The Carp Society Crisis, Corruption and Incredible Comeback. Episode #13 with Miles Carter

I sit down with Miles Carter, fishery manager of Horseshoe Lake and director of The Carp Society.

Miles shares the full, untold story behind Horseshoe Lake…

From the unique member-led acquisition that made it one of the most respected carp fisheries in the country,
to disease challenges, internal conflict, and a period of corruption that nearly saw the fishery taken away from its own members.

Today, Horseshoe Lake stands stronger than ever before with more big carp, more lakes, and more members.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to the fishery fast lane podcast. I've come up to Lecture Lade today to the Carpenter Society, Horseshoe Lake, we're in the Tim Paisley Lodge, and I'm here with Miles to hear all about his career path into fisheries and how the carpet society was formed. So, Miles, how would you summarise your job in the Carps Throughout Society?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Er, I'm actually sort of described as a fishery manager for it's quite funny when I first joined. Fishery manager were never a buzzword like it seems to be today. I actually got the job because uh I had a bit of commercial background and IT background, so well primarily uh working in the office and the shop sort of thing. The uh the fishery management side of thing came about through tragedy, really. We had a fish kill in 2011 and uh I'd started in November 2009. And the fish kill was sort of pretty devastating, and uh I thought somebody's gotta do something about this, so uh that's why I started getting involved with the fishery, and then a couple of years later on a fishery manager seemed to be a buzzword, and that's uh sort of what we've got titled to as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Right, so there's a fishery before you before you uh came to Cup Society, you were in fishery management. No, no, before that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

But we were uh I was working for local council in the uh building control and licensing department, right? Which seems a strange marriage, but yeah, yeah, that's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

When I when I first sort of heard about the Cup Society, it was I think through the Sand Down shows, but you the the Society was really famous for those shows. I think well when I when I got there, I remember turning up to the Sand Down race course, and uh before uh that show fishing for me was just little rods and pitting about on little village ponds and stuff, and uh that show to me sort of blew my mind with the expanse of the carp world at the time, and that would have been probably 15 years ago now. But I think back then I think the horseshoe lake was a lot different to perhaps what it is today. Oh yeah, I think it was iconic for its big scaly fish back then. How have you seen the the fishery change here at the horseshoe where we are today?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Um like I'd done before, the uh when I first joined everything was going smoothly on the fishery and uh no disrespect to the lads involved at the time, there weren't a lot of stuff being done on the lake, primarily because everything were everything were going groovy, sort of thing. So, you know, and don't fix something that's not broken, yeah. And then uh of course the fish guild changed everything there. Yeah. Since then we've uh we've done tremendous amounts of work, some of which you yourself, Andrew, have been involved with, and we just keep evolving it and trying to make it better and better and better, sort of thing. But the original uh I think Mike Kavanaugh was uh instrumental in biting our shoe lake for the carp society. I think that were in early 90s, maybe 91, I want to say. And uh they bought a ticket for uh 250,000 pounds, right? And they sold a thousand tickets at 250 pounds each. Yeah. Now them tickets lasted ten years, right? But I remember at the time thinking£250 for a ticket. I weren't involved with Cap site where I was out fishing it. Thought, wow, well that's a bloody fortune, but if you think about it now,£250 for£10 years fishing.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

But it just yeah, it just And that's how the Society secured the lake, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, it's quite and uh but I think they had to extend the 10-year ticket for a further year because no one had taken into account some tax or something. Right. We got in a bit of financial stunts and they extended it to£11 year. But with them tickets, what you could do, you could buy one, fish for four years on horseshoe, sell your ticket then for more than you actually bought it for four years previous, and then that's that's how nearly everyone, every other person that comes through the door now tells me they were original ticket holder. Yeah, yeah. So I think they must have sold 500,000 thousand, but it's because people were selling them, and yeah, sometimes they weren't making a profit on what they bought it for, right? But the carp society weren't getting any of that money or anything out but private sales if we were advertising carp top or income fishing magazines at the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

So and what was the um the cause of the fish kill where be pre the restocking sort of um skills we had?

