Sayers Meadow Fishery, River Wensum at Lyng
Please note that due to recent overwhelming enquiries, we have temporarily closed our waiting lists.
Sayers Meadow was the original project fishery set up by NACA in 1988. The intention was to restore a dredger-damaged section of the river to something approaching its former glory, using habitat restoration techniques such as riverbed re-profiling, gravel riffle/pool sequence reinstatement, bankside re-planting and fry-refuge construction to name but a few. Such techniques have been widely used by game anglers for many years, however this was seen as a pilot for a coarse fishery on the Wensum, and hopefully could be used as a blueprint for others to follow or adapt to their own circumstances.
From day one, plans also included the stocking of juvenile barbel, in an attempt to mitigate against the loss of the famous barbel fishery downstream at Costessey, which was threatened by the new abstraction point for public water supply.
Three phases of work have been completed over the years, with a fourth ongoing and more planned for the future. Ongoing work includes the management of a number of large fallen trees by cutting them back so 50% of the channel is unobstructed, and pinning the remainder to the riverbed to create Large Woody Debris (LWD) flow deflectors. These should provide cover in flood conditions for juvenile fish, help to create flow diversity and achieve a degree of riverbed scouring to expose gravels. Two cracking new fry refuges have been completed, and more are planned, with further planting of bankside alders also.
As is well known, way back the barbel were successfully stocked and they flourished for many years, seemingly occupying a niche unused by the roach, chub etc. This was during a strange time in UK barbel fishing history, with many rivers producing massive fish, of hitherto almost unimaginable sizes. The Wensum was at the forefront of this trend, being only the second U.K. river at the time to produce a seventeen pounder, before briefly challenging the Great Ouse monsters for the record. We had progressively bigger and bigger specimens till a fish reached somewhere around the twenty pound mark before disappearing forever, presumably an otter casualty.
There was unfortunately always an issue with population sustainability, despite our hard work yearly gravel jetting on the spawning beds, gravel augmentation, juvenile habitat work etc. The final straw came when otters reappeared on the river, within about a decade virtually all the big barbel succumbed to their predation.
This left a struggling remnant population, which after much campaigning we managed to "prop up" for a few years with tagged fish stocked by the Environment Agency (EA). This has now ceased due partly to lack of available EA funding, and the remaining barbel are effectively on their own. There are still sightings of fish every year, usually including good specimens, but few people fish for them any more. Most of the final stockings seem to have gone the way of all flesh, after briefly being tracked up and down the river using the electronic tags and fixed detector loops. Ironically, the tags provided a clue to the possible fate of a number of these fish, as they were found on the bank amongst flood debris and vegetation, leading us to believe something, either otters, cormorants or herons, had predated on them and left the evidence behind.
Despite all this doom and gloom, the fishery remains viable. There is currently an apparently very healthy chub population, plenty of fives and sixes are caught most years, with the odd seven pounder turning up. These days there seems to be almost a sub-culture of "old geezers" fishing for chub (roach and dace as well) at Sayers with traditional trotting tackle - big floats, centrepin reels and even split-cane rods are seen in action on the banks, as well as the more regular "specialist" big-fish type techniques such as legering with a quivertip or touch-legering.
All the usual Wensum species are present, and most have been caught to specimen sizes at some point in the recent past. Roach and dace are probably most popular behind the chub, and some very nice fish of both species are present if you can find them! Perch and pike are found in numbers, occasional bream and there is a head of brown trout, some of them stocked fish for the fly-only syndicate which operates in the coarse close season and for the first two weeks after the sixteenth of June. Some of these hang on and grow to good sizes, certainly six pounds plus, probably preying on small fish. Though we don't actually fish for them, it is interesting to see how well they can do. Historically of course, all the Wensum weirpools held a big, old wild brownie or two.......
Situated in a quiet part of the Wensum valley, the fishery comprises over a mile of river plus the two famous mill pools. For the mobile float angler it is possible to start at the top of the stretch, and in a good winters day fish your way right down to the bottom boundary, with a break for lunch at the car half way down. Of course the more you catch the slower your progress will be!
Members often comment on what a pleasant area it is to spend time in. The river banks mostly consist of wet meadow and woodland, most of the time you can't see a house or a road. A wealth of wildlife, flora and fauna can be seen on the banks or nearby throughout the year, some of it quite unusual. Recent bird notables include hobbies in the summer, the occasional red kite, great grey shrike, an over-wintering great white egret, cuckoos and passing ospreys most years in the spring and much more.
As a fishery, Sayer's Meadow has always been highly sought after, and as such, a lengthy waiting list is in place. With soaring demand in recent times, and new applications greatly exceeding the number of syndicate places becoming available each season, WACA has reached the point of being unable to offer any further waiting list places to those who are not already members of the Association (this applies only to the Sayer's Meadow fishery only and does not affect those already on the waiting list).
