Being a Angler & Underwater cameraman both of these chalk streams have been high on my hitlist to film for a while so when the Environment Agency asked me to come down do try and film its fish species i couldn't refuse them!
My main goal was to film Atlantic Salmon but with the chalk streams having a huge range of fish species i had plenty to choose from including a few firsts for me.
My first port of call was to have a snorkel around and work out how spooky the fish are which turned out very! salmon have been with a doubt one of the hardest species to film get on film. this time of year they are just coming out of the sea so very silvery and very alert to danger so when a 6ft long water monkey like myself comes along they flee!
One species that i was glad to see plenty of was eels! not to everyones tastes but they have declined by 95% in the last 50 years and a vital fish to our rivers. i was happy to find them all over the rivers from pencil thinkness to 3ft long!
a slightly lesser known cousin of the salmon is the sea trout which is basicully a brown trout that goes to sea. these out numbered the salmon around 10 - 1 and tended to come into the river to feed rather then breed at this time of year.
After three days and much hard work i got my footage of the salmon which i was very pleased with. unlike the pacific salmon the atlantic don't all die with around 20% returning to the sea to spawn again on a later date.
Heres a video of the salmon & sea trout
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