A Journey down the River Dee with Jon Beer
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Middle Dee and Chester Weir
Salmon and sea trout smolts slipping downstream towards
the tide share the waters of the middle Dee with another, more distant,
relative. The River Dee is world renown for its population of superb
Grayling and the Middle Dee is blest to share in this abundance and
is a regular venue for international fly fishing championships
The silvery smolts descending the Dee are joined by others
from the Ceiriog as the river swings north and breaks out of its mountain
fastness onto the broader lands of the Cheshire Plain. With all that
elbow-room the river slows and meanders extravagantly, delaying its
arrival at Chester, urban life and the tide. In these more sedate waters
the salmon and sea trout smolts pass downstream amidst increasing numbers
of roach and perch, chub and barbel and all the other species of a splendid
coarse fishery in the river's lower reaches. There are more and stranger
species below Chester Weir as the pure water from the Welsh mountains
mixes with the salt water of the Irish Sea.
To the earliest Britons its name was Deova , "the goddess":
it was "the holy river".
To the fish, insects, birds and other creatures supported by these
pure and precious waters, it still is.
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