From Fields to Fifties - Episode #11 with Ashley Groom from 'The Carp Syndicate' in Crowborough

Ashley Groom tells his story of how he developed his syndicate fishery from a green field, now nursing fish to 60lb. Unique fishery management methods from farming snails to feeding fish like pigs. A story of patience, persistence and consistent progress. If BIG CARP is what you want, you'll learn a lot from this episode.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Fishery Fast Lane podcast. I'm joined here at Plumpton College with Ashley Groom, who runs the carp syndicate at Crowborough. I'll pass over to Ashley to uh introduce it better than I can. I've only been there once, haven't I, Anduelis?

SPEAKER_05 0:22

Yeah, absolutely, Ben. Yeah. Um started it about 23 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Right.

SPEAKER_05 0:27

Um, the story behind it really is that I was absolutely sick and tired of dayticket fisheries. Yeah. It was the launch of day ticket fisheries, and I just wasn't used to being on stage catching a fish and having 20 people around me.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:41

And I was very fortunate to buy a plot of land on the side of our land off a neighbour, and it kind of went from there, you know, developed the first pond, went into a second, and then into a third, and it's just grown from that, really.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Okay, was there water always there that made you think okay?

SPEAKER_05 0:57

To be fair, the first the first bit of land that we bought off our neighbour was a tiny dew pond. Right. And uh you could kind of see the shape of what used to be hundreds of years ago. Um, there was there was some form of lake there, and it was basically a muddy hole, right? Uh six inches deep in the winter time, and then by the summer it was just dried up full of mud, you know. Okay. Um, turns out it used to be a smelting pond back in the Iron Age, right? And we redeveloped that pond, and that was purely back then the dream, really, or the passion was just to get myself, my son, my daughter a place to fish.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:36

Um, and that's where it really sort of went from there. But then I had my friends wanting to fish it, and then their friends wanting to fish it.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:45

And we were a beef and cattle farm, and I was like, Well, we've got to diversify it because BSC, foot and mouth, and all those sort of things that were happening at the time, um, just destroyed the beef market. Um, so we diversified and went through the hells of planning applications with the councils, two years, three years of planning applications, different surveys, you know, it's just absolute craziness to get permission. Spent an absolute fortune, best part of 20 grand in before the spade went in the ground, type thing, just to get permission.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Is there a default then is no, you're not having a fishery? Sorry, they're they do the planners, do they default to no, you're not having a fishery? And they're against it, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:25

100%. Yeah, certainly back then it was almost your changing obviously change of use from farmland to fishery.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:33

Um, it was frowned upon. Again, at that time, we were at the launch of huge day ticket fisheries, these mega fisheries. So the across the news, you were seeing 300 cars parked on the road, everyone waiting to get into these day ticket fisheries. Um, the amount of complaints, and obviously you know, that the councils were getting, so it was a bit of a red flag. Okay, and so you really had to prove that you were doing something that was completely different to what was currently going on.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:04

And for me to create another day ticket lake was not on my agenda. No, okay. You know, I wanted something completely opposite.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, so um you had you've got is it three lakes? I've got three lakes. So what was there one at a time, or did you get them all planning for all of them together?

SPEAKER_05 3:17

Or no, no, no, no, no. It was all separate. So I'd done the first one, the first one sort of escalated into the second, and that was like the that was the really the second lake, Oak Lake, which I think you helped net with Andy. Um, you know, that kind of took us to the Premier League of sort of like the fisheries sort of thing. I think that that escalated us up. We that was that was a long slog, that lake. Right. That was a real hard slog. Um in terms of planning. Yep, planning was a hard slog, digging it was tough. We then went to two years of drought, so filling it, you know, it was hard. We we bought fish off uh VS. Um, we stopped it, and it was only probably a third full.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Right.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

Um, already paid the deposit for the fish, you didn't want to lose the deposit. Right. I was funding everything personally, right? You know, took a bank loan out, you know, uh remortgaged the house, all these sort of things that was just on a dream and a passion that I was going to create a fishery. Yeah, and everyone was looking at me going, You're mad. You just borrowed 35 grand, you're just borrowing another 50 grand, you know, you're just borrowing a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

Um and uh yeah, we had no rain, we had, you know, and it again, a typical thing, the lake was barren, there was it was just a hole in the ground, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

You know, and nature takes its time, you know, it takes five years to really establish itself. And when did you start to see some more positive, some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, if you like that? It was gonna work out. Yeah. Did the fish grow from the offlet?

SPEAKER_05 4:52

The fish did grow from the off. The problem being, I think, and that would take us on to the third lake. The problem with oak, we had Mine Pit Lake, and everyone wanted to fish oak, so the pressure was there from the very start. Um, and that really had a negative effect. I can remember someone telling me, um, who's big in the fishing world, when you dig your third lake, don't let anyone fish it for 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Right.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

And I was like, 10 years. Okay, well, I can't afford to invest, you know, 100 odd thousand pounds into it and not get a return from it straight away, or or you know, within reason.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:29

But naturally, what happened was when we opened the third lake, oak had just produced its first faulty. Right, already. So within five years of opening, we produced our first faulty. We then so we opened the third lake, but no one wanted to fish the third lake or the new lake because there was trenches and we didn't really know what was in there, right? Um, so it it kind of naturally happened that everyone just ignored this five-acre lake, and maybe six people fished it in the first year, and that was it. Everyone was just focused on oak, yeah, and it kind of left itself for three years just cut being neglected, and they as you know, they thrive on the glass.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Absolutely, yeah. Um, to give people a bit of a picture of what oak is, could you describe it the size and the sort of nature of the oak pitch?

