Our urban warrior brother-in-arms Mike Duddy has just announced his well-earned retirement from Mersey Rivers Trust, after 13 years which saw him progress from volunteering with its predecessor Mersey Basin Rivers Trust (and heading up Salford Friendly Anglers) to full-time employment with the Trust in several senior roles. To celebrate Mike’s time with MRT, we’re […]
Author Archive
July 5 2023
Pic of the day: Unboxing the Wey
River restoration specialist contractors Aquamaintain have revealed on their social media channels that they’re currently involved in a project to deculvert 75m of the River Wey, and improve another 200m, as part of redevelopment works on Alton’s old Molson Coors brewery site. There’s honestly nothing we love more than seeing urban chalkstream headwaters coming back […]
May 5 2023
Film night: Fera’s Trout Bum on the Wandle
Outdoor clothing and experience brand Fera have just marked the start of the trout season by launching their new Trout Bum (‘from street to stream’) capsule collection on the Wandle… … with an atmospheric shoot and edit by Patrick Tillard that nicely captures the edgeland beauty of the Hackbridge stretch of the river (restored so […]
April 10 2023
Urbantrout sidecasts: Monday 10 April
Vote today! The Wild Trout Trust’s Snake Lane urban weir removal project reaches the final 5 of this year’s Dam Removal Europe Awards Scenes from the Wandle: Extinction Rebellion declares the river a crime scene… … while the Wandle Piscators urban fishing club takes on the angling lease at Morden Hall Park Better Becks in […]
February 24 2023
Film night: Lady of the Stream
We’ve spoken before (see here, here and here) about the egalitarian, accessible nature of urban rivers, and how they seem to attract talented, adventurous women to their banks… … so now it’s time to welcome another one, Ellie Reeves, filmed by Tim Pottage aka Tim James, as she deftly tackles a stretch of free grayling […]
January 16 2023
Urbantrout sidecasts: Monday 16 January
(Un)build it and they will come! How a Wild Trout Trust urban weir removal project is bringing salmon back to Derbyshire’s River Ecclesbourne Championing the rights of rivers on east London’s urban Roding: Paul Powlesland speaks out in the Guardian Reclaiming the Don and Sheaf in Sheffield: an interview with Simon Ogden £1.6m fine for […]
December 20 2022
Film night: Wild is Where You Find It
As we roll slowly towards the close of the year, it’s natural to look back at the fishing season and maybe even feel a bit contemplative. And this time round the sun, we’ve seen no better tribute to the last 12 months on the water than this new film from Nick Thomas. Nick will already […]
September 8 2022
Bristol calling: The Fishtolian podcasts
From early September 2022 onwards, Pete Tyjas’s famous Fly Culture podcast has been hosting a series of takeovers by The Fishtolian: a mission by Pete Coleman-Smith and Jon Ogborne to find wild brown trout in Bristol, inspired by the Trout in the Trym project. From the series intro: Bristol would never be the first place […]
August 12 2022
Welsh river champions: FF&FT and T&S double up in south Wales
There must be something in the air (or water…) because two of the UK’s leading fly-fishing magazines are visiting the urban rivers of Wales in their September 2022 editions… … Fly-Fishing & Fly Tying tackling the Taff and Rhondda with Terry Bromwell and Charles Jardine, while Trout & Salmon explores the Ebbw with Kieron Jenkins […]