IN 2018 THE first call from the Wild Trout Trust (WTT) came through to the Derbyshire Angling Federation (DAF) about Snake Lane weir. Located above the village of Duffield, close to where the River Ecclesbourne meets the River Derwent, the 1970s construction was stopping Atlantic salmon in their tracks. After making the 1,400-mile journey from their feeding grounds in Greenland, the fish were blocked from reaching their historic breeding grounds upstream by a wall of concrete too high to jump.
“There was no way to physically get past it,” says Steve Clifton, the DAF’s managing secretary, who’s been fishing these waters for five decades. The WTT had a solution: demolish the weir and install a socalled ‘fish pass’ in its place. This boulder-strewn, stepped rock ramp would enable salmon, trout and other gravel-spawning species to continue their journey upstream. It would also improve the whole local ecosystem by reconnecting the habitats upand downstream of the weir.
With the DAF owning the riverbed of that particular patch of the Ecclesbourne (as well as the Derwent below it), the WTT needed the club’s permission before it could go