SPEAKER_05 6:18

Yeah, I mean you kind of have to one thing I I found with nature, you have to let it do its course. I mean, I've I think I've always focused on the water quality, and the water quality looks after the lake, and the lake looks after the fish. Yeah, you know, plantings and everything that's you know all massively helpful. Yeah, you get influenced by anger saying, I need you to trees and I want it to be a lovely carpy pool. And when I first started, carpy pools were amazing, you know, and that's yeah, that's what we want. And actually, as you know, that's probably the most detrimental thing to have as a fishery, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah, yeah. I think like you say, when you said about neglect, it's it's to an extent, isn't it? Because there's that there's comes to the point where you have a natural, well, an environment that you've created that's barren, but when it is barren, things quickly grow and take advantage of that open space, don't they? So uh to a point, I think when places do become overgrown and neglected, it kind of compromises the fertility, in my opinion. But when when trees get up and more litter goes in, and the actual recycling process is compromised. So there's definitely a balance there, yeah. But oak pit, what was it? Three three acres, four acres, five.

SPEAKER_05 7:37

I oak is three acres.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:39

Um, twenty-one foot deep. Is it? Yeah, yeah, that's that's a really deep lake. I love deep water because like this year's been a classic example of probably one of the worst years, certainly my worst year in 20 years of running late. 100% the worst year. So when you've got that water volume, it takes that much longer, as you know, for that water to turn. You know, we February, I think, was our last rainfall this year throughout pretty much most of the summer. So from February, what people don't realise, anglers especially, is that from February nature started and angling by yeah, everything started polluting those waters, yeah. You know, just naturally polluting itself, the geese waste, the fish waste, anglers bait. Yeah. Um, and it's one of the most, I think this year has been so crucial to why you must look after the water, yeah, and the water looks after the the fish. Absolutely, yeah. You know, I focused on naturals and the snails and and the natural food ladder because this year you didn't want to feed the lakes, you didn't want to put any excess nutrients in there, you just you wanted to go off and go actually, and when you see the millions of snails that we've got, I was like, I don't care, I don't need to feed these lakes.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, you know, the fish tell you, don't they? When they're absolutely picking it on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what did you were you guided when you designed Oak Pitt, or did you have an an idea in mind of what you were funny enough?

SPEAKER_05 9:03

When I first dug the lakes, I was um in my old trade, in my old industry, sort of as such, I was a printer. I did all the printing or a lot of the printing for Kevin Nash. So that was my connection. So I used to go up to Nash's place. Oh, right. Um Nash actually taught me quite a lot on fishery management. He let me walk around church and cops, and I kind of took wow, I love church. Wow, I love what cops was giving me, and and you know, okay, and I kind of designed my lakes with a little bit of that and that, took a bit of that, and yeah, you know, and I really like that lake. And let's sort of put all these little features together.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

What what was that that inspired you from Cops and um church?

SPEAKER_05 9:48

It was just the I was so used to heavily pegged you know, lakes, you know, a three-acre lake with 30 swims around, yeah, you know, and that was you know, we had a seven-acre lake I was a part of a syndicate on, and it was a day ticket water, and it had 40 swims around a seven-acre lake. Right. And at weekends, those 40 swims are full. You know, it was terrible. It really was terrible. Um, and then so you walked up to Kev's church lake, and you saw these massive fish swimming happily about on the surface. You saw these beautifully planted islands and lovely willows around the lake. It was just it was just not a manicured lake, but it was a well-looked after lake. And you could sit and go, Oh, I love that way that island looks, and I love looking at that bay, and I love looking at how that that just works.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:42

That swim here, I've got all these features around. And anyone that fishes like oak or any of my lakes will know that you've got you could see 12 features, but there's also another 12 features on the bottom as well, which makes netting a night, you know, it really does. But I get bored in my angling if I just if someone said to me, Right, you're gonna fish that far bank, or you've got to fish that hole in that weed, or you or you know, everyone's doing the same, yeah, yeah. It kind of gets boring, yeah. And the capture doesn't feel like you've absolutely because you've just gone on the back of somebody else, you know, and the back of somebody else, and yeah, you know, to me, it's just I like baiting up a spot and then fishing another spot and then going back to that spot and seeing if that's you know, and and just constantly working a swim, yeah, finding all those features, yeah. That to me, and to and providing a habitat for the carp is a very fine balance, as you know, between having a natural lake that works, having a lake that could be managed fishery management-wise, netting, etc., and then having a habitat for the carp. Yeah, you know, I don't want a flat-bottomed lake, which is brilliant for netting, yeah, but I think that's boring from an angler's perspective. Yeah, and I like to create a habitat for the carp as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, I think you've proven that it can be done that way. The way the results you've had with the fish, yes, um, and the weights they're reaching now is is quite immense. So, uh what did you choose to stock, Ash, at the start? What was your idea of stocking? What density? Yeah, and what how what did you buy to?

SPEAKER_05 12:10

Well, when I stocked oak originally, it was um 60 60 fish in three acres with 20 feet deep. So the way I was sort of working the the stocking density out was we're very deep, average depth of 14 foot. The day ticket lakes that I was currently fishing were say six foot all over.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Right.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

So I was sitting there going, well, okay, well, I've got the water volume. If I take that water volume and I cut it in half, so we say we've got an average depth of six foot, and then I sort of extend that. I've gone from a three-acre lake to a water volume of a six-acre lake. Yeah, that's how my sort of mass was working, rightly or wrongly. Um I think rightly because the fish have completely thrived. I mean, I especially, I mean, we've probably got 1540s, 1840s in that lake. Um, at one point of the year we might have 90% of the stock over 30 pounds.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:02

Um, few older males that haven't kicked in or you know, haven't grown, but generally, yeah, you know, they have done very well in there. They've you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, I think the thing to remember when you're stocking a water with water volume in mind is to remember that the surface area is the same. So if it's obviously in your scenario, when you're doing it on a sort of a carp targeted to a specimen carp fishery, it's a it's easier than if you're a commercial fishery thinking, right, I can stock double because it's twice the depth. Well, actually, remember the surface diffusion is going to be X amount, it doesn't mean you're gonna get more surface diffusion because you've got you've got more ammonia being produced, more oxygen demand, and the same amount of diffusion.

