Supporting Grayling in the River Wharfe at Ilkley

Our club have this year supported the Environment Agency’s great work nationally to conserve the native stocks of Grayling and hopefully at the same time improve our own population of the fish in Ilkley. The Grayling known for over a hundred years as the ‘Lady of the Stream’ is by many regarded as the most graceful of all our river fish. Sadley in many rivers, its numbers are in decline and they have been wiped out entirely in some rivers by pollution events. In Ilkley we have a population which provide winter anglers with enjoyable sport but as many of our older members point out the population is way down from what it used to be. This is  anecdotal evidence of decline typical of many Grayling rivers. The good news is that the Environment Agency are using our rod licence fees to address this and we are now part of that project.

There are 4 distinct genetic populations of Grayling in Britain, one of those is centred on the River Wharfe. Fish bred from the river Wharfe’s  fish are suitable for restocking rivers across the North East of England. As such the offspring of broodstock from Ilkley can be used to support rivers across the north as well as our own length of the Wharfe.

To support the programme a group of club members and Grayling Society members fished under the supervision of the Environment Agency for suitable fish in early March this year. 8 fish, males and females, of suitable maturity were caught at the end of a  days fishing, They were then taken in aerated tanks to the fish breeding centre in Nottingham. The 8 fish were then returned and released a few weeks later after they were stripped of eggs and milt and were recovered and healthy for rerelease. The fertilized eggs were incubated and the fish fry developed in large tanks of running water preparing them for release. The fertilization and rearing is much more  successful than can be achieved by fish in the wild. In fact many more fry are produced than can be grown on into juveniles used for restocking seriously depleted rivers. This is to our good fortune and a proportion of the Grayling fry can then be returned back to the Wharfe. In this first year approximately 2000 Grayling fry were released back into the river in Ilkley in May.  This number of fry is many times greater than the number that would reach this age had the 8 fish remained in the river to breed.  By working with the Environment Agency on this project and with our clubs support for a cleaner river in Ilkley we hope we can return the populations of Grayling back to how our older members remember them.

https://linesonthewater.anglingtrust.net/2022/03/27/springtime-assistance-for-the-grayling/