Wuf report two fish from Lysdinam, 20lb for Steve Grimwood on a minnow and a 7lb fish for Robin Woods yesterday, also spinning.

An 18lb fish for Andrew Monaghan from Lower Ballingham.

No others so far today which I find amazingly sad. n.b  A late report of a fish from Caradoc. 25lbs to Andrew Harrington on a tube fly.



Seems WUF didn't take kindly to my posting last night's graph of the Usk Survey.
Simon Evans said this;

"That is the result of test of whether Habscore accurately predicts fish numbers and in 2/3rds of the sites it does. You have taken it from page 10 of NRW's Usk catchment 2013 report. The text on page 9 and 10 in the document explains it. It contains no reference to WUF or habitat restoration.
Best not to jump to conclusions! My concern on the Usk is that whilst at locations where WUF have been active (upstream of fish passes/subject to habitat restoration) salmon numbers have increased compared to the last major survey in 2007, that is set against against a overall decline in the other sites. This suggest a need for caution as there are other factors, not as yet fully defined, impacting on the Usk salmon stocks.

The lesson to take from that table is that Habscore is indicating that in roughly 2/3rds of the locations habitat is determining salmon and trout numbers, so if you improve habitat at those locations you will have more fish."

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Fair enough- but then there are  three other quotes from that same survey. See below.

Wonder what the answer to those are -wouldn't be anything to do with them of course.

They make the claim that numbers have increased upstream of fish passes/restoration work.  Are they extra fish though or just a redistribution.  We won't ever see any figures that proves their case I suspect.

Salmon In broad terms, the juvenile salmon populations in the Usk have increased since surveying began in 1986 (Figures 11a and b) with a statistically significant overall juvenile upward trend (P = 0.9966); this upward trend is primarily fuelled by a statistically significant increase in salmon fry numbers (P = 1.0); the parr densities have shown no evidence of an upward trend, rather a slight decline (P = 0.3841).

Quote:

In the short term dataset, the trend is not as promising, indicating a strong downwards trend (P = 0.0466) in juvenile salmon densities since 2002 (Figure 11c). Again, this is more pronounced in the parr populations (P = 0.0364) than in the fry (P = 0.2665). This is also evident in the non-linear analysis, which shows a dipping of the trend in recent years (Figure 11b).

Quote:

Brown Trout The story for brown trout in the Usk appears to contrast with salmon, in that there is a statistically significant downwards trend in overall populations (Figure 12a). However, this is entirely fuelled by a statistically significant (P = 0) downwards trend in parr and adult, and in fact the trend for fry is strongly upwards, albeit not quite statistically significant (P = 0.9441). The downwards trend in parr and adults does not correlate with Habscore results, which suggest that the majority of sites have trout parr and adult numbers well within normal ranges