Country diary: A big fish in a dried-up river

Sandy, Bedfordshire: This old perch has the saggy look of a plastic shark with a slow puncture, but it's still king of the weirSo slow is the flow of our spring-fed river that a solid mat of duckweed has clogged the bend, leaving the impression that the current has ceased altogether. In the water under a footbridge, waving fronds and cabbage-like scrunched leaves wave no more, but there is anything but stillness here - shoal upon shoal of fish, partitioned both by species and size, plait and dart with purposeful randomness over the bricks and stones of an algae-coated riverbed.Beneath my feet, the minor minnows cluster. Farther out, in a glade enclosed by waterweed, curiosity nudges a shoal of sprat-sized fish towards the awning of vegetation. They might seek to hide and forage here, though it's always possible something else might have got there first. Continue reading...