This month, the Environment Agency visited our mixed coarse & carp stillwater fishery, Wyver Lane Pond at Belper, to conduct a netting exercise. The purpose of this was to evaluate & health check our fish stocks and to provide valuable insight for any future stockings of the pond.
As we expected, the netting produced a real mixed bag! Carp to over 20lb were caught, as well as thousands of roach, dace, skimmers & perch. There were also a few larger bream (“slabs”), good tench, a few pike… even a Tommy Ruffe!
Netting a fishery is known as a good indicator to the stock levels of a fishery, but it is notoriously difficult and fraught with problems including the net snagging, fish escaping from the net and fish taking refuge around obstructions and other inaccessible areas. Despite this, we recorded a healthy number of fish and several scale samples were taken away to be tested.
Click on the following thumbnails to view pictures from the day, showing the netting process by EA Fisheries Officers and some of the fish caught:
Wyver Lane Pond is our members-only lake, which is open for all annual members to fish during daylight hours. There is also a night fishing ticket available, but numbers of these are very limited. Click here for more information on fishing Wyver Lane Pond.