Biosecurity Advice

Anyone who goes fishing, carries out river fly monitoring, does river habitat works, or indeed is involved in any other water-based activities, should be aware of the risks of transferring diseases and invasive non-native species (INNS) on clothing and equipment.

The Wild Trout Trust provide practical advice on biosecurity protocols. These can be found HERE. These are drawn up using the latest guidance from the GB Non Native Species Secretariat.

The basic advice is to ‘check, clean and dry’ all equipment and clothing. For a very effective, simple solution, the check, clean, dry protocol can be augmented with immersion of equipment in hot water (45C) for a period of 15 minutes (Anderson et al. 2015). This approach will even cope with kit like felt-soled wading boots which are notoriously difficult to clean and dry effectively.

Full advice on the check, clean, dry biosecurity approach for anglers is available HERE