North West Branch was given the kiss of life at the beginning of 2004, after a short dormancy. The events program was kick started in style with a local flavour presentation on the work of the Ribble Catchment Conservation Trust, followed by a thought provoking presentation on salmonid habitat management from Irelands Dr Martin O’Grady. Spring brought a presentation from Dr Ian Russell of CEFAS, on the ever-controversial topic of protecting fish from cormorant predation. The year was then rounded off in style with an enthusiastic presentation from Dr Malcolm Greenhalgh who gave us a whistle-stop tour of some of the North-East Atlantic’s more interesting salmon rivers. The talk had even the non-angling members of the audience, itching to get fishing.  Some of our recent presentations and AGM minutes can be downloaded from our new branch resources page.

In October 2005, Branch Committee Member Frank Partington organised the first NW Branch Coarse Fishing competition. Despite the blustery weather, the team event held at Partridge Lakes in Culcheth was a great success, and won by Leigh Angling Association, represented by Andy Gornall and… Frank Partington! We hope to make this an annual event, and also to extend this to a trout fishing competition as well in 2006.

The North West is a very diverse region holding some of the country’s best salmon and trout rivers, as well as some excellent stillwater and river coarse fisheries, so we want our events program to reflect this diversity. Please feel free to contact us if you know of an event or have an idea for an event, which you think other IFM members, would be interested in or find useful.

2005 Branch Report - download it here (12.5Kb)