history

Artists On The Irwell

1st October 2020 by Mike Duddy

Those of you who have been regular long term readers of my blog will know that I just love stumbling across unusual links, information and quirky facts about my favourite River Irwell.

Over the years I’ve become quite the art connoisseur – especially when I can link other people art, to the places where I fish.

Back in February 2012 I wrote about “Impressionists On The Irwell” – have a read of these words and pictures from back in the day

Pierre Adolphe Valette was a French impressionist artist who came to live in Manchester in 1905. Finding our murky grey landscape to his liking – he stayed in the North West until 1928 painting many Manchester landscapes in the Impressionist style. He became a tutor at the Manchester Municipal School of Art and was mentor to L.S. Lowry.

Adolphe Valette Bailey Bridge 1912 above, Mike Duddy 2012 below

Adolphe painted many pictures of the Irwell in the impressionist style – today I did a good impression of an angler – and caught bugger all.

In 2016 I came across these two. an amazing sketch and a painting of the River Irwell at Agecroft by Valettes’ star pupil L.S.Lowry.

There were a couple of things that really grabbed me about two Lowry images

The first being that the location of these great pieces of art / Irwell history was just behind my house .. in fact less than a half a mile away, and somewhere I pass every day on my journey to and from work. I regularly fish at this exact location and love the fact that the trees in the distance are still there

The other thing that I love about these Lowry pieces is that as a child, I can remember watching rowing races here, with the old Agecroft rowing club, long before they moved to their current home at Salford Quays. I’m also proud to love the link local between Agecroft Rowing Club, which is one of the worlds oldest rowing clubs, formed in 1861 and the angling club of which I am chairman – the Salford Friendly Anglers Society – which was formed in 1817 and is the worlds oldest angling club.

I just love these old bits of history, and the art that has been created around the river.

So imagine my delight today when I came across these pictures from an artist I had the pleasure of meeting on the banks of the River a few years ago whilst working on the development of the new flood storage basin in Salford (more of that towards the end of this page).

First of all, have a look at this painting of Hulme Hall in 1770, a lovely riverside mansion.

And now 250 years later, look how its change ! Hulme Hall was demolished in the 1800s, sacrificed for a railway line.

The apartments are a 21st century addition, and line the banks of the Bridgewater Canal which flows nearby. The river has been changed by man so much over the past 250 years, it would be unrecognisable to a time traveler from 250 years ago.

And now the bit I love. @Kelzo has used is artistic skills to do a Hulme Hall mash up.

Hulme Hall lives 250 years on !!

I just love stumbling across these little river nuggets.

Anyway, back to www.kelzo.com

I first met him when he was commissioned to do the art work at the new Salford Flood Basin at Castle Irwell (now known as Kersal Wetlands). Salford Friendly Anglers have the fishing rights along the section of river that runs around the flood basin, and there are some good fish to be had.

While you are mooching about the river in this area, if you look around you will also find some of @Kelzo work. I love it, and the sharp eyed amongst you will spot lots of links back to Adolphe Valette, and L.S. Lowry.

Take it how you want, but in my view Kelzos work carries on the impressionist torch in a 21st Century style.

You can see the Lowry influence in a lot of his work – I’m sure he would approve.

Have a look below at some of his work on the flood basin. Check out his website for even more.

As I walk the banks of our local rivers, I see lots of places where artists have recorded. I think I shall do a few more posts like this in coming months.

Black Death On The Irwell

30th November 2018 by Mike Duddy

Here are the observations of a North Manchester Angler written in 2009 – it gives a great insight as to the impact Cormorants have made on my local River Irwell. (and I’ve added a few observations of my own to conclude)

“I’ve run Wickenhall bottom lake in Newhey for around 8 years now. It was a chance remark by one of the regular anglers about fishing the river Irwell in Manchester. loads of roach, most of them between 6 ounces and a pound he said, and on some days we get maybe 8 or nine chub up to 3lb or so, we’ve even had a couple of bream too.

After probing the said angler on areas to fish, he said ,”don’t go on your own cos it can be a bit rough, and swims are hard to find but worth the effort if you find the roach shoals”.

a couple of months later and after talking my daughter into a pre Xmas shopping trip, (on the condition that we have an hour looking at the river for possible access points, I was stood high over the Irwell on the impressive Trinity bridge, fish were regularly topping a few hundred yards upstream, nothing massive, but definitely fish. Anyway plans were made for me and Pete Healy, to go and have a go the following Sunday.

