NEWS – all categories

A Brown Trout of about 4lbs caught recently in the lower river by Tim Bowman. It seems likely that this is one of the larger stocked trout from last year.

Just posted here:

Notes and illustrations that formed part of the beginners fly fishing instructional notes supplied to attendees of the courses run on the Dart by the late Charles Bingham. Charles ran the courses at Fogdens on the Dart and also on the West Dart, the Fogdens fishing now being owned by the Association.
Charles was an excellent writer of salmon and sea trout fishing books that often concentrated on the application in smaller rivers, indeed one book is titled ‘Salmon Fishing in Small Rivers’, something which of course has great resonance with anglers particularly in the south west.
These notes and illustrations are still very useful to beginners today and we are grateful to committee member Chris Baxter for their inclusion to the website and to Charles’s family for allowing us to make them available to members.

P.Prowse Hon Sec May 23

NOTE: As the notes referred to above are page scans, they may be difficult to read on smaller screens. As well as following the link above, the notes also can be found in the ‘Pages’ section, either on the left of page or under the “Hamburger” icon at the top of smaller screens.

Bank clearing this Sunday (26/2/2023) is cancelled. This would have been the last session this year.

Subject to weather forecast and river height, the following bank clearing is scheduled to take place, all commencing 9.30am:

8^th Jan – Nursery to Abbots Mead- Fogden’s (park in Colston Road)

15^th Jan- Kilbury to Austin’s Bridge – Kilbury Weir parking

22^nd Jan- Nursery to Abbots Mead (CC) – Caddaford layby

29^th Jan- Abbots Mead to Quarry Pool (CC)- Caddaford layby

5^th Feb- Quarry to Lower Style (CC)- Stretchford Layby A384

12^th Feb- Staverton Weir- Staverton Bridge/ Station

19^th Feb- Hangman’s Pool to Park Stickle- Staverton Church

26^th Feb- Horsehill – Park at Queen of the Dart parking (please do not obstruct QotD gate) CANCELLED

As much help as possible would be appreciated for this important work. For newer members this is a great opportunity to get to know the river (and your fellow members) better and to work off some of that Christmas pudding!

According to a study by citizen science environmental organisation Planet Patrol, which oversaw water quality tests in 48 freshwater sites in the UK, the Dart is the only site to have ‘acceptable’ polution levels.

See article on Devon Live website:

River Dart is the only freshwater site in the UK to pass water quality test – Devon Live

The DAA’s Annual General Meeting will be held this year at the Dartmoor Lodge Ashburton On Friday 2^nd December 2022 at 7pm.

(Don’t turn up to Staverton village hall as in former years – we won’t be there!)

For those of you interested in Dart water quality measurements in detail, the following link will take you to a list of the twenty most recent sampling results at Totnes weir, from Nov 2019 to May 2022.

https://environment.data.gov.uk/water-quality/view/sampling-point/SW-70720104

(Opens in new tab)

There are also some classification data here:

Dart | Catchment Data Explorer | Catchment Data Explorer

The latter appear to be the latest data available, from 2019 (opens in new tab)

The Anglers’ Riverfly Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) is a citizen science project run by the RIiverfly Partnership, that enables trained volunteers, such as anglers and conservationists, to protect river water quality by monitoring eight pollution sensitive invertebrates and complement the work carried out by statutory agency staff across the UK. For more details see www.riverflies.org

Here is a report of progress made in 2022:

A spring recruitment drive resulted in twelve new volunteers attending an excellent training day in late June. This group comprised of three with angling connections, and nine who just wanted to be involved. Several of the latter are already part of a WRT water quality testing initiative. This is very good news for our Dart Riverflies ‘Team’ and means that we have been able to add another six monitoring sites to the existing six. New additions include East Dart, Walla Brook, Webburn, Spitchwick and Staverton. We are hoping to add Cherry Brook, West Webburn and Broadaford Brook in spring 2023.

The volunteers have split into six pairs and we are all very grateful to the DFA and DAA for agreeing to fund the relevant sets of ‘kit’ that has made their monitoring possible and has enabled them to practise and gain confidence. Identifying tiny invertebrates is not always straightforward.

In 2022 our Dart team of citizen scientists have carried out approximately twenty five monitoring sessions up and down the river. Blackabrook was our highest site, and Staverton the lowest. Had it not been for two months when work was suspended, this figure would have exceeded thirty but water temperatures in excess of 20 degrees resulted in unacceptable invertebrate mortality (transition from river to bucket to trays with minimal oxygen) and suspension of monitoring.

Results have – more or less – followed the trends of the last few years. Undramatic and mostly consistent. Happily, there were no ‘breaches’ to report to the EA this year. Boring perhaps but a fair indication that invertebrate life in the river is – by and large – reasonably healthy. Our sites have been chosen to cover a variety of river situations: some random, others above and below farms, tourist ‘hot spots’, and of course, sewage outlets. The warm weather and drought conditions undoubtedly put certain stretches of river under intense pressure especially during the two months when we suspended all monitoring.

2023 promises to be exciting. Most monitoring will take place between May and September with the occasional winter foray. Anybody interested in joining us should contact me at riverfly@dartaa.org.uk

Luke Chester-Master

It is with regret that we bring you the following news.

Dear Member

I write to advise all members of the Association of the very sad news that Dennis Mitchell has passed away . Dennis was a stalwart member going back many years of both the Dart and Lower Teign Angling Associations and was also chairman of the Dart Fisheries Association, his involvement in the management and support for angling in local rivers went back to the time of South West Water when he was a board member of that organisation long before the days of the Environment Agency.

Dennis was also very involved with the Salmon and Trout Association and even quite recently was concerned about the renaming of this group to the Wildfish Association. Dennis was a life member of the Dart Angling Association and attended committee meetings until a couple of years ago, apart from as his vast fisheries knowledge which we all always hugely valued and admired he was a dear friend and we will miss him greatly.

P.I.Prowse

DAA Hon Secretary

Good to see another generation of the Dart clan enjoying their fishing.

Isobel Dart looking after her tea while out fishing with her dad Rob Dart junior.