SPEAKER_05 13:40

Yeah, and actually I've learned that this year.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 13:42

Yeah, I've learned a lot about water quality this year. As I say, it's been the toughest year, I think. Yeah, and water quality uh has been paramount.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 13:50

Um I inst I've I've I reckon I've spent this year alone, I've probably spent between seven and eight grand on aeration. Have you? Yeah. What's that? And power. So power, running aeration, uh having backup aeration, having generators, yeah, uh putting new diffusers, I've put new diffusers in oak. So they're sat in 17, 18 feet of water, one meter diffusers, right? They're turning over pretty much the whole of the bottom end of the lake, about 350 tons of water an hour.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:20

Um, so they you know the stratification, yeah, you know, it it we've got oxygen at the top to the bottom, yeah. Whereas previous years, anything below six, seven foot was lacking in oxygen, lacking in life, and and that sort of thing. So we really we have noticed a big difference. You struggled with water levels this year, though, you so we have, yeah. We've we've like most places, we you know, we didn't have any rain. Um we're we're about 18 inches down, so we're we're doing better than a lot of people. We're not irrigation ponds, we're not, you know, water's held there. I put circulation in, so anything that leaks out of a down wall, for example, goes into a hole and gets pumped straight back up. Yeah, even if you get the slightest downpour, it runs off a downwall into the hole, gets pumped straight back up. So just trying to capture every single drop that almost falls on our land.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:10

You know, because water is uh is precious to us.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, and to bring us up to date then, Ash, what what's existing in the lake now? You've got a I know quite a tremendous sock across the site, but in Oak Pit. The site in in Oak Pit now, how's it in oak?

SPEAKER_05 15:24

So the biggest for the biggest fish at the moment is 40 is is but record late record is 48.15.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Really, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:31

That was before spawning. Yeah, that fish particularly does always drops about 25% body weight over spawning.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Right.

SPEAKER_05 15:37

Always has done. Okay, she cut normally comes out in September, October time. Last year she came out at 42, she was caught at 48.15, came out at 42 in October.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Right.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

So this year she came out uh last week, she came out of 47 after spawning.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

Um, so she didn't come out before spawning this year. So my guess is that she will be about 55, 56 come January time. Yeah. Obviously, we've got the other big common, which is um high 50s, mid-50s, high 50s. I bet that to go 60 pounds this year.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

And are you still around the 60 fish mark in there? Yes. You are. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And have you restocked anything then?

SPEAKER_05 16:18

Yeah, yeah. So again, I also think that's quite an important thing that a lot of fishery owners don't do. They sort of get the big fish, then sit back and go, oh, we could sit back on our laurels with the fish there, and then they start panicking because you suddenly lose these old fish and these big fish, and then it's maybe too late to introduce younger males. Yeah. Um, so I've done quite a sort of progressive stocking over the last few years. Obviously, every year you lose a couple of fish. Uh, last year I lost none. This loop this year I lost a few.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:50

Um, I did lose, I've lost two 40s. Oh, right. And obviously, for us, if we lose a fish, it's gonna be a big fish. We don't have many small fish, so we've got big fish. So, unfortunately, every time we lose a fish, it is a big fish. Um, so last year we've stopped a few more, um, concentrated on a new strain from VS, which is the grey males um, or the grays gray strain, as they call them, grey blues. Um, we've got a few males, male uh Harrows. I love the Harrow strain that's really taken off in our lakes, done really well. Yeah, um, the big common's actually a male as well. Okay, a lot of people think that's a female, but it's not a male, right? Um, you know, at 55-56 pounds, it's a big male, big male, big male. That was only stocked at £20.10.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Really?

SPEAKER_05 17:34

Yeah, in 2017, 2018. Yeah, so it's really great. Uh yeah, it's a big fish. Um, so yeah, but I like to introduce, I like to keep the young blood coming through. I like to keep the males in there just just to keep pushing the females into spawning, really. Yeah I've I've found that obviously a bit like humans, I suppose, as we get older, we're not quite up for it, you know. Yeah, you might be bigger, you know. These I've got some big males in oak, which are 40 pounds again, and they don't actually always get involved in the spawning, right? You know, they're just a little bit laid back. Oh, take it as a cum sort of thing. Well, I want them to obviously to get involved, push these younger bloods obviously coming through, pushing the females into spawning.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Enthusiasm, I suppose.

SPEAKER_05 18:19

And obviously making sure that as I say, the females do have a good spawn, healthy spawn, yeah, which is important.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, I think I'm I would probably fall victim to that because I'm feel like you can get in a bit of a mindset that stocking is uh uh always a biosecurity risk whenever whenever you do it. Um, and I'd always encourage people to stock once, but there is always that thing I've heard a lot of fisheries say before that actually you get 20 years down the line, you start to lose a few, yeah, and you start to realize, oh hang on a minute, I probably should have done this 10 years ago. And it's absolutely there must be that element that uh perhaps yeah, you've realized and obviously done it very well. But are you seeing the younger fish do as well as the I have got some incredible fish coming through the ranks, yeah?