We arrived 30mins or so before first light. Fish were topping everywhere. We both started on maggot feeder. My first bite came before I put the rod down, a perfect roach of 10 ounces. I turned to tell Pete, who was fifty feet further upstream, only to find him with a similar fish in the landing net.

The next few hours were ridiculous. Fish after fish came to the double maggot baits. In fact at one stage we both stopped fishing for half an hour to have a brew and a butty.

Without going through every session we had in a period of 4 years, I’ll just say that the place was incredible. On numerous occasions, Pete, my daughter Abbie (9 to 13 years old at the time)on many, and I mean many days had at least 50 or sixty pounds of roach, chub, perch and dace. we only ever saw another four or five lads fishing over all that time and all of us kept it pretty quiet. Stickfloat was probably the best method with maggot, caster and hemp. But we caught on big baits like bread and meat too.

You’ll have noticed by now a lot of this article is written in the past tense.

These glory days of the Irwell have now sadly passed. After speaking to one of the regulars last year and finding out the fishing had gone downhill we decided to have a couple of sessions in the old swims,(we hadn’t been down for over 10 months). I can tell you it was a total waste of time, conditions were spot on for trotting, the water was perfect, but not a single bite in four trips.

now it’s quite normal for shoals of silver fish to hold up all winter in city centre rivers. whether it’s the lights or maybe due to it being a tad warmer I don’t know, but it happens in lots of rivers in the UK.

It’s also normal for fish to suddenly not be there one year for apparently no reason, quite often though they won’t be that far away. So with that in mind we took my small rowing boat (normally used for piking) to have a look around with a fish finder. We did find fish quarter of a mile downstream in a couple of places and caught some on trotted maggot from the boat. These were mainly roach but we only had about six each.

There’s a word I’ve deliberately missed out in this article up to yet, well here it comes……

……..CORMORANTS………

In the last two years of fishing we saw a huge increase in the numbers of these birds, starting with one or two at first and then going up to dozens in the end. We saw them many times taking big roach, chub and dace all day long on some days.

It was heartbreaking to see and is the main reason we stopped fishing there. Previously unmarked, pristine fish, were now very badly marked indeed and the fishing dropped dramatically. The reason I decided to submit this article was to let the lads in the Manchester area, who fished the Irwell now or in the past, know about the situation.

2008 between Xmas and new year we took the boat onto the Irwell. At this time of year, centre of town should be solid with fish….. we spent ALL DAY looking in every nook and cranny from M.E.N arena all the way to Salford quays.

WE DID NOT SEE ANY FISH AT ALL IN MILES OF RIVER, OR ANY OF THE BASINS, ETC, THAT CAN’T BE ACCESSED FROM THE BANK.

So what’s happened to all those beautiful fish? Pollution would have turned some up for all to see but no one has reported any. Maybe they migrated further than we looked, but I doubt it, I think the black death is back in the country……..only this time it can fly.

As a footnote we caught from six swims in the centre of town. (are you ready for this):

ROACH TO OVER 2LB
BREAM TO 6LB
PERCH TO 3LB
SEATROUT TO 3LB
BROWNIES TO 2LB
PIKE TO 23LBS
TENCH TO 3LB
GRAYLING TO 1LB
DACE TO 12OZ
CHUB TO OVER 5LB
GUDGEON,RUFFE, AND I EVEN CAUGHT A BLUE ORFE ABOUT 2LB ONE DAY.”

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Fishing Fiends Opinion Below

Coming to the end of 2018 now – its interesting to see how the Irwell has changed – the roach have all but disappeared despite regular restocking by the Environment Agency.

The bream in the lower river have grown on to near double figures, carp started to show – some of them nudging 30lbs

Sea trout ??? do they really exist ?? or are they just smolted up brownies – which now grow to nearly 13lbs. The three huge locks on the Manchester Ship Canal are an effective barrier to migratory fish (though plans are being put in place to enable fish passage in the future)

Pike — well they are still present throughout the river from Bury down to Manchester, with lots of small jacks but the occasional big girl to 20lb.

Tench – I’ve never seen one from the Irwell.

Grayling – a recent stocking by the EA of 3000 tiddlers but an odd fish to 12 inches being caught in the Bury area. Dace are present but not prolific.

Chub to 6lbs,

Plenty of Gudgeon.

A smattering of Perch but they are not prolific.