SPEAKER_01 4:49

We actually never got to the bottom of it. I'd noticed a couple of fish sort of dying, and I were taking them out and uh I was saying to people, is there's something there's something wrong with you, and oh we're getting back, but I don't know, we lose a few every year, we'll lose this and the other. And I thought, nah, there's there's something wrong, sort of thing. So anyway, I came in one Monday morning and somebody said there's 12 dead fish floating around the lake. I thought, oh Jesus. So I phoned Steve Bowles up, he came and me and him went out and we took 25 dead fish out that day. I mean, some of the proper like 30 pounds, the the fish that Aweshire were renowned for, something and then uh that went on for about six months. Right. But anyway, when we took these out, these uh 25 out, I said, look, there's something wrong, we need to get somebody down here. So uh we phoned CFAS up and they came and they caught six that we're still alive and took them away to autopsy them sort of thing to find out what had happened and uh they phoned us up about a week later and said, Oh, we suspect a KH3. I'm not cats. So uh another week later they phoned up and they said, Oh, it's not KH3, we suspect S V C now. And then I was kind of half aware of SVC, but I I thought I'd better look and see what that involves. And the cure for SVC is to kill everything in the lake and drain the lake. I mean it it's game over for the leaves, sort of thing. So that went on for about two weeks. I said, Christ, this is it. It's you know, I'd sort of given everything up up north and moved down here and store my lot in down here, and I thought I'm not a bit selfish when shouldn't we? I was thinking about the lake as well, but yeah. But anyway, then they phoned up for about two weeks later and uh said no there's no uh SVC and that there's no uh recognisable disease. So the only thing we can determine is the uh the fish had inflamed internal organs. Right. That they never you know, still no wiser.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

So that must be when you're going through the stages of recovery, not having an answer of what actually caused that issue, it must sort of hang over you all the time, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

With um yeah, uh I think a lot of people thought you were hiding somewhat, or you know, and there were a lot of speculation, and I mean there were big news at the time, we were getting pelters off everyone, and uh every well as you know yourself, everyone knows better than the KV and every fish in Gloucestershire has died because of it, and you know, it it it really went ballistic and yeah, people moved off the lake. We ended up with no members, no thing, hardly any fish in the lake, it was people in the magazines were writing us off and stuff, it was like it was game over.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

So, how did you bounce back from that? What was your sort of strategy to recover from that?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Well, again, the the sound of uh the risk of sound itself is like so I'd throw my lot in down here and I thought, I don't know if you can swear on here. I thought, no, fuck this, I'm not having this sort of thing. So I said to her, sort of, I went to the spa shalt, I was reading everything, I went blah blah blah, and all this, and then uh we restocked the lake. I think we put 80, 50 minutes the first from uh Phoebe and then Simon. And then the year after that we'd put 50 in, and uh for the following six years we kept putting 50 or 60 in each year. These were only C4s, we're running eight, ten pound fish, so no bugger wanted to come and fish from. So uh there was very few lads that stayed, Andy and Kevin, a few others that stayed, and miraculously we managed to sort of I mean Sabrina and myself managed to keep it going while we had no members, yeah, no customers, and we had no money in the bank, and we later found out that the people who were running the carb society were actually a plan to steal it off the members and sell it to their own profit, so all this we've got Jesus Christ, what's going on? So but yeah, steadily and with steadily uh the fish sort of grew and people got a bit more confidence in the lake and uh yeah, it started sort of picking up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, well it seems like from what I understand from the horseshoe and the cart society, that that period that was definitely a period that I noticed of uncertainty, and you could see you were very open with your updates of what was going on in the background and how it's bounced back today out there, you've you've it's all thriving again, and things are sort of you'd say as close to it as as they ever were to yeah, touch wood without bloody wishing anything like them fish have grown tremendously well.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

They haven't been fast growers if you remember like this like 2012-11 when we first started stocking it, stocking it. I bet it took 10 years for one of them to get to 30. Really? And uh but of course now there's there's over well over 130 pounds plus fishing and stuff, some big I 30s. And I I would say the average weight in here is 20 to 25 pounds sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