SPEAKER_05 19:01

I mean they're crazy, yeah. You know, um we've got fish that are doing seven or eight pounds a year, right? We've got fish that are 32, 33 pounds and are only six years old.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

You know, they are absolutely flying. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the guys that come to me, we we've got members that come six, seven hours away. So we're not a local-based syndicate, you know. I I quite I sort of pride myself on that. Yeah, yeah, we've got guys that come from Liverpool, we've got guys from Newton Keynes, we've got guys from Devon, we've got guys from Bristol, you know, literally from all over the UK. And one of the biggest things that they've said in the past is that the syndicals that were on started losing the bigger fish.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:43

And the owners hadn't done anything, so they were suddenly quickly stocking 10s, 12s, 14, 15 pounders, and then expecting that the syndicate to stay in place when they were used to catching 40s and 50s.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:56

That naturally doesn't happen. No, you know, or or you certainly can't command a top price ticket if people are only going to catch 14, 15 and you've got one 40 pounder.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:07

And I've always said that. I've never wanted to be that one fish late or one trip pony.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

No, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:13

Because you lose that one fish and you've got nothing backing it up.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:17

You know, what have you got?

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:20

You know, and a lot of people fall into that. They have one freak fish that grows and grows and grows. And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We base our whole business on that one fish.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

And then that fish goes. With that said, then do you stock, do you stock trickle them in, or do you get right every five years? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 20:35

I trickle them in.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Right.

SPEAKER_05 20:36

Yeah, absolutely. I just like a few new fish. Not all, not every year. Right. I certainly don't, because I do, you know, we're netting again this year.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:44

Uh, do a stock assessment, and it's be quite exciting because we're doing a stock assessment on the new lake, okay, which we've not done in seven years. All right. So that'll be really quite exciting. The stock, the netting on oak is happening again, remove any unwanted, again to have a good assessment of what's in there. Because our fish go missing, you know, even in a small lake of three acres, yeah, we have 40s that will go missing for three, four years. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. All of a sudden, everyone goes, Oh, that's dead, that's dead. And all of a sudden, it out it comes at 46, 47 pounds. Yeah. You know, how have you gone missing for so long? Um, but I like just to introduce three fish, four fish. Um, if it doesn't need to, then great. But like this year we've lost a few fish, okay. Maybe we'll put a few more in. Um, and again, I like stocking at C4s, right? C5s, possibly. Yeah. But C4s is my go-to.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Okay. And what are you netting when you net the lakes? Are you just cropping off the smaller carp, or is it other species?

SPEAKER_05 21:42

To be fair, we have had bream, roach, and rud. The roach and the rudd have come in in ductrices. Okay. Um, we've never stopped them, but we know we've got farm ponds around the area that are full of rud, a typical farm pond, absolutely full of. We also know there's duck shoots around and the ducks are on duck ponds and they come off and land on us. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that's where they've come from. So we've got big shoals of those unwanted fish.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah. So we're taking them out. What do you notice when you take them out? Is there any immediate signs that from from netting that you notice? Any problems? Do you notice anything different when you net the lakes? Any positive or negative?

SPEAKER_05 22:22

No, I notice um the following spring, obviously, we see positives. Yeah. Not necessarily straight away, but we will definitely see positives the spring and the summer. Right. And that's mainly from fish growth. If you see a few that have been stagnated, all of a sudden they will have a big shoot-up. Okay, yeah. And we've noticed that this year, again, with like Orca, £47 after spawning, you know, she was obviously, yeah, we removed, I think we removed about 1200 pounds of unwanted fish last year.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Right.

SPEAKER_05 22:51

So that's made a classic clearance in the biomass, you know. Um, yeah, we there's a definite, I mean, definite positive on every netting.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Is there anything else in your management plan that you think if you didn't do that, then the fish wouldn't have got to the size that they've got to?

SPEAKER_05 23:07

Yeah, it's it's the natural larder. Okay. Yeah, I used to breed snails, breed snails in fish tanks like this, all right. Um, in the barns, feed them, um, and then literally get buckets full of them, put them into the lakes. Right. Uh, and I did that for years, just so that obviously the calf constantly trying to eat on, you know, and feed on them. I wanted to have an environment where I could breed snails and just keep introducing the snails under a controlled environment, you know. I didn't want to just get random snails from anywhere. I wanted to breed them from the almost like the broodstock that I've got in my lakes now. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Um, how have you doing that? How are you harvesting or breeding farming snails? Snails are so easy to.

SPEAKER_05 23:45

I mean, as long as they've got warm water, oxygen, and feed, yeah, they'll breed.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:50

And um put put lumps of cucumber in, for example, and the next morning it's it's sinking because of the weight of the snails. Really, yeah. You just pick out the cucumber. Yeah, you know, it's it's very easy to do.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

What sort of cycle are you?

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Is it a monthly thing or you've absolutely yeah, definitely through the warmer months, it's almost probably fortnightly. Right. You know, the snails just breed and breed and breed and breed. And we've noticed that this year, even though it's been a worse year for water quality and things like that, and the algae levels have been quite high, the snail breeding in naturally in the lakes has been at its highest ever.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Right.

SPEAKER_05 24:23

You know, you put out strands of algae and it's covered in eggs and covered in snails. Um, so there's been a positive side to that.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, okay. Is that is that influenced by maybe is it Nash that is does that? Is he doesn't didn't he bring some snails in or something?

SPEAKER_05 24:39

So um he, I believe Nashy bought toads and frogs and focused on tadpoles, right? Um Gary Bates used to breed snails in keep nets on the lake side so that the smaller snails used to obviously just filter out into the lakes, but the bigger broodstocks stayed in the nets in the netted areas, from what I understand, and they obviously then just bred like that.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 25:09

But I like to do them in tanks. I can see you can see all the eggs being laid on the side of the glass, yeah. Feed them algae wafers and things like that, and they don't breed.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

And you just collect them and put them in the lake. I'm Ben Pinneger, and I'm your podcast host. For those of you that don't know me, my business is called BP Milling, where I specialise in producing plant-based pellets for fisheries that break down fast. I farm my own carp entirely on my pellets, and you can see me doing exactly that over on my BP milling YouTube channel. So if you're enjoying the fishery fascinating content and you haven't discovered the BP milling YouTube channel, then there is loads more content like this where we deep dive on the science behind running fisheries, how to run fisheries in a healthy way, and how I farm my carp. There's loads of videos over there of me doing exactly that. If you're interested in finding out a little bit more about my pellets, we have an online shop where you can purchase the feeds directly, delivered to you in bulk or in single bag quantities at www.bpmilling.co.uk. Are you feeding anything else or do you just do you have a supplementary feeding program?