200 Barbel were stocked at the waters meet of the Irwell and Croal in the early 90s by Farnworth Anglers – and the odd fish has turned up between Bury and Manchester to 13lb – however these fish are as rare as hens teeth, and its a real achievement to catch the mythical Irwell Barbel. The EA stocked 500 fingerlings in 2014, and again with 500 slightly bigger fish in 2017 and another 500 in winter 2018. However they don’t appear to thrive in Irwell waters and are still the Holy Grail for Irwell anglers.

As water quality improves – the fishing has without doubt declined from the halcyon days of the early late 90s and early 2000s. I too can remember catching 50lb+ nets of roach on hemp and maggot – but these events are now a thing of the past.

However,the trout fishing goes from strength to strength as water quality improves, and their fry are better suited to fast flowing water.

Without doubt the Gooseander which so effectively predate on fish fry, the Cormorants which so effectively predate on adult fish, mink and frequent pollution incidents have decimated our river.

I wonder what the future holds..

Fishing On Christmas Day

25th December 2015 by Mike Duddy

Hi Everyone – Happy Christmas

Have you ever wondered about getting out fishing on Christmas Day?
Some people get out there every year without fail, some never

I have lucky friends who can get out on the bank every 25th December.
From cod fishing on the beach at Rossall Point, Fleetwood; to fishing a match and getting home mid afternoon to a Christmas dinner – some people seem to be able to fit it in every year.

I’ve only ever managed to do it once – during a fantastic winter break in Kenya the local charter skipper was fully booked apart from xmas day, and the hotel was preparing christmas dinner at 8pm sharp – a day that was destined to provide some amazing sport didn’t disappoint. It ended up as a great family day out on the Indian Ocean – a trip that I’ve never bettered. Take a look at these pics – or go back in time and have a read of the blog post that I wrote about it back in Jan 2010.

With a couple of small additions to my family over the last couple of years, my current chances of getting out fishing on Christmas are hovering around the zero to not a chance range…

And despite telling people when they ask me what I want for Christmas that I would be more than happy with any bit of fishing tackle that a fishing shop will sell them……. I can’t remember the last time I got someone to buy me some fishing kit for Christmas……… thinking back on it,, it was probably when my mum bought me a float rod when i was 11.

UNTIL………with me now aged 49 and my mum nearly 80 she has caved in (to doing her xmas shopping online) to buying me some fishing kit for xmas – an amazon cop out but I certainly don’t mind.

Not wanting to break her bank – this morning i unwrapped a Shakespeare Agility 7ft drop shot rod, and an Okuma Red Core reel.

Now I knew this stuff was coming, because I had to do the online ordering for her. So in anticipation of the Post Mans knock I took a trip to our new local tackle shop (****** yes!! new local tackle shops!! 2 new stores have opened in Manchester in 2015) and stocked up on some weird looking drop shot kit from Savage Gear.

And this evening I’ve been watching this – to see what its all about

So – I’ve got a few hours free tomorrow as I neatly side stepped going to the local panto with the rest of my family……… watch out fishies – here I come………

Going Fishing With My Dad

10th December 2015 by Mike Duddy

Duddy Fishing Ballintra 1970 — Three year old Fishing Fiend, Ballintra, Donegal 1970 With father and elder brother

The urge to fish is returning (it never really went away), and I’m looking forwards to blowing off the cobwebs, and getting back out on the bank with my youngest son Tommy who has kept me away from my rods for the last couple of years.

My eldest son Matthew now aged 20 still enjoys the occasional day out on the river with his dad and grandpa, but like most 20 year olds – his head is full of fashion, music, beer etc

However we can still persuade him to join us every now and then – and its always a great day for us to be all out together as a family.

It made me reflect on my own fishing beginnings.

There is a strong tradition of angling within our family especially on my fathers side.

Great great grandfathers and uncles from Ulster – all fishing mad according to family memories

A grandfather who moved to North Wales on retirement – so that he could pursue his passion for Sea Trout fishing.

My own father who has fished for as long as he can remember, and still fishes every week – whilst rapidly closing in on his 80th birthday.

And my own first fishing memories stem from family holidays to the West Coast of Ireland. Aged 3, nearly 4 being allowed to hold and play with my dads fishing kit, trips out on loughs and lakes in a rubber dinghy.

I can’t ever remember catching much (nothing changes) however I can still recall being distraught at bedtimes when my mother put me to bed, as my father was leaving the cottage to go out fishing for the evening. Then waking in the morning to help gut and clean the trout he had caught, and cook them for breakfast. Its amazing how some memories never fade. I can still touch, feel and smell those fish from that holiday cottage kitchen in my mind to this very day.

