I recently heard that a local restaurant was boasting, 'Herefordshire Haddock' on the menu. I absolutely kid you not!

'How can that be,' I wondered? 'Herefordshire is totally land locked and miles from the nearest ocean!' I decided to try and find out what was going on. Following weeks of investigative journalism, I discovered that there is such a fish, and that it truly is a rare delicacy, but that the fish's source is a closely guarded secret.

Turned out that Herefordshire Haddock can only be caught approximately once every 175 years, when the River Wye floods in July. The fish spawns by laying eggs in the grass in flood plain areas surrounding the River Wye. When the river floods during the winter months, the water is too cold and the eggs lay dormant. Every 175 years or so though, the river floods in July and the tepid waters allow the fish to hatch.

If the baby haddock is lucky, it manages to swim straight for the main river, where it can grow to as much as 25 inches in length and weigh up to 14lbs before swimming to the ocean. However, the young fish are considered a delicacy in Japan - in the same way that elvers are on the River Severn. Enterprising local fishermen go out and, using hi-tech, extremely powerful pumps with a special filtering attachment, they literally suck the fish from the flood plains before they have a chance to swim for the safety of the river.

I went along with a group of local fishermen, to a secret location during the week and was allowed to film them in action. They did not mind, as long as I did not identify any of the individuals involved. The group of four men amassed a massive haul of Haddock on the day, which, in this case, they took to a local 'Haddock Station', selling their catch for as much as £2000 per kilo, for shipment to the Far East.

'This will pay for my once in a lifetime holiday in Weston-Super-Mare', said one of the fishermen, as he counted the wad, handed to him later in the evening at the Haddock Station. 'We usually just go to Florida or Bali but this year, we can afford Weston. The kids are already getting excited at the thought of candy floss on the pier'.

A young male flasher exposed himself to two women at the side of the A40 in Ross-on-Wye and local police are investigating the incidents.

The youth, aged between 16 and 18, was stood between the Overross and Hildersley islands when the incidents happened, at around 6pm on Thursday, July 26 and 2.30pm the next day. On each occasion, he appeared to wait until a vehicle containing lone females drove past before exposing himself.

The youth was described as white, with short dark hair, of slim build and around 5ft 7ins tall. He wore a white baseball cap, blue jeans, a white or pale tee shirt and white trainers.

Anybody with information about this male, or others who may also have been targeted by him as they passed by are asked to contact PC Wendy Powell at Ross-on-Wye Police Station on 08457 444888 or to call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

For those who were at the White Lion Inn early on Friday evening whilst I was filming this time-lapse, debating as to whether the river level was rising again or falling. It was falling. On the full television quality version of the film below, levels clearly fall by the height of one sandstone brick in the bridge arch during the six hour filming period.

The 30 second film below was filmed between 6:00 PM and midnight on Friday and shows the River Wye flowing under Wilton Bridge in time lapse.

For those interested in the 'how?'. The movie was shot with an Olympus E10 (which was the first pro digital camera I bought for Wyenot News). One photo was taken every minute over the six hour period. The resulting photographs were strung together to play at 10 frames per second and the sound was then added. I recorded the sound of the river at Foy, back in 1999, when I needed it for a music track I was making at the time.

The two heads that briefly appear for one tenth of a second belong to two people who stopped to talk to me for a minute whilst I was checking that the camera was still operating correctly.

The two photos below the film show just how much the river level dropped over a seven day period between Sunday morning 22nd and Sunday morning, 29th July.

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