Weed cutting time.
Do not despair when the weed cutting starts, this can be a very productive time for the fly fisherman. Let’s have a quick look at why the weed is cut and what is going on during and after the process. I am of course talking about river weed and not weed from the banks.
From the authorities point of view, weed is cut when the flow of the river is impeded and there is risk of the water level rising too much. The dates for when weed can be cut are set by the authorities. From the fisherman’s perspective, cutting weed should make the river more fishable and creates lies for the trout to feed from. From the fishery manager and conservationist’s standpoint cutting weed enables an improved flow, which helps to prevent a build up of silt and thus keep the gravel bed clean providing a better habitat for spawning fish.
The old method of cutting weed was where possible to wade into the river with a scythe and carefully cut paths through the weed, think of this as styling. Many rivers now are cut mechanically or with a chain scythe and this is the military style crew cut or in some cases a number one. Of course there are still many people taking great care cutting weed in our rivers and produce excellent habitats as a result.
Once the weed is cut is should be left on the bank for a time to allow the aquatic wildlife to find it’s way back into the water. The weed is removed later. We have all seen rafts of weed floating down the river – maybe the weed thought it was allowed to return as well!
It is these floating clumps or raft of weed that are a nuisance to the angler or are they?
Firstly they shouldn’t be there but it is almost impossible for the people cutting the weed to catch all of it and it is inevitable that some will make its way downstream.
So back to the subject in hand, the first time that I ever encountered these rafts of weed was many years ago when everyone cut weed at the same time and a lot of it was just left to float downstream. I was fishing on the river Avon above Netheravon and I had cycled quite a distance to get to the river so I was not going to be put off by a bit of floating weed.
The first problem that struck me was that there were almost no fish rising and at that time this section of the river had a good number of free rising fish. When a trout did decide to pop it’s head up to sip in some delicate morsel I found getting an artificial to that fish without it dragging was not easy, in some cases the rafts of weed would float over the rising fish and that was the end that. So in desperation and full of the confidence that only 10 years olds have, I tied on a nymph (Oliver Kite swore by them so that was good enough for me).
I lost a lot of flies while fishing under those rafts of weed but I also caught a lot of fish. It was nearly as much fun watching what was going on under these floating restaurants (because that is what they were) as it was fishing – I did say nearly. As the weed floated downstream and passed over the fish some of them but not all would move up in the water and start to search under the weed for free swimming aquatic snacks that was making a dash for alternative cover. After a short distance the fish would move back to their old lie and new fish would take their place. The fish that didn’t join in with this game were the ones that got spooked by the weed rafts passing overhead.
There are always exceptions and there were some fish that stuck with the floating weed for a long time as it drifted downstream, maybe these guys were made homeless by the weed cutting and had taken up a Romany lifestyle.
Never despair when the conditions don’t look too good there is usually something to be learned and often a good days fishing is hidden behind the adversity just waiting to be discovered.
As they say “There is more than one way to skin a cat”.
(no cats were hurt in the writing of this article)