THE Wensum may have fallen from angling’s limelight over recent decades, but there’s fresh hope that the famous river will be restored to its former fishing glory after it was revealed that work has begun to find the root causes of its steady demise.
The Norfolk river, a firm favourite of the late John Wilson, was famed for its shoals of big roach, but since the 1980s these have disappeared in line with the gradual decline in sport on the waterway as a whole.
Over-predation, the proliferation of invasive species and water supply issues are among the factors often cited as being pivotal to the problem, but finding the other reasons behind the Wensum’s downfall is key to its restoration, according to anglers Kelvin Allen and Tim Ellis, who are part of the Wensum Partnership.
“Cormorants and crayfish are issues, but we can’t shoot or trap these because of the river’s SSSI status,”
said Kelvin, who is also the regional chairman for the Angling Trust.
“But there are other problems. After two days of rain, the river flows like chocolate. On a chalk river, this shouldn’t happen. We’re promoting citizen science to try and solve the issue. Once we have evidence of a primary cause, we’ll go to Natural England and get a plan together.”