SPEAKER_05 26:13

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've always again it's something that I learned probably year five, year six in. Um spoke to a couple of French fishery owners, what they were doing, didn't quite agree with the way they were feeding, i.e., they would feed uh wheat and maize over the winter period, which most a lot of people do now, but they would create mountains of it in the land. So literally go over, typically bucket over.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:39

And I did that for the first season, and I noticed probably three or four weeks later, we had these great swathes of rotting maize with the floater.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:49

I've never fed cattle like that, I've never fed sheep like that, I've never fed anything like that. So coming from a farming background, how do I feed cattle, pigs, etc.? You never feed them in a graded pile. So for me, I went out in a boat and I fed them exactly as I would. Got the boat going in a motion, yeah, and then held the bucket over the side and fed them in a long line. Yeah. So for me, I'm imagining that the carp are as a trough, yeah, lined up all the way down, nothing's been dominated by a big heavy carp and it's not taking over. Every carp has got a chance of eating. Yeah, and since I've been doing that, I've not once had any rotting feed come up.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yeah, there's definitely a correlation between farmers and good fishery actually. They just get it with lives, they know that they need to be thinned out, they need to be fed.

SPEAKER_05 27:36

For me, my argument was always would you put 50 cows in a three-acre field and just leave them to get on with it?

SPEAKER_01 27:43

No.

SPEAKER_05 27:43

No. From a farming perspective, no. They would survive, you would lose some, they wouldn't thrive.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

No.

SPEAKER_05 27:49

And that I think is the biggest thing to put in to apply to fishery management as well. Yeah. You can't the dangerous thing is in a fishery management job, you can't see your stock until normally the worst case scenario, yeah. They're on the top, they're floating, they're dead. So you have to preempt everything.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Yeah, I think this is where like the commercial market get away with a lot. Because if that was sheep in a field where you could see they'd been overgrazed in the field, they haven't got food, they're deteriorating and malnourished, they'd get reported, the farm would be done. Absolutely. In fishing, we get away with it because you can't see it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

And you can see that from Angler's captures on these places where they're stunted carp, they're underweight, they're underfed, and you know you know these carp are in bad condition.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah, you know, yeah, and then they get KHV and they blame someone else for that cloud.

SPEAKER_05 28:32

Yeah, it's all stress-related, isn't it? As we know, yeah, and you've got to limit, and that's what this year. I was I was doing everything I could. You know, we've got 50s, we've got 40, 40s or something on those in that region of numbers. Okay, the last thing I wanted to do was put them in a stress position. Yeah, so aeration running, as I said, you know, everything was being done. Yeah, put new probes in the lake, remote probes every hour. It takes a reading, sends me text messages every half hour, you know, all this sort of thing. I just like being in control of what my lakes are doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Yeah. Um, and when you stocked the fish, yeah, did you entrust Viv and Simon to pick your fish, or did you know what you were after and what you're looking for?

SPEAKER_05 29:10

Um oak, the original stocking of oak, I trusted Viv and Simon. Yeah. Um, the original or the main stocking for the new lake Steve's lake, I went down and chose. Okay. And now I go and choose the fish to supplement the stocking as such. Because we've got, and I'm not being big-headed or anything like that, we've got such incredible fish. I don't just want another zip. I don't want another heavy scale. I've got to go down and go, I've not got that. If I was doing another lake, you go down and see the holding tanks go, wow, everyone's amazing. I'll get 50 fish.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

But I've got one of them, and I've got one of them, and I've got one of them, and that's 40, that's 40, that's 40. I need something different, and it takes that that stance out.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:57

You know, and that's what I have to go for, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Right. So you do you look, is it's more scale pattern you look for other than shape and size and potential like that?

SPEAKER_05 30:06

Shape, shape and size, or definitely shape, to be honest with you, both of scale patterns and size. I put I like certain shape of fish. You know, if I was if I had a lake full of scaly bangers and I had one ugly plain fish, I'd want that ugly plain fish because every of the other fish looks the same, you know. So for me, there is a craze for these scaly fish, but I just like variety.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, it it's what I think as well doing using just one supplier, there's always something in that. I always tell people, we always sort of preach that lots of people like to go and use as many suppliers as they can and really mix up the strains. And we always suggest this might not be the best idea. Different parasites, different strains of parasites, all mixing together, like pressure's week when you go to college. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's bugs. Very good, not hopefully you pick up bugs and you get get ill for a week and the bugs go round and round. And and if you're just using one supply, you're not getting that because they're all got the same, you know, the same parasites and more sort of suited to each other.

SPEAKER_05 31:06

But and if it's not broke, why try and fix it? Yeah, you know, for me, I've proven that the VS strain does extremely well in our lakes. Yeah, why choose something else? I'm extremely happy with that that strain, and they're costing, and they're always producing something different anyway. Yeah, so for me, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

So, what what did you learn from Oak that you took to is it what's the other lake for it? Mind Pit and Steve's Lake. Steve's Mind Pit. Okay, so what did you take from when you developed the latest one? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

So obviously it took me so Mind Pit was expensive. Yeah, I made a lot of mistakes back in 20 odd years ago. There wasn't a group of fishery managers sharing knowledge, and there wasn't you know that wealth of knowledge out there, right? So, and then obviously what I learned on oak, which took me maybe five years to see the best out of oak fish and that sort of thing, six years to implement all these sort of things. Yeah, I then applied that from the off to Steve's Lake, you know. So they not only had the benefit of being left alone or very lightly fished for for the first three or four years, yeah, they also had supplementary feeding, they had the natural larder that I was introducing, they had wind tunnels, they had everything that I could think of was straight away, it was applied straight away.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah. Um so what what's the progress you've seen on that one? Is that did they get further and faster in that lake? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 32:30

Oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we always always said that Steve's Lake would overtake oak. Okay, and everyone, no, no, no, that would never happen. But it did, it's done that within six years, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

You know, it it it's so when you did Steve's, you already had 40s, didn't you?

