©2007
churchwoodfisheries.co.uk
Management of the fishery...
Annual fishery management of stocks is a vital part of running a successful and productive fishery. Therefore it's important to find the right balance of fish stocks, thus maintaining the health and condition of the fish, along with ensuring the water quality remains high. With such fast growth rates, annual cropping (removal) of excess stock is often necessary to control overstocking, especially since both lakes contain many species other than carp, such as roach, rudd and bream, which breed readily. In addition to the removal of unwanted fish, netting provides us with the perfect opportunity to check the health and growth rates of some of our fish. Seine netting uses a curtain of fine mesh net with a surface floating head rope and a leaded foot rope which sits tight to the bed of the lake. The net is set from a boat to encircle the fish and is then drawn gradually to the bank. Although fairly effective to capture small roach and rudd the larger more powerful fish tend to barge their way under, around and even over the net. Netting takes place in the colder months while the fish remain docile, allowing easier handling and transportation. After taking over the fishery our first experience of netting the lakes in 2006 was a great experience that any angler or fish enthusiast would have enjoyed. Over 2,500lbs of small fish were netted along with numerous carp and specimen roach, rudd, bream and tench. Naturally any carp are returned along with the larger sized fish of the other species.
We have had the pleasure of netting Jenkins Lake again this year and are awaiting a suitable time to net Churchwood Lake. Over 500lbs of small roach and rudd were removed and as you can see from the pictures below there were some cracking specimens netted. Unfortunately only a handful of carp were caught with the largest going 24lbs, an old mirror know as "The Broken Linear". With numerous snags, the uneven bottom and pockets of silt, Jenkins Lake has always been difficult to net so it's not surprising so many carp manage to avoid being caught each year in the nets.
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