So it's you know, I I'm obviously biased, but would you say that horseshoe lake's in a better position now than it was back when it was million times million times, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

That that's no disrespect to anyone who hasn't been involved before. But uh yeah, it's uh I mean just the aesthetics of the place as well. That's not important to a lot of people, but I take a bit of pride in keeping it, you know, speaking of spam, and we're always working, and I've got some good lads working with me now that get stuck in and do something, and it's yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a million times better. And we've also got four growing on ponds going on, yeah. So we're we're actually growing our own fish, and uh that's been again we've not trying to jinx it, that's been so successful that we've been able to give fish to uh clubs that have suffered fish kills, and yeah, so there's a bit of karma going on there. So semi-hell we've we've been able to uh help a lot of other clubs out with some good quality fish. I think the uh the fish we're growing on in here, they're uh they're all from spawn. Myself and a certain young fellow collected from Farriers, if you remember. Oh yeah, yeah, I happy with that. Yeah. Me and Ben went down and collected a load of spawn from Farriers. We'd uh we'd just dug a pond up by the mounds, put that spawn in there. Remember, you covered them up with uh twigs to keep the birds off at the time, which sort of thought, oh yeah, that's a good idea. And then uh left them there, didn't feed them or anything in it, but freshly dubbed pond. And then uh the following summer I walked past it and someone caught me out in that pond. I looked down, I don't know, there must have been two or three thousand sort of three or four inch fish in there. Yeah. We've still got, well I mean, we've produced thousands from there and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So I remember when you asked me to do that, and I'd never seen farriers before, and only sort of heard whispers about it and the in the media and things, and obviously it's renowned for its big commons and watching them spawn and getting in the shallows in amongst them was uh quite an experience having them thrash around, and I remember seeing that one of the mirrors that is is quite quite rare in farriers. Um but when did farriers come into the mix? When did the carp society uh get on the farriers?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Uh it must have been probably in the late 90s. Uh Brian Sefton, who were uh and Cuba Fisher Manager at Horshoe at the time, he man he uh he secured the lease for Farriers. Uh we don't own Farriers, we lease it to nothing and uh he got the lease for farriers and they were called Dio then. And uh he got some uh cark from a farmer's field or a farmer's pond or something like that, and uh he put them in farriers, they were only probably three, four, five pounds at the time. No pedigree or anything, and I think poor Brian got quite a lot of grief for putting them in, and uh of course he had the last laugh because we know the stocking in there were absolutely is absolutely phenomenal. Yeah it's sort of I and I think the thing why farriers are so successful, because there's a lot of lakes now with probably the same stamp of fish on as farriers, you know, 40s and 50s are not no modern day it's ten years ago when farriers were throwing them up, it were like yeah, Jesus Christ, no one had seen fit fishing that amount of that size in a lake, so we managed to steal a march on people then, but uh that's down to uh Brian, God bless him, he's uh he's sadly passed away now, but he were instrumental in uh getting farrios up and running, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Right. I remember um for years, obviously I've worked with Andrew for um probably 15 years ago when I first started working with him. I remember driving past with with him going on down south to jobs and always looking in, and he said, Yeah, I'll be in there one day. And now Andrew's a director of the Carpenter Society, which I think he's very proud of. And um it's I remember Horseshoe Lake, I remember it was probably one of the first movers in fencing, like the the you had a big perimeter to fence here, and I remember that being like, Wow, that's gonna I think I can't remember the figure, but the the cost of fencing for a site of this size, was it 70 acres?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Uh yeah, the site's probably 80 acres, it's two mile round.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I don't I know that because I had to measure it for the fence, yeah. Two mile of fencing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

