It’s an interesting statistic that we are more likely to get snow at Easter than Christmas. Whilst we are certainly still in Winters grip, on the river bank, and in nature, the first signs of Spring are showing.
On the river, we hope that our native brown trout have been left in peace to spawn and that the eggs lie undisturbed in the gravel redds ready to emerge. All the coarse fish in the river such as Barbel and Chub as well as the Grayling will now be preparing to spawn as they are all Spring spawning fish and it’s very important that the known spawning grounds for these fish are left undisturbed during Spring. This is the main reason that anglers have a closed season for coarse fish in Spring- to allow them to spawn undisturbed.
For the fishing clubs, river keepers and anglers now is often a time to collect rubbish deposited from the winter floods before it is covered with new vegetation as well as the commencement of other habitat and conservation projects. One of the surest signs that spring is here will be the unmistakable smell of the wild garlic, which graces many of Derbyshire’s riverbanks as well as the first distant plop of a wild brown trout, rising to the first hatches of spring flies emerging from the river.