SPEAKER_05 32:46

Yes, so well, not when I we so when we dug Steve's Lake 2016-2017, stopped it in 2017, 2018. We've produced our first 40 in 2018, right? I opened the I always like to leave a lake, uh like a full summer before I stopped the fish, and then I like to leave it a year before I open it to angling pressure as well.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:09

Um, and that's what I did. So I didn't open it until 2019 January type thing. It was it was a whole year, right? Um, and by that time, I could produce I think 340s.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Right.

SPEAKER_05 33:20

Um, so people left that alone. The biggest fish that I stopped into that Steve's Lake was £20.10, which was the common. Um that'd say that fish is now £55, £56, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Does it still go in? Still go in?

SPEAKER_05 33:34

Oh good. Yeah, that that fish will be £60 if not this. I imagine if not before Christmas, certainly after Christmas. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Is there any more behind it that uh yeah?

SPEAKER_05 33:44

I mean, we're having we've had I think we've had 17, 18 40s out of that lake this year. Um we've had new 40s coming through the ranks. We've got one of the biggest sips in the country, you know, that more than not would be 47, 48 pounds, if not 50 pounds by now. You know, it just doesn't stop surprising that lake, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

It just it just keeps blowing them up. Are you getting natural fry recruitment from just having a solely carp stock? So that gets sorry. Do you um get much fry recruitment like right?

SPEAKER_05 34:16

Sorry, yes. So in that lake, we have had fry recruitment, right? Um, and we're getting homegrowners coming through, like I said, that are 30 pounds in six years' time or you know, high 20s in five years, that sort of thing. So they're they're they're doing it. We've got about 15, 16 homegrowns. I've always stocked on all my lakes um very highly with perch, because I think they're great uh recruitment controllers basically. Yeah, yeah. They sell per date on themselves, and you know, and that's what they're just I think a great addition to any carp fishery. Um you know, you can stock 50 carp, and within two years you've got uh 10,000 carp. Yeah, you know, if they have a you know, and normally in the first few years they have very successful spawns, don't they? You know, it's a new environment, they go, yay, you know, we can produce all this fry. Umak doesn't produce any self-spawners, right? Um again, we've got a high population of perch in there. We've got obviously the silvers, they seem to thrive on the carp spawn as soon as the carp is you know are spawning. The the silvers are in there eating it all well, anyway. Yeah, um, that is why I do like uh you know a few years every few stock a few every few years, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Right, okay, and how you run them both as syndicates?

SPEAKER_05 35:28

The whole the whole thing the ticket is for all three lakes. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, I don't yeah, they're they're not separate, it's all one ticket covers all three lakes.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Right, okay. And how do you manage your membership and control who you allow on?

SPEAKER_05 35:41

Yeah, so that's actually really one of the most important, I think one of the most important aspects of fishery management is actually managing the anglers as well. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Can make or break the experience of fishery.

SPEAKER_05 35:51

Yeah, yeah. So for me, I I interview, I like to meet everybody, I like to show everyone around, and I can get a nowadays I can get a general idea of that personality, yeah, what he expects, whether that expectation meets uh meets my expectation. Because I don't want someone there every single day of the week. You know, a lot of my I have 35 guys on my ticket, that's all.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

Right.

SPEAKER_05 36:18

So it's lightly fished, and that I think is protecting the stock, obviously. I don't want them heavily fished for. Yeah, you know, I want to limit the amount of times that my car per caught uh purely because I want them to carry on growing. I want to get the best out of them. Yeah, you know, if they get caught every week or every two weeks, every month, whatever, then they're not they're not gonna thrive.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

No.

SPEAKER_05 36:38

Um so ask the angler what he wants, what he's expected, what his habit, fishing habits are, and then um go from there, really. Do you operate a waiting list? Yeah, I've got a small waiting list. Right again, 35 people lose maybe some years I don't lose any, maybe one, two a year, something like that. So there's no point having a waiting list of a hundred people because every time I interview someone, it takes an hour, two hours of my time. Yeah, and there's no point having 10, 15 people, 20 people on a waiting list that they may never get on, or it might be seven years down the line before some oh, I've got a place for you now. Yeah, well, I don't live anywhere near you now. Um there's no point in that. Yeah, so I like to keep my waiting list to literally five, six people, and that's it.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

Um that just works. I just found over the years that works for me. Yeah, it's nice. You know, I don't have a bailiff, right? I don't know. I've been on so many syndicates where you have bailiffs and they have a bailiff swim.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Right.

SPEAKER_05 37:38

Or they have bailiff mates and they're all rotating that swim and they're all putting the same bait in, yeah, yeah. And that you can never get in that swim. I like to think that the way I operate is fair for whether you live a mile away or 300 miles away. Yeah. Whether you fish once a month, once a year, twice a year.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yeah, I guess with the right members, you don't need a bailiff to be policing it as such if you get that selection, right?

SPEAKER_05 37:59

Yeah, it is that, you know. Yeah, um, it is getting that core. I mean, I've got members that are 16 years strong.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Right.

SPEAKER_05 38:07

You know, being members from the very off, they've never left. Right, you know, and I think that's testament, I think, to what the syndicate of you know, how we are.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah. Um was there, would you say, a moment when you thought, oh, okay, right, and you realised the potential? Was there a capture? Like some places you're one fish will get caught 10 pounds bigger than the previous capture, and people go, okay, right, we've got some it. Is there a moment like that, or did it slowly sort of creep up and you're like, Did it take a while to realise what you've got?