But what what was the impact of otters before the fence went up, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Er you don't it wasn't as widely known as it is now. People didn't necessarily think they're a problem. But Gloucestershire in particular seemed to be getting predated. Right. And uh if I'm perfectly honest, when I first thought about fencing it, I was 50-50 with the otters and anglers' security. Because there were absolutely nothing round the leaf, you could just bloody walk him and stuff and everything, and it. I suppose coming from an area where uh crime is rife, I thought, eh? What no Yeah, but you'd last got it then. Eh? But it just seemed alien to me that you wouldn't secure your anglers, eh? So anyway, that's by the by so uh again from going down to um Sparshall, I uh I met a guy called Dave Marvel who'd just started a company up called Otto Fencing. And uh I think we were one of the first lakes it did, so uh when it gave me a price to start off, bear in mind we had no money. And uh it it were quite a few thousand pounds, and I said to him, look, I've only got 30,000 pounds. And uh Blessed looking, I said, right, I'll do it for you for that. So uh I think he at the time he thought it was gonna be good publicity for him because not many lakes had odd references. People actually when when we were doing it, people thought it were a waste of money. Really? Yeah, we're gonna go, why don't we put some more fish in? Yeah. Well, but going back to your original question, we had found fish sort of half-eaten on the banks and stuff. Right. I couldn't swear it were otters, but with hindsight, since we put the fence up, you don't have any problems. So I think we were definitely getting a lot more otter predation than anybody ever ever thought.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Right. Yeah. Have you seen any any evidence of the otters getting in with the fence up? No.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Right, that's I did f one morning I came in and I found a big dead one outside the gate.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Really?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Where it I don't know if someone had just eyed it off or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

But no, that's the only touch wood, that's the only uh right in saying that you went and got the licence to be able to catch the trap otters and release.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I did, that were uh that were like ten years down the line. Yeah. I think uh a few guys in in the UK Wild Otter Trust or whatever it is, it it were becoming obvious by then that officers were a massive problem sort of thing. So uh they worked together and uh tried to find a non-lethal solution to otter problems, so they came up with this because as you know, otters are just massively protected, you can't do jack with them, you can't do anything. So they came up with this uh scheme that if uh if people some people could get a licence to trap them and uh but the conditions were just crazy. You you could only trap them in a lake that were already otter fenced and adequately otter fenced. Right. And you could only drop them over the other side of the fence. So when we got fenced, if we'd have had one in here, I could have dropped it, and all I could have done was thrown it over into Tim's trout fishing next door, so I think. But yeah, the licence itself, the uh to get the licence, uh the only place they did a course were up in the west coast of Scotland near Fort Williams, so uh I had a 900 mile drive uh a nine-hour drive up there. I had a three-day course up there, paid 450 quid for it, which thankfully the TARP Society paid and uh took this test. But when I got up to the course, I was expecting to see how we trap otters and all this. And the guy who were doing the course was obviously a massive altar fan, and he just told us the history of otters, or went around a few of the locks and saw a few otters and what have you. And then we had this test, and this test were all about the bloody history of otters and stuff like that. Of course, I'm like, Jesus Christ. And the questions were all set out as the answers were double negatives, it anyway. That's my excuse that's my excuse for failing it. So therefore I saw it, so they allowed me to take it again, and I stood it up a bit more about the more like the history and all this crap about otters, sort of thing, and uh took the test again and then passed it. So I have actually got uh I think there are a few lads up there from uh the Prince Albert Club in Manchester who took the same test. I think we ended up with about ten of us got licenses, right? And then uh all of a sudden the uh the course stopped and nobody on the bed of lance. I think there was some scumped up here behind that, but yeah, this is probably not the podcast. So yeah, sorry about the long-winded answer, but yeah, I've got license to throw out the office.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

