Where can I fish a clean stretch?

No green stretches right now — what to do

• Use the postcode finder above

  Enter your postcode to see every overflow, sampling point and recent flag within 5 km of where you fish.

• Switch to all-purpose mode

  Our main safe-spots register shows 0 sampling points with all-green chemistry — useful for getting a feel for general river health even where nutrient readings are sparse.

• Check your local angling association

  The Angling Trust's Water Quality Monitoring Network trains volunteers to test nutrient pollution — adds high-frequency citizen-science readings on top of the EA feed.

Active spills to avoid right now· 10

Storm overflows currently discharging. Avoid fishing within 5 km downstream until conditions settle (typically 48 hours after heavy rain). Fish kills downstream of dry-weather spills are a direct ammonia-toxicity signal worth reporting.

1. 01

   TRIBUTARY OF LITTLETON BROOK

   Severn Trent Water · SVT01836 · spilling for 6 days

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2. 02

   Tributary of Afon Marlais

   Dwr Cymru Welsh Water · Carmel WwTW Storm Overflow · spilling for 3 days

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3. 03

   Unnamed Watercourse

   Dwr Cymru Welsh Water · Llanaelhaearn WwTW Overflow · spilling for 10.6 h

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4. 04

   HURST HAVEN

   Southern Water · SWS00382 · spilling for 10.4 h

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5. 05

   River Wid

   Anglian Water · AWS01149 · spilling for 6.4 h

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6. 06

   River Don (+ Ps Eo)

   Yorkshire Water · YWS01460 · spilling for 1.8 h

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7. 07

   Pentre Ffwrdan Stream

   Dwr Cymru Welsh Water · Flint Mountain Storm Overflow · spilling for 1.4 h

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8. 08

   Nant Cledlyn

   Dwr Cymru Welsh Water · Cwrtnewydd WwTW Storm Overflow · spilling for 1.4 h

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9. 09

   River Irwell

   United Utilities · UUP01577 · spilling for 1.3 h

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10. 10

    Toppesfield Brook River Colne

    Anglian Water · AWS01395 · spilling for 1.1 h

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How “clean stretch” works for anglers

• Nutrient pollution first. We require a recent reading of ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, total phosphorus, or orthophosphate — the indicators that drive algal blooms, ammonia toxicity, and fish-stream health under the Water Framework Directive.
• Within WFD “good” or better. Ammoniacal nitrogen < 0.4 mg/L · un-ionised ammonia < 0.025 mg/L · nitrate < 7 mg/L · nitrite < 0.03 mg/L · phosphorus < 0.05 mg/L. Drawn from the Environment Agency's WFD river standards.
• No active spills nearby. Within 5 km, no storm overflow currently discharging. Sewage raises ammonia and depletes oxygen quickly — even a green test from yesterday is unsafe if a spill is happening today.
• Recent enough. The nutrient test must be within the last 14 days. Older readings get flagged stale.

Note: dissolved oxygen — the single most important indicator for fish — is published by the EA via the Hydrology API (continuous sondes), not WIMS (lab samples). We surface DO data directly on relevant overflow pages where a sonde is in range. Lab DO from WIMS is intermittent across the inland network and isn't in our safe-spot scoring as a result.