SPEAKER_05 38:35

Yeah, I mean, for us it was always a milestone every time when we got our first 30, when we got our first 40, you know, would we ever get to 50?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

And it was 60.

SPEAKER_05 38:45

They're achievable. Yeah, I think under the right environment, they're achievable.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 38:49

Um, I don't think there was any one just wow, you know, Eureka moment or anything that triggered everything.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

It was just I think just being steady. Did that common then? It didn't surprise you just suddenly go, was it just sort of slowly crept up?

SPEAKER_05 39:03

It was it was always um a fish that was standing out, right? You know, it went from 20 pound 10, then got caught at I think it was the next capture was 36. Right. I think for memory, you know, it was a massive jump. Wow. Um, and then it was 40, then it was 44, you know. It was yeah, and that's what I love about our fish as well, is that with there's a history behind it. I'm not a fan of stocking these big fish that seems to be a yeah, a phase at the moment, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Does that level of stock though and the value that you hold in stock, does that have any element of anxiety? Do you have any anxiety over shit? What if something happens and I lose? You know, I know you've lost a couple of 40s this year.

SPEAKER_05 39:43

Yes, but there is nothing. I mean, people wonder why I get stressed at certain times of the year. I get extremely stressed, which is why again, which is why I put remote probes in. I want to monitor my lakes all the time. I was checking my before the remote probes went in, I was checking the lakes four in the morning, then after had breakfast, eight in the morning, then twelve, then three, then six, then ten. You know, it was just constant.

SPEAKER_04 40:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:07

Always on the lookout on just in case the lake crashes or something happens, ammonia checks every week, and all this sort of stuff, you know, we just do.

SPEAKER_04 40:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Yeah. I I mean, you cannot not get stressed. No. And I remember you saying that your price point went and you took a big jump on you, didn't you? And you said that didn't lose as hardly as many as you thought you would lose from jumping up in that price point. The membership? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Remember when we came nut. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 40:34

I mean, for me, it was COVID that triggered that. Right. It was having the furlough anglers.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:41

Where the guys would normally fish once a month. We were expecting to fish seven days a week, or they were going to fish every week, go home to their wives at the weekend, then fish again the following week. Yeah. So I went from having one or two guys a week fishing to having the lakes full. Right. And I was like, this is not what I signed up for. This is not what I wanted.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

It's the opposite of when you say exactly.

SPEAKER_05 41:01

So I was sitting there going, I'm going to close. I'm actually going to shut my syndicate.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

All right.

SPEAKER_05 41:06

I don't want this. This isn't this, I haven't invested half a million pounds into just giving you guys free-fall type thing, and you just ruin it for me. Because everything dies, you just go away. You just go and find another syndicate.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 41:23

And I that's one of the biggest things as well. You kind of don't listen to anglers. You know, they will always have their input, but their input is always for the benefit of them, yeah, rather than the fishery itself. So I was like, this is not good for my my my lakes, my fish, my health, yeah, you know, the stress it was causing. And I spoke to the core guys and they said, just double your price.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:46

Just double your price. We will pay it, reduce the numbers.

unknown 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:50

And it's gone from there.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

And they they respected that and they just paid and wow. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:56

Because again, I always I said to someone at the weekend, I always like it when someone goes off, I call it the dark side, to go to the day ticket water as a and do a social on a day ticket water. One of my members, you know, they come back going, What have I just experienced?

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:12

I know what I've got here. Yeah. You know, the grass isn't greener on the other side.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:16

I'm fishing a five-acre lake with a near 60 pound common in, yeah, or 2040s.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:23

I'm fishing it on my own on a weekend. Yeah. On my own.

unknown 42:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:27

Where do you get that?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Exactly. Yeah. And you because I think you get a lot now on social media in particular where people are almost mocking the cost of angling now as it creeps up. But I think it's got to. I think it like you look at any other industry, everything's creeping up. And people almost get to a point where they feel like it's their right to fish your lake, not a privilege to be part of it.

SPEAKER_05 42:50

I get that all the time.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:51

I get that all the time. How dare you charge that money? We should we should fish that for £10 a session or whatever. You know, oh, I'm not paying that. How dare you? They don't see the hard work, the sacrifice that everything has gone into the last 20 years. No. You know, it's a huge sacrifice, family sacrifice, money, the stress. It's nothing, it's no different to running a business.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

No.

SPEAKER_05 43:11

You know, you you either take that leap of faith and you run a business yourself, yeah, or you employ you employed.

SPEAKER_04 43:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:18

You know, and don't be a green-eyed, get green-eyed monster, sort of jealousy about it, saying, Well, you've got a Ferrari and I how dare you.

unknown 43:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

You haven't put yourself, you don't know what's gone on behind that. What sacrifices that gentleman's made to have that car or that nice house.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Yeah, we all get the same thing.

SPEAKER_05 43:33

The fishing industry, I don't think. No. You know, it's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Profit shouldn't be a dirty word. Like you say, the sacrifice that's gone into it. Absolutely. And as an industry, we need to I've said this on previous podcasts that we need to be fighting a case to if otherwise, if fisheries are not profitable, fisheries will disappear. And then we'd all be crowding the ones that survived it.

SPEAKER_05 43:53

I really I really agree with that. That needs to be support. I've been sort of championing that for years. Like for like stock evaluation of my l of my fish, yeah, with probably about four or five hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:05

You know, how do you replace 40 different faulty? You couldn't. No. The revenue that would be lost if those fish died.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:14

Where do you draw the line?

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Yeah, and it's at every single capture of a carp, if it goes off the feed for a number of months, it's us getting in the way of your goals, isn't that? When they get back to the case.