So when I come up and deliver, we use a lot of feed in the stock ponds up here, and we always have uh quite controversial conversations about the state of the industry and stuff. And um I knew for a period when it was getting quite worrying for the carp society and the upset that was happening within, what what was the sort of intricacies of of how that sort of came about with what what was the upset? Are you allowed to divulge into that?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah, I think it's uh it's a no-secret now. The uh probably what like the carp society always had to be a member to fish here and join the carp site, and uh the people running the place at the time sort of cancelled the membership and offered people a cheaper alternative like a horseshoe passport because it that allowed her to fish here without being a member. But it also took away your right to vote. You could vote if you were a member on any radio, but with this alternative cheaper version, you couldn't vote. Well most people took the uh the alternative, so uh membership, although we still had people here the membership while we were going down on it. I thought it was a little something odd here. And uh as part of the membership, we had about£30,000 a year coming in through standing orders that they cancelled that. I thought, why would you throw 30 grand? A lot of people probably didn't even know they still had the standing orders, you know what if you forget you've got someone to set up in the bank. Yeah. So anyway, it was kind of 30 grand. I thought I sort of thing. So it was on my mind and on my mind, and uh by this time Sabrina had uh picked up started with us and uh we used to talk about it, I think, and then some are not quite right here. And then anyway, yeah, I found an email from one of the people involved at the time asking an estate agent to discreetly look for offers in the region of two million pounds for horseshoe. I looked into it a bit more and it came up the reason for getting rid of the members was that there were just a little group of people left as members. In the in the current state of members and arts, no one can sell or shoot off the members own it, sort of thing, so it's always been safe. But all of a sudden we had instead of having 2,000 members, we had six members that were coming up with some device that were gonna make it their ownership and not a members' ownership. So anyway and Sabrina did a bit of slooping about and stuff and we found a few sort of things and uh we decided to go to the police and uh before we went to the police we thought we'd bet we we better check up and make sure we know we've got everything right, we're not yeah we're not going mad and imagining things. So uh we did for a solicitor's consultation. I went down to see the solicitor that showed her all these documents and evidence that'd be adding and stuff, and uh she said, yeah, mate. Uh the only trouble you've got is it's not illegal. Someone's trying to steal steal a lake. How would you mean it's not illegal? But the way they'd done it, I think they had a solicitor who were quite helpful to me. And uh because they'd got rid of the members and stuff, and the members could vote, but they were the only members, so they could more or less do what they wanted, so right. So uh and uh and uh the solicitors you you could fight it privately, but it it's gonna cost you ten thousand pounds plus sort of thing. Or cost me in civilian didn't have that, so we scratched our heads and stuff in eventually, but yeah we got to retrieve uh Tim Traisler, who uh very generously then uh lent us£20,000 to get a solicitor to see what we could come up with, sort of and uh between uh the solicitor and John Seal, who were the vice president still is at the time as an ex-lawyer they found somewhere that when they'd cancelled everyone's memberships we had uh 50 live members and they'd cancelled their memberships. But in the members and arts, John found a little loophole that you can't cancel a live members uh membership, okay? So uh in our view, we still had 50 live uh members and uh so uh we uh sorted out a emergency general meeting and uh trying to cut the story a bit short. So we had an emergency general meeting that I chaired in the uh new inn in Lexley and uh we voted to get rid of the people involved and appoint some new people as directors, which included myself, Terry, Greg, Brian Sefflin who I mentioned earlier, and I think possibly Marshall at the time or he might come later. But anyway, so we we got rid of them installed new people and uh came back here, the old people, uh the old sort of guys that were trying to do the school dug, they turned up and they might not a bit of a sector or not anger and uh they bugger off. So the next thing we got a letter from their solicitors uh taking legal action against us for uh an illegal takeover, and they were suing us for what would have ended up being in excess of half a million pounds. Well, I ain't got a popped up piece into our one. I could have probably ended up in jail, but financially they couldn't do all, but uh poor Dedra, congratulated them, not had houses and stuff. So uh so then we we then had to uh get a barrister, uh get a solicitor uh our solicitor then had to get a barrister because it were going to the high court for uh as a legal takeover. And uh the bank account was frozen, so we had no money to pay this uh barrister sort of thing. And if I tell you the final bill ended up at more than£120,000. So we set up a fundraising go fund me um and uh Derek had a friend, uh a chap called Mickey D, who is a bit of a mysterious character, but obviously a nice man because he got involved in fundraising for us, and we were able to uh raise money, and it likes we do to Mickey D. And we had a lot of independent sort of small donations of£10,£20. But the legal it's like a game of poker, right or wrong, absolutely don't come into it. Our barrister were writing to theirs and charging us ten grand. Their barrister were writing to ours and charging them whatever. Our barrister were writing back to them and charging ten grand, so we went and it went up to what we'd done like 120 grand and we honestly we haven't even got to court. This went on for like two years as well, and all this time we're thinking, I'm interested shit here if if we don't win this sort of thing. Yeah. And uh, like I said, referring to it as a game of poker, the other team ran out of money. So I had to agree to stop their action against us and a couple of other contents. And that were it, it were over. No, no right, no wrong, no. It would, you know, it would it would have had the most money. Yeah. And I'd say thanks to some good people, we uh we were but if we'd have run out of money, this place would have been gone and I was gonna ask, yeah, what would have been the uh this place won't be here or fally, isn't he?

