Earlier this month, we joined staff and volunteers from across the Rother Partnership for a practical day improving habitats for gravel spawning fish.

Led by the Wild Trout Trust we got stuck in on a stretch of the River Rother at Woolbeding in West Sussex, which suffers from excessive siltation from finer sand and silt particles.

Although there are coarser gravels present, potential spawning sites have been clogged with silts, restricting their suitability and affecting the population of gravel spawning fish in the area such as trout and grayling. 

The Wild Trout Trust and Rother Angling Club secured £10k of funding from the Environment Agency's Fisheries Improvement Fund to carry out improvement works in a sensitive, non-invasive way utilising locally available materials. 

This work includes:

• Breaking up the calcified/hardened gravel beds. 

• Once gravel beds are in a more suitable condition for use as spawning sites, secure large woody material over the riffles to pinch and increase natural water flow, inducing bed scour. This will naturally prevent the build-up of further siltation. 

• Creating natural woody debris shelves as cover immediately downstream of the spawning areas to provide habitat and cover the emerging fry.

The stretch of river we were working on runs through the National Trust's land. They are currently developing proposals to improve and enhance their whole stretch of the river, ideally to see it returned to its natural state wherever possible. This is part of their Woolbeding Reimagined Project, one of over 40 projects being delivered as part of the wider Rother Partnership. 

It was a brilliant day of partnership working, helped by the glorious sunshine too.