SPEAKER_05 44:22

Exactly that. You know, I don't want sponsored anglers that can fish all day, every day. I don't want someone that can fish every week, every week, in you know, week in, week out. Yeah. Because again, like you say, that fish gets caught, that fish now stops growing, stops feeding for three weeks or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:38

And it is about that limitation.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Yeah. And what's what's your relationship being with otters? Have you had any events of otter getting in to your fishery? Say that again, sorry. Have you had any experience with the otter?

SPEAKER_05 44:49

No, right, yeah, okay. No. But actually, I have a negative experience of otter fencing. Okay. Okay, so we don't have otters in our area. Okay. So again, sleep at night. I want to sleep at night. I want to relax. I don't want to suddenly turn out, you know, fight, you know, go over there in the morning and find we've got an otter, even though there's none in the in the area. So I spend thousands of thousands, tens of thousands on otter fencing. So just so that we're ready. I don't want to be rushing around. We're ready. But what that has done is like this year, we had over a hundred geese on the lakes.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Right. So you're fenced now. We're fenced, it's a few.

SPEAKER_05 45:26

Fully fenced, yeah. So normally those geese have their eggs, clutches, etc. They would then take their young off into the fields, eat the grass, all that sort of stuff. But the otter fencing has kept all the geese on the lakes. Yeah. And what I think I can't remember what the statistics are, but each geese, goose lays or um shits three pounds of waste a day. Right. So you times that by 100. You've got 300 pounds of waste going in your lace. You know, that is going to have a negative effect. Yeah. And that's what we found this year.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Right, okay. Have you had to control the numbers? I will do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:01

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I will have to. I mean, typically there is a season for geese.

SPEAKER_04 46:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:06

Um, they tend not to come in until the season finishes.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:10

So the controlling of geese is is a tricky thing, you know. Um, I do ask my guys to have the like the tufty torches and the laser pens or whatever to scare them off at roosting times. Yeah, you know, if from what I understand is if you can scare them off at night time and they don't feel settled, then they won't make a nest. Right. That sort of thing. So rather than sort of like a lethal approach, yeah. I'm trying to do like a you know, deter them.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 46:35

Um, because I can't be there all night long and whatnot. But there has been a definite negative uh impact.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Have you seen that in the progression of the fish aligning with well, thankfully not.

SPEAKER_05 46:48

Thankfully not. I mean, we we just had very bad water quality.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

I guess, yeah, algal blooms, perhaps.

SPEAKER_05 46:53

Big algal blooms, pH level rose to 9.5. Right. Um, thankfully, didn't lose a fish. Um, but we had two weeks of very high pH, only in the top three foot of water. You know, you you you drop the pH level or the probe down to five, six foot, it was 7.5, 7.7. So it was okay down, but I didn't see a fish in the like the heat of the summer when it's when the minister happening for about two and a half weeks, right? Where you'd normally see fish on the surface, but they obviously were staying down into the the areas that were safe for them.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Right, okay. Because my memory of I think at Steve's when we when I came out with Andrew, it is like the perfect environment. What we can make for it's nice and open, it gets sunlight all day. From what I remember, it might have matured a lot more now. But yeah, it was you've planted it and used. Did you establish it planted?

SPEAKER_05 47:42

It is established, it's got weed beds, yeah. Um, I planted lots of different irises, lots of different weeds, you know, taking heavy metals out of the water, literally everything that will do uh a positive effect if if managed. Yeah, because a lot of the reeds unmanaged are a nightmare. Yeah, so um I I I try to do things and then manage them, yeah, rather than just leave them to go wild, you know. Um, but you like you say, that lake is a classic textbook example of the perfect environment for the car, it has big winds even on a sunny day, yeah. You know, it has beautiful aeration, you know, beautiful sun night, it's open, there's no trees around it. It is, you know, it's just perfect. Yeah, and that was a lake that I had the biggest issues on this year.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Oh, right, interesting. Yeah, maybe it's that do you think because it's so open to the the harsh sort of conditions that we've had with the sun and the it got sun from 4 30 in the morning till eight at night.

SPEAKER_05 48:35

Yeah, you know, the water temperature was at 28-29 degrees. Yeah, it's only just dropped below 20 degrees since the bars. The gee the amount of geese crap that's gone into the lake, that has been the biggest killer. Okay, interesting. Biggest, biggest killer. Yeah, okay. But it's also been the richest water as well. Right, okay. It the snu like I said, the snails have exploded, yeah, and the carp growth have been positive for the city.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Yeah, and so we you see that a lot when when it is sort of a bit one of those years where algae has been quite, you know, quite um potent, it does kind of align with the good year because that you know it shows that those nutrients are being digested. The algae is digesting the nitrate and the nutrient in the water, perhaps from the geese that have uh sort of contributed. But it's showing that the ecosystem is working and it's firing and it's just under stress. Yeah, yeah, and that heat element as well, the bacteria that is going to be much faster at digesting things, things are gonna be a lot more you know, boom and bust, perhaps with algae. And it is one of those things.

SPEAKER_05 49:32

If it's on a knife edge, yeah, all summer it's been on a knife edge, very, very fragile.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Yeah, but again, those fragile years can be very productive, very fruitful. Yeah, so uh it's certainly a very exciting venue to keep an eye on. I watch your social medias, and every time you put a post up, it's like flat yellow and you show how how much how fast things are progressing at the carp syndicate. And uh I think what from what you've explained there, you're very on the ball with it all. And uh, I think it's only going to get better there with the stock and the progression you've got. So, anybody that's not following the carp syndicate, go and check it out because I think you'll be uh just as excited as I am for what Ash puts up next with uh with what gets caught there. So, well done, Ash. Congratulations, appreciate it. Such a successful fishery in the progression of the carp there, and we look forward to watching you progress into the future with even 60 pounders the next yes, fingers crossed. Thank you very much. Thank you, mate. Thank you.