SPEAKER_00 28:15

It just charged all this legal stuff. The only people that win are the lawyers, aren't they? Oh they got£120,000, it never went to the court.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah. We had two two sleepless years. And if we were gonna go to prison and it what a freaking nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

All of the stuff to do with um around and certainly with my business with the feed millen and all the um all the stuff the loop the stuff you have to do that uh is is all legal stuff, and you think life's too short for this. It's like why's everyone got me dicks about it?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

I'm sorry, Ben, I'm 64, I'm 65 in January, and much as I love this job and stuff, each year this bureaucracy gets more red tea than down, and I think I really don't want to deal with these people anymore. I mean, I love working on the lakes, there's nut uh sometimes it drives you insane. Yeah, but it it it's like I say, it's just all the bullshit that goes on that you just think fuck off.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

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 car 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 car. 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. I remember that you used to have Lanhome Leak, wasn't it? What happened with that?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Well uh at the beginning of the league this is actually tied in at the beginning of the legal battle. Uh we we had Langholm that were up on the sort of Doncaster border where we had that on lease as well. Right. And uh Steve and his team up there had turned it into a really good lake. They didn't get a lot of support from down here, but the guys up there were the bloody socks off and turned it into actually a nice lake. And uh anyway, we got a a letter from the owners saying uh they were selling it and they were taking sealed bids. You know, the fact that we'd had it bloody 15 years and pay them ran meant nothing to us. But uh the guy says, I told you about I'll I'll let you know what the winning bid's gonna be. So we thought, oh yeah, I could have. But the bank account at the time was still frozen because of legal battles. So we had no money in the bank, but we kept we don't want to lose it, so it he tells us uh 80 grand had sort of buy the late. So we put a bid in for 85 grand, thinking, yeah, that's probably we'll we'll work out how we're gonna bloody pay it. Yeah. But when the matter happens, anyway, it turns out that somebody else had put an higher bid on us, and so we lost it then. But uh we're just off the fence that as well. So uh we said, oh we'll take the fence down and take the fish out and then the guys that bought it, but actually I don't know how it came to our bottle, they bought it, but I went up there, they were alright guys, yeah, they've done what they've done, sort of thing. But uh they their boxes off for the fence and the fish and stuff, so that put a bit of money in the caps like kit in that this were at a time when not too long after the I mean we had still had no customers on here, such so that that kept us going. So I although it were a bit shitty losing Langholm, we yeah, it probably financially sorted us out, so right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

