River Derwent - North East England

[Lambton Worm]

This particular river Derwent can’t be identified specifically by the county prefixes that define its more famous counterparts (Cumbrian/Yorkshire/Derbyshire), as for the majority of its course it forms the boundary between Northumberland and Co Durham. The lowest significant tributary of the river Tyne, the North Eastern Derwent rises on Hexhamshire Common, immediately east of Allendale, flowing through the villages of Blanchland, Allensford, Shotley Bridge, Ebchester and Rowlands Gill, among others, before running out on the south bank of the tidal Tyne, near the Metro Centre.

A typical northern spate river (if always quite small, having no significant tributaries of its own), it actually behaves more like an aquifer fed stream due to the regulating effect of the 1000-acre Derwent Reservoir only a few miles downstream of Blanchland, an impoundment created in the mid 1960’s. Nonetheless, the Derwent is still a fairly typical north eastern trout river, albeit one which also possesses a good head of grayling (introduced in the late C19th and still found on most mid to lower stretches to this day) and a much smaller population of coarse fish, mostly dace, courtesy of its brackish water connection to the Tyne.

The river is almost completely controlled by two angling associations, known locally as the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ clubs, the ‘upper’ being the older of the two (founded in 1865, it’s probably the oldest in the North East) and the foundation stone from the early C20th onwards of the strong traditional fly fishing (and tying) ethic found in the Derwent valley. The river’s angling history, from the mid C19th to the early C21st, can be traced by reading the official three part history of the Derwent Angling Association (upper club), linked below.

Axwell Park & Derwent Valley Angling Association (Lower Club)http://www.apdvaa.co.uk/

Derwent Angling Association (Upper Club) http://www.derwentangling.co.uk/

History of the Derwent Angling Association http://www.derwentangling.co.uk/about/r ... sociation/

[Olly]

Seen it quite frequently as I drive north over it to get to the Coquet/Tweed/Till from London and when travelling southwards when going to the Wear/London!

Not fished it yet.

[Scott]

Sounds like an interesting river, thanks for the info, not too far from me, I'm off to the Metro Centre next week for some Christmas shopping, might have a look while I'm over that way.

Interesting what you say about the grayling. With the river being 'east flowing' are they not native to the river?

All the best...

[Lambton Worm]

Thanks Scott (& Olly).

The records of the DAA go back to 1865 and there were only supposedly brown trout in the river back then - the initial grayling stocking was listed in the records as having occurred in the 1880's iirc. Only a couple of rivers in the Northumbrian area & SE Scotland contain grayling - the Tees and the Wear, that have through time acquired just about every freshwater fish indigenous to Great Britain - in both cases almost certainly by stocking; the Tweed & the Teviot - escaped from an ornamental pond at Mounteviot in the C19th; the Derwent (stocked) and the Blyth (no record). The rule of thumb, although like all such issues it is contentious, is that the Yorkshire rivers (Ouse, Swale, Ure , Nidd, Wharfe, etc.) had a freshwater connection via the Humber and the Doggerland Bridge to the Rhine, Meuse, Elbe at the very end of the ice age, so species unable to tolerate saltwater could have recolonized these naturally. All rivers from the Tees north would supposedly have flowed direct to the North Sea at all but the very coldest period of the ice age, so any species therein other than trout, salmon, smelt, shad, eels and stickleback must have been introduced by man. So goes the theory, anyway.

[Olly]

The Tweed was stocked I understood in the 1800's. The Till also holds grayling and it is believed so does the Jed, Kale, Oxnam Water, Glen and Wooler Water. I have heard of grayling in most of the southern tributaries of the Tweed - but not the northern ones flowing south?

Does the Tyne, North or South , hold grayling?

See below - I do hope they have recovered by now:-

Unfortunately Derwent angling association have suspended their grayling day tickets for the 2010 season.
Daryn.
Taken from their website:-
Suspension of grayling day tickets for 2010 season
The association have sadly reached the decision to suspend day tickets for the 2010 grayling winter season due to the collapse in grayling stocks since the 2009 pollution incident. We feel we cannot in all honesty ask people to fish for what is not there in the sort of numbers that would allow any chance of success.
The main areas of concern are from Allensford to Blackhall Mill. We hope to replenish the stock of grayling in this area to bring to the level it was before the pollution incident.
The association are currently continuing with their case against the polluter, Northumbrian Water, and hope to reach an agreement in the near future.We will update the membership and overall fishing community with the situation as it develops.

July 10th, 2010.

[Lambton Worm]

Olly,

I don't know much about the Tweed tribs, other than that the Till and Teviot are indeed renowned for their grayling stocks. There certainly aren’t any grayling in the main river Tyne or any of its tributaries other than the Derwent. There are coarse fish in the main Tyne – chub and dace in good number – and dace on the lower reaches of the North and South Tyne, but never any reports of grayling. The brackish Tyne estuary seems to from an impassable barrier for them.

The upper club on the Derwent still don’t do day tickets in winter, as the grayling stocks are still considered fragile, although they are in recovery. The initial problems stemmed from a pollution incident involving caustic soda from a water treatment works in 2009. There was a significant fish kill from about Allensford (where the A68 crosses) downstream as far as Ebchester, but below that the dilution effect mitigated the problem. As such the ‘lower club’s grayling stock was unaffected, but much of the upper club’s water is above Ebchester, so they were quite badly hit, with trout, smaller fish species and invertebrate stocks suffering also. Later the same year, the affected area of the river was repopulated with juvenile trout and insect larvae taken from above the reservoir, but this part doesn’t hold any grayling to restock with.

The EA eventually restocked several stretches of the upper club’s water in 2014 with several thousand juvenile grayling from Calverton, and in 2015 good numbers were showing in the two year class. Storm Desmond (and possibly also cormorants & goosanders) have certainly knocked the population back, but there are still grayling showing on all the stretches that they were introduced to, just not in the same numbers as 2015.

The grayling population has seemed to gravitate towards the downstream sections of the Derwent over the years, in any case, with a variety of reasons given. What is known is that once grayling are forced below an obstruction such as a weir, like coarse species, they are unable to pass back upstream of it, including those with fish ladders, which are only suited to the upstream movement of salmon and trout. There are three large and several smaller weirs on the river - and one of the large ones is on the quarter mile stretch separating the two clubs. Suffice to say, while the Derwent rarely now suffers spates that cause flooding and damage to infrastructure, when the reservoir is at capacity, abnormal amounts of rainfall in the catchment (such as during Storm D) can result in significantly raised flow. Being quite narrow, the river has few refuges where juvenile fish can ride out the spate and avoid displacement downstream.