River Don & Vienne videos

[nicepix]

I have some videos on Youtube of river fishing that you might enjoy. The first one is grayling fishing on the River Don in Sheffield. This is a free stretch holding grayling, trout and a few barbel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3y2vETIwaY

The second is a catfish stalking session on the River Vienne in France close to where I now live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clP97Hp_LVY

 

[bennygesserit]

Yes Steel City grayling very good.
There are some canals around me that look like they could be used as film sets abandoned factories / gasworks really eerie when I was fishing like a fanatic a couple of years ago I would fish them quite a lot but passing characters made it like trying to fish in a zombie apocolypse so I gave up. It looked pretty secluded where you were though.

On a seperate matter I understand why you disabled comments I do on my you tube ( mostly videos of the dogs ) as its , like my canal towpath, full of idiots.

In your video I think you could have done with a long shot showing you fishing and the industrial landscape behind you, I think you have an eye for it though as evidenced by your still photos.

 

[nicepix]

Thanks for the feedback Benny. As you probably gathered I shot the footage myself. As such I was limited for the type of shots I could manage, but I will try and include some scene setting shots next time.

This was my first attempt with a video camera. I've had cameras for years but never a video one so I'm still learning.

The place where I fished on the Don is between two factories right in the middle of an industrial estate and just downstream is a bridge with fork lift trucks going over every few minutes. There is wire fencing either side of the river. It's like fishing in Colditz

 

[Peter Jacobs]

Isn't it amazing where you can find Grayling these days.

We typically associate them with the chalk streams of the south and yet here they are in the industrialised Midlands on a stretch where not too long ago it would have been polluted beyond words.

 

[nicepix]

I can't remember the Don when Sheffield was at its industrial prime, but my local river, the Dearne was so badly polluted by colliery outflows that it ran orange and there were barely any fish in the river. Since the early 80's it has become a lot cleaner and the indigenous trout stocks from higher reaches have permeated downstream. A few years ago the EA stocked grayling as fingerlings and they are thriving and breeding. Barbel were stocked by a local WMC on a short stretch in the 70's and these days there are barbel in the river pushing 15lb. The EA is adding more this year. There are a couple of local lads I know who have had almost twenty double figure barbel out of the river.

Like the Don, the Dearne has a lot of free fishing. That is banks owned by companies and authorities such as Sheffield Council and UK Coal, who allow people to fish without charge.

When I was 16 I had to ride a moped 34 miles to the Wharfe to catch chub, barbel and grayling. Now they are on the doorstep.

 

[tiinker]

It is amazing how the river recover once we stop pumping waste into them. The rivers around London tributaries of the Thames all carry fish these days including the Thames itself and the lower lea which were all fishless in the early sixties . When I look back at what the rivers around London were like and look at them now even with the on going problems of road run- off and sewage overflow the rivers are so much better than they were then.

 

[flightliner]

Nicepix is right, the don in Sheffield is totally differant than it was years ago. It still looks pretty awful aesthetically in many places but the fish make it very worthwhile. I wrote of its resurgence in a local paper some twenty five years ago, it was improving then and just keeps getting better.
If anyone cares to u-tube "Tom fly fishing the river don" you will see just how good it is, lovely guy by the way.
Salmon pastures (yes, ironic choice of name) beteen the city centre and meadowhall was so polluted the school by the river was the very first in the country to have its own air filtration system to give the kids a chance of a healthy education. Now it turns up greyling, trout, dace, minnow, and some very nice chub.
All free as well.
The Rother is the same, if you look at footage of the miners strike , where Authur Skargill is arrested the river is just out of sight but close by and in those days you would disolve before drowning, now its a lovely place to walk and fish, barbel over thirteen have been caught there.
Its a bit expensive on that bit tho, I mean £1-50p a day --- come on !!!
NP says that the bit he fishes on his video looks a bit like colditz, in fact its just up the road,
Folk in certain areas of the city usually call it Sheffield Wednesday Football CLUB!!!