Fishery Management Report
We have had our first two work parties of the season at Hurston and a lot has been achieved but there is still more to do. At the first work party of the year we had an excellent turnout of 15 members and got stuck into two tasks in particular. One group concentrated on moving and laying woodchip to improve the paths and also to improve some low lying areas of bank which tend to have standing water, in particular during the winter months.
The other team got the weed rakes out, in particular on the tench pond and the middle pond. We have our new weed razor which has been designed by ‘Kitch’ this is very effective but is hard work and a dozen pull through is probably about enough for anyone in a session. We will need to keep raking the weed ourselves this year as we are not able to have the weed boat this year because of the KHV situation.
The session concluded with a bacon sandwich or burger from Steve Simmonds trusty BBQ.
At our second work party we introduced two new members to the water in the shape on a couple of mannequins that we have purchased as part of our cormorant deterrent plans. At the moment these have been sited at the head of the tench and match ponds but we intend to move them around to different locations which will hopefully keep the cormorants on their toes and off our water! At the moment we have given them fluorescent jackets but if any one has any old fishing trousers or even better fluorescent legging they would like to donate (it would be good to give them some leg coverage as well). They are quite large so a fairly long leg and decent sized waist is required – it is easier to adapt something that is too big rather than too small. If you can help on that front please e-mail us HEREand we can sort out how we can transfer the clothing.
We concentrated on the paths for this session and were lucky to get some help from our neighbour across the road with his 4 wheel drive Kubota which was really useful for transporting material down to the match pond rather than having to barrow it down.
Unfortunately I was not able to fit the BBQ in the car with our two new members but I hope that normal service will be resumed for 26th April when we will have the last of this current series of work parties.
I also took the opportunity to take pictures of some of the bird and bat boxes that have been sited at Hurston, which was very opportune as a member had recently asked whether we could put some up on his survey form. I don’t think that we can quite claim to do as you request (in this instance), it is more a case of great minds think alike as these would have been installed at about the time our member was filling in his form!