And then bringing us up sort of more recent times, you've had the acquisition of Ashmead.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah. Er we'd been uh sort of lucky. I've been on the sea of few lakes sort of thing, have I registered with uh this uh estate agent and he sent us a thing with this lake for sale and what it turned out it was Ashmead. So uh I spoke to Derek, who was chairman at the time, and he said, Yeah, go down and have a look at it, sort of thing. And I went down and uh I thought, yeah, we can do something with this place sort of thing. There were a bit of controversy about later on, so I don't want to bloody slurred anyone, but it needed work doing on it, sort of thing. So uh but I could see the potential in it sort of thing. So uh Yeah, I came back and reported today, can you report to the board? We had a board meeting and uh we decided to buy that, so we were a massive investment. Yeah. If you think from uh 2011 we had no customers, no fish and no money in the bank, and then ten years later we've got a lake full of bloody 30 pound fish here, and we've be able to uh blow the best part of a million pounds on a new lake, so you asked if things are better now than they were then.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Well yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Do you think that's um uh do you think there's a change in the growth of the market that's helped with that, or do you think it's just the momentum of the carp society building again, recovering from that the fish the carp society, I mean without trying to blow my own front, I mean Sabrina run it pretty well, and you know, and although the fish have grown, which naturally brings more anglers. We're within the cot uh we work in the Cotswold Water Park, there's about 300 lakes down here, and they've all got like I mentioned earlier, they've all got 40, 50 pound fish in there. So although this place has come on lakes, like I alluded to with Farries, lakes have caught up with us, and we we had a bit of a jump start on them, but you know yourself how many lakes I'm here have got mega fish, aren't you? So you've got some stiff competition really, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

So I've said it on um previous podcasts about how we as angling we need to keep up as an industry to make it a viable option for landowners with lakes, but obviously carp society secure in the future a little bit better in the purchase of lakes. But I do feel like if we're up against things like water sports and outdoor swimming and things like that, we really need to be uh putting the punches to fight up.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh the price of waters is uh literally going on by God to say it's uh I don't know if it's a secret or not, but uh Ashmaid costs us£800,000.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Really?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

So uh you know that that my thoughts when we bought it were like the carp society will own it, you know, if it breaks even for ten years, I'm cool with that. Or if we have to subsidise it a little bit from it, I'm I'm cool with that because in 10-15 years' time, whoever sat in this chair, yeah, the carp society will own our shoe, uh, will own Ashmead and will own Horseshoe. Believe it or not, we bought we bought this lake 30 years ago and we're still paying for it. Right. Because successive people who were in charge prior kept bloody borrowing on the strength of it and borrowing on the strength of it. Right. The carp society shouldn't have to worry about paying any bloody mortgage or rent on here after 30 years, but that's the way it is. Yeah. What I want to do before I go is have this place boxed off so the carp society own it. I mean, I don't think I'll be around when Ashmead is bought off, but there will come a time when the carp society own Ashmead and Horseshoe and have no bank loans to pay on it, which then should allow them to grow as long as you get the right people in it.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

I mean it's so important to get the right people involved in here because it because it's a uh basically with a club owned by members, you want to get as I know from bloody experience, you want to get to get the wrong people involved, and you're you're a snooker. Yeah, yeah, if you've been that story. Happing back to what I say, yes, there's you you need to make sure you you thought the right people involved with the right intentions. Yeah. And I'm sort of glad to say we have at this time.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yeah, well that that I suppose that's because you have a lot of people involved in the society, don't you, to abstere it and having trust in people that you know they're gonna be have the right intentions in mind is uh obviously Yeah, it it it it it's critical. Yeah, you carry the scars for that.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yeah, well exactly, yeah. And uh just having battling the right people, it it's not just the board members, it's the people that help us the volunteers. I I say it in every little I do a move for a catch-up sort of thing. I say it all the time you you need good volunteers, and yeah, you know, without them you you snook because financially it wouldn't work, sort of thing. So uh yeah, uh Farriers uh we've got Rob and his guys who do a bad job, and uh Justin and his team now down at Ashfield and we've got some good guys here, so you know it's it's a bit collective, it's not yeah, there are certain people that get all the kudos sort of thing, but you know there's a lot of good people who want to get outside now as they were saying, you need them, you booger.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

So with the Ashmade, horseshoe, and farriers, how does the management model differ between the three waters that you control?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Er yeah, I mean, like uh if you wanted to listen to Andrew's podcast, every water's different, isn't it? So it each water's got its own bloody obstacles and stuff, and uh yeah, there's a lot of different I mean this this place is uh 60 acre open water. Ashmeade's like 17 acres with I think it's 20 islands on it and bloody trees all over the place and mad stuff and all of it. So uh and I I the uh Ashmeade's uh a clear pit that's all our other lakes are gravel pits, and uh it it wasn't something I'd sort of thought about at the time, but having worked down there for three years that there's a massive difference between clear pits and gravel pits.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

