A Dead River

On 11th December 2005 at 12.30 pm I arrived at the river Colne, close to Huddersfield town centre, intending to fly-fish for grayling, as I had done so many times over the past years. I was greeted by bank to bank white foam. My worst fears had been realised: A pollution incident. The problem with pollution incidents is that whilst they are rare these days; when they happen it is a total disaster. It is as if the river had never recovered from its abuse of the early and mid 20th century. Back to square one.
The urban rivers of West Yorkshire have seen a gradual rise in fortune from being open industrial sewers up to the 1970s, to being prime game fishing rivers today, after a slow, gradual cleaning-up process. I have been privileged to observe this process and rejoiced every step of the way. One day in 1989, now not able to be specified precisely, I stood on a footbridge over the river Colne, a mile from Huddersfield town centre, and to my great surprise and pleasure saw the ring of a trout rise. I was at first dumbfounded and then overjoyed! I had fished for trout in the river Colne above Milnsbridge and as far upstream as Marsden for many years and had always kept an eye on the river further downstream; always hoping to see signs of life. Now it had happened. Since then the trout have spread further and further downstream as the river recovered its former glory and the state (almost!) in which God intended it to be. Then the grayling arrived; introduced by the Environment Agency into the clean waters above Slaithwaite and, like the trout, enjoying the newly cleaned waters of all the length of the river.

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