, but it appears they just aren’t as serious
The Paul Coulson BLOG
37