So – then for years after all I ever wanted to do – was go fishing with my dad.

Reading all copies of Anglers Mail, and my grandfathers trout magazines there was a strong burning desire inside me (which still exists today) to get out doors with some kit, and go fishing.

My dad must have realised how keen I was to join him on these fishing trips, but i think he valued his “alone time” from a young family, and the only time he ever took me fishing with him was on family holidays.I think my mum made him, in search of her own alone time !

Back at home in Manchester, my demands to be taken fishing were always rebuffed with the words “your not old enough to go fishing, you have to be 7”. His reasoning being that a 7 year old can sort out his own tangles (well some of them) and wouldnt distract him from his own fishing.

About this time in the early 70s, my parents used to do their weekly shop, in a northern suburb of Manchester called Middleton. In true 1970s style there was a big carbuncle of concrete in the centre of town, which was called the “shopping centre”. In Middleton, this grim bit of architecture was called “The Arndale”. (you can read a little of its history here – including how it was the Arndale that was resonsible for the covering and culverting of the River Irk – cost £360K)

Woolco – an offshoot of the Coop was the flagship store in the shopping centre – and for a fishing mad kid it was an amazing place. Not only was it the source of our weekly sustenance – school uniform, dodgy 1970s knitwear etc – they also had an isle which sold fishing tackle.

So rather than drag round the store after my parents, I used to stand in the fishing isle for half an hour while the folks did the shop. I touched, fingered, unwrapped and generally messed about with every bit of tackle they had for sale. And with the words of my dad in mind (your not old enough yet – I will buy you a fishing rod when your 7) I longed and longed for that day.

In the run up to my 7th birthday I carefully chose a rod, reel, fishing ruck sack and bits of kit – and made the store manager put them away in his office so that no one else would buy them.

A seven foot, brown glass fibre spinning rod, and a Mitchel 300 reel. A green canvas ruck sack with leather straps. And an assortment of peacock and crow quill floats. – 7 year old heaven.

My first fishing trip – as a true 7 year old fisherman who had is own tackle,was with my dad to Drinkwater Park Lake and we (he) used my tackle to catch 4 small gudgeon which we put in a bucket. We then drove off into the hills above Oldham to a North West Water Authority reservoir called Kitcliff – which is the central of these three large reservoirs in the Piethorn Valley

My dad baited up with the live gudgeon we had caught earlier- lip hooked it on a size 8 hook and cast it out under a small plastic (high tec kit in the 1970s) pencil float and then handed me my fishing rod.

And we sat and waited. My dad smoking ciggies to keep away the midges.

If I went back to visit that lake today, I can still show you the exact stones we sat on, while we fished.

After an hour, the float suddenly sprang to life and careered across the lakes surface,,,,,,, wait,,,,,,,,,,,,, wait,,,,,,,,,, wait,,,,,,,,,, STRIKE !!!

And a fish was on.

In true 7 year old style – i reeled in as though my life depended on it – and dragged a 12 inch (which seemed like a monster to me) brownie into my new extending, collapsible, knotted mesh landing net.

The fish was immediately dispatched against the toe of my dads welly and then wrapped in grass and paced in my fishing ruck sack. Job done, mission accomplished – a fishing fiend was born.

I’m turning 50 next year, and can remember every moment of the evening of my 7th birthday as though it was yesterday.

Over the years, I’ve taken every young member of my extended family fishing – and other than my 20 year old son Matthew, the bug has only bitten my nephew Ed, who is keen enough to have endured a couple of blank trips but still hold a level of interest.

So back to the 21st Century – as many of you know I’ve become a Dad again. Not once – but twice. Being blessed with a son Thomas (Tommy) and Daughter Katherine (Katy)

Now – Tommy who turned 3 years old in September is as keen as mustard. So I’m beginning to get the itch to take him with me.

Winter isnt the best time to take a toddler fishing so I really can’t wait for Summer 2016 when “my little pal” Fishing Fiend Jnr will be accompanying his father on some short local trips to wet a line or two

As you can imagine, all our family walks revolve round a visit to a lake, river, canal or stream – and little Diddy Duddy now calls every angler he comes across as “one of Daddys friends” – which of course many of you are.

So – look forwards to forthcoming blog posts based on visits to my local ponds, 6m whips and tiddler bashing sessions – though I have no doubt that there will be some 12oz+ monsters thrown in the mix…

Happy days

And hopefully when young Tommy grows up, will be able to recall the happy times, and great days he spent out with his dad on the river bank.