August 2025 - Page 2 of 2 - Bintry Mill Fishery

Yarrow gravel project successfully completed

The members of Bintry Mill Trout Fishery have recently completed the club’s latest habitat improvement project, a bed raising project upstream of Yarrow Bridge designed to create new spawning gravel areas for our resident wild trout population.

400 tonnes of stone and gravel were placed into the river to raise the river bed to an average depth of 300mm to increase flow, improve oxygenation and provide the right conditions for fish to spawn. Within hours of the gravel placement being completed, large quantities of minnows and fry had colonised the new gravel, along with some less welcome inhabitants, signal crayfish.

A massive 40 tonne long reach digger was used to ensure careful gravel placement across the full width of the river.

Placement of stone and gravel in the river was carefully managed by Rob Mungovan of the Wild Trout Trust and has resulted in a beautiful gravel glide which has transformed that stretch of the river.

The project was part-funded by the Fisheries Improvement Fund administered by the Angling Trust and professional expertise was provided by the Wild Trout Trust, whose East of England representative, Rob Mungovan, spent two days with us. Rob carefully supervised the placement of the materials, with members helping to rake out and shape the final pools and riffles.

The project has been two years in the planning, partly because of the river’s SSSI and SAC status (which requires permissions from a range of regulatory bodies) and partly because the club has carried out all the necessary preparatory work itself, with members giving their free time when and where they can. We have embarked upon an ongoing programme of habitat improvement when and where we can to try and protect the river’s aquatic population and increase its quantity and diversity and projects like this are an essential part of creating the necessary conditions for small, immature and adult fish of all species to survive and thrive.

Our hands-on Wild Trout Trust representative, Rob Mungovan, shows club member Chris Nattriss the correct distribution of gravel.

The new gravel has already transformed this stretch of the river Wensum, and we are confident that it will provide excellent habitat for trout and coarse fish of all ages and sizes in the future. The next stage will be the creation of more overhead cover.

Within hours of completion the gravel had been colonised by hundreds of minnows, fry and one small wild trout. Despite the extremely low flows due to the prolonged drought and heatwave at the time of writing (August) the increase and variation in flow is quite marked. Although the Wensum is a lowland chalk stream with less gradient than many, this project shows what can be done, even with a river which has suffered as much dredging damage the past as the Wensum has.

The club carries out regular fly life surveys and is constantly monitoring the health of the fish population, so we will be very interested to see how this area improves over the next few seasons.