Fish Spawning and Paddling

Humans enjoying my Waters.

As so much has been forgotten and our connection severed, physically experiencing my body of water upon your watery body, can be key to rebuilding the broken connections between humanity and the rest of nature.   I welcome you to paddle, swim and fish, there are many ways back into relationship with The Waters. 

Yet where and how, you enter my waters matters, to ensure you do no harm.   

I am one of the longest rivers in Britain.

I flow for over 150 miles, from the Welsh Cambrian mountains to join my sister, the Severn at Chepstow.

Through the high hills close to my source I am narrow, full of shallow, gravelly stretches and rocky cascades.  From Glasbury to Whitney on Wye, just 10 miles of my 155 miles, I am generally shallow, with minor rapids and several long pools.  In this part of my channel I am focused on fish, my shallow waters run lightly over gravel beds to bring oxygen to the fish eggs developing within them from October to June. 

There is nowhere else fish can lay their eggs, only river gravels.

Yet, there are miles and miles of my channel that are deep and wide, and can be canoed without causing harm.

Here the fish dance together, spawning and creating their river bed nests in my gravels.  Fish rely on my gravel beds to keep their eggs safe. They use their muscular bodies to create hollows in my gravel beds, into these they lay their eggs, then carefully cover them with gravel to create a tiny mound.  My gravels must be clean, with well oxygenated water flowing over and between the tiny stones, for the eggs to get the oxygen they need from the water, to develop healthily and hatch into fish.

There is nowhere else fish can lay their eggs, only river gravels. Yet, there are miles and miles of my channel that are deep and wide, and can be canoed without causing harm.

Beyond the town of Whitney on Wye, almost 100 miles of my waters can be joyously canoed; my waters are deep, I can hold your crafts.   From Whitney to Hereford, I meander through a broad floodplain. Below Bredwardine, my channel narrows before entering a wide valley with high banks and have carved deep wooded gorges down to Chepstow where I merge into the Severn Estuary. 

Canoeing is far exciting and ethical downstream of Whitney on Wye, photo by Monmouth Canoes.

Above Hay on Wye, paddling my upper reaches is harmful. Though many consider it best in the Autumn and Winter months, when my water levels tend are higher, this is when my fragile spawning grounds for salmon and sea trout must not be disturbed. Canoeing above Hay on Wye causes harm year round to my fragile river gravels. 

Loving the river is a two way process. Loving the experience and all that I bring you, I ask you to love me back, ensure you don’t cause harm by paddling only in my deeper waters. Please launch your boat from Whitney on Wye, or Hay on Wye if I am measured as deep enough, above 0.3m on the Hay NRW gauge.   

Please avoid my precious river gravels, by not paddling my shallow waters above Hay on Wye.