Fishery Management Report

Stemps and Cart June 2010

Having not been over to Walberton since the depths of winter, in fact the last time I was there we actually had to break the ice to fish, I decided to go over for the recent work party on 6th June. I was expecting us to be involved in a fairly heavy trimming session as the trees and bushes over at Walberton are always very lush and green and seem to grow quickly. However it was soon evident that Nelson and his crew have been sneaking over in the week and have really kept the whole venue in lovely condition.

What we did do was trim a lot of the nearside vegetation that overhangs the lake, you know the stuff I mean the really frustrating bits that a fish will dive into on the inside just as you think you have them beaten! We found that the best way to tackle it was from in the water so I donned the chest waders and cut back whilst a couple of the others took away the cutting. Nelson also had a go round the islands from the boat and managed to bring back his normal assortment of hooks, line, floats and feeders etc. It always amazes me how much tackle is left round the islands as you really do not need to get that close and the skilled angler should be able to draw his fish away from the island to give himself a much better chance of getting his fish and tackle back safely.

The one disappointment and I know that this frustrates Nelson as well is the state of some of the swims, quite frankly it looks as if some of our members take a small excavator into the swim with them as they have been severely dug up, some have had the front boards kicked down some appear to have had bank sticks that look to have been the size of scaffold tubes knocked into them and then dragged out, with no attempt made to repair the damage. A number of swims were extensively rebuilt over the winter and these are already showing signs of disrepair.

When you fish a swim, please consider your fellow anglers and leave it as you would like to find it, take a couple of minutes when you have finished to fill in any holes that you have made or even better do you really need to make the holes in the first place, and of course it goes without saying that you should take your rubbish with you.

Your Fishery Management Team work really hard to make sure our fisheries and swims are in tip top condition, it wouldn’t hurt to spend a few minutes after a session making it a little easier for them.