Syndicate News - May 2009

The syndicate lake is fishing quite well now, consistently producing fish every week.

The average weight of the 20's is over 25lb and there is only a tiny few of the original stock that are actually under 20 now. Even the aggressive little common from the original first 9 commons that were first stocked has been out at 20 and ounces.

One of the regular anglers on the lake, Craig, pictured here with a 26lb scaly one has had more than 25 fish so far, including 2 of the known 30's, the linear at 32 and the fully scaled at 31. Craig's brother has had a 32 common, Ben had a 30lb mirror and James had split at 37 and also another 37 mirror.

So far that's all the 30's that have been out, 6 of the known 11 from last year but it is looking good for the future as there is so many 25 plus fish being caught.

I've done a few nights and managed to catch 3 x 20's, 24, 26 and 28.12. I've also had corn rods out to try to catch some of the little babies, so far not to successfully, 1lb, 6 and 8, all little commons is my total. I also had the 24 and the 26 on the corn so they are not wasted small fish rods.

On the last trip, fishing with Anne I caught a 19.08 mirror that by all means looked like a new baby carp. I also noticed the same characteristics with the 24 corn caught mirror. Both fish had the Simmo look to a degree but were lighter coloured and had scale patterns that just looked different to the 86 Simmos that I bought from Paul Middleton.

Bearing in mind that at least half of the Simmo's died and the rest seem to be over 26 pound it also doesn't add up that there is as many fish that look like Simmo's between 20 and 26 pound.

Even last year, one weekend when it was really hot, I observed far to many fish over 15-20 pound than there should be in the lake. From what was stocked there should be no more than 90 good fish, 20 pound plus, but there seems to be lots more than that.

The only explanation is they have bred and then grown on. Certainly they spawned 6 years ago because I saw a tremendous amount of small 1-5 inch fish one time when the cormorants had hearded them to the shallow water near the little island. Some of them would of survived and could of easily reached 20 pound or more. This year is not the first year that they have been caught, 15 pound "Simmo's" were caught last year. They are doing extremely well, that's for sure and some of them will certainly end up as 30's sooner than we think. They actually look so young and they are really solid, lovely fish.

So when people ask how many fish are in the lake it really is a difficult one to answer. About 90 stocked originals for sure but just how many babies I cant say.

The first spawning year there was only 66 Simmo's, 11 commons and from memory 4-6 scaly mirrors, which again semi explains why these possible babies are not to scaley. The next spawning year there was a lot more scaley mirrors and as a consequence there seems to also be some scaley baby mirrors and also baby commons. It's very hard to tell which is an homebred fish and which is an original stock fish but there has been some very small (1 pounders) and then more, all through the sizes, to high doubles/low 20's caught this year.

The only certainty regards who's original and who's a baby is that anything below 15 pound is a baby, but should that be re-assessed to anything under 20? It's really hard to say isn't it, some of them could easily be over 25 pound.

Trying to create a big fish water when the blooming things breed like rabbits isn't easy. I know years ago on Rod Hutchinson's lake in Lincolnshire they bred like wildfire and the only way to catch the babies consistently was to fish maggot or corn. Rod's lake was a similar scenario to ours, irrigation, quiet deep, weedy, mostly carp only and stocked with several strains of carp.

I don't want the big fish to suffer due to over stocking which could easily happen depending how many homebred's there is. The perch seem to be very numerous now so they are being well fed, probably on baby carp. Hopefully the perch might be our saviours regards even more baby carp coming through. It might even turn into a good winter perch water, there is certainly 2 pounders in there now.

We tried netting the syndicate a few years ago which seemed nearly a waste of time due to the weed, I think we only got 4 babies. This back end though I am netting the day ticket lake again, there is still loads of below double figure fish in there. I intend to have one of the college's that teach fishery management come down to do the netting so I might just have another go at the syndicate. It does worry me that the same as what's happened on the day ticket lake could happen to the syndicate, the homebreds taking away the potential of the bigger ones to pack on the growth.

Everyone is being a bit doom and gloomy about the way the water is going down on the syndicate, promised Indian summer etc,etc but it is an irrigation lake so that's that really, sorry!! If everyone's worst fears come true and the lake ends up really low then this back end will be a good opportunity to have a good chance of sorting out the homebred's, one which I will try to take I think.

That's about it for now regards syndicate news. Don't forget this is membership renewance time so please let us know if you decide not to renew.

Oh there is another little matter. I don't want anyone to go on either of the islands. There will be loads of nests, some being quiet rare birds, little ringed plovers, oyster catchers, some kind of pochard ducky thing and possibly many more. So the island's are out of bounds at the moment, please keep off them.

I have nearly no rules on the lake so please respect the island one. Life jackets at all times on the boat, taking good care of the fish, respecting other syndicate anglers etc, etc are sensible enough so please stick to them. The day ticket fish spawned this weekend. There was only a couple of anglers fishing there who all packed up due to the spawning fish which I thought was really good of them, considering one of the anglers boys caught his first 20 before the carp started spawning. I have never stopped people fishing for spawning fish but I never would so myself. I am also asking the syndicate not to fish for them while they are spawning. Certainly on their first hit when nearly all of them will be going for it. The rest of the time is awkward because they can be at it, on and of for months, depending on the weather. It's your call really but it all comes down to fish care, they are at an exhausted low ebb during and just after spawning and it's risking there health.

I know I promised to put a gallery of fish on the web site, I still intend to so if you can send me your pics from this year or last please do. Either put them on a disk or e-mail them (reduce them first please). Any that's already on the web site I have saved so no need to send them.

That is it for now, I hope you all have a good season and that first 40 comes out soon.

Gary