I it never I know it sounds daft, but it it it never occurred to me, but wow, yeah, it's yeah, I think in a lot of our content, because I kind of default to what I know of my clay ponds at the farm, and you forget that gravel pits are actually a completely different ecosystem, there's a different management plan entirely to uh to have the contrast there.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

But um there's uh I don't know if it's relevant the sort of thing, but uh the difference of clay picks and gravel picks, like I say, it never even occurred to me, and uh there were a little pond down Ashmeade that were referred to as a growing on pond, but it it does have grown and stuff, and I thought one thing I do know is that um I don't like cross-contamination in or fish into water, so I thought we need to have some fish from Ashme growing on in Ashmead to restock it. I don't I really don't want to be chancing putting fish that you don't know into Ashmeat because they're old fishing, they they're saying the way so anyway. I thought we need to uh dig a stock pond out. So uh we gotta dig ahead round to where I've wanted this stock pond. Start digging the big lumps of clay that won't come out of the bloody digger bucket, yeah. And while this is going on, this digger sinking and sinking and sinking into the clay till it were halfway up the driver's doorway. Jesus Christ, this is a nightmare, so what we had to do, we had to go and chop some trees down, get the digger driver to do like a wheeler, wang these tree stumps under the thing just to get him out. So I think, oh man, it was like in it that's got clear, never crossed my mind, sort of thing. I'd think it uh uh but anyway, eventually we uh we got this there. The guy who was doing the digger driver, who were a builder who could drive a digger, so he did his best, but never got this proper digger driver in and he creamed it sort of thing. So yeah, we've got uh a stock pond growing on now there with some uh nice fish in it.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

But yeah, and and that's been like we sort of brushed over a bit quickly earlier on of the stock ponds here because when I we first when I first came up here with Andrew, I think there was one overgrowing pond right at the back of the point of the horseshoe lake. Yeah. Um now we've how many have you got here now?

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Uh we've got four now. We've got the Libyum one, the new one on the headland, the mounds one, and the one up the very top that you and Andrew were dug and you fenced out for us. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

And there's one here that's quite different to the rest, isn't it? Being a raised pond.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Yeah, but the one in the middle is lined because it's above the uh the water table and stuff, and uh going back to how things are different. That's completely different from the other one. Yeah. Uh the other ones, uh when the fish spawn, we have some that are up three-year-old, some of the other ponds, and when they spawn, there's never any recruitment.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

That lined one, when they spawn in there and we net it, we end up with bloody thousands and thousands like that. So I don't know, would that would it line make a difference?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

I think because what they did didn't they the liners in layers of soil, wouldn't they dress it the liner with topsoil?

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, what if you put like a membrane sort of thing down first, and then you put this like waterproof tarp-y, yeah, it's got some portion in that that'll then you put the membrane on top, yeah, and then put some uh topsoil back on there. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

See that having if you just align like some places just have a liner, there's obviously no value to the substrate, which if once you've got fish in there, and it's kind of like you've noticed with the the lagoon stock pond. When we came in and did that one, it was completely very eutrophic environment. What I'd call eutrophic with the amount of weed that's just choking the pond, and actually the whole collapse of the ecosystem when weeds do get overrun, the ponds do get overrun with weed, uh, and really it's just not a fertile environment at all. People look at it and go, Oh, look at all that weed, isn't that fertile? But it's actually, as you've seen, it's quite the opposite. If you can get a nutrient out of the soil, and when the fish reproduce, that environment is really sort of firing, and that's because you see the recruitment naturally.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

But I don't know if you remember when we did that one, we had the like a 25-ton digger and a 10-ton dumper, and we were three days taking weed out of that, and they were like Lasagne, aren't you? But the lead it are it for yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

I mean, I'm surprised anything ever grew in there it can do, it would just yeah, and you see it now, like it's almost more needs more intense management because it's so fertile and the oxygen in there, and you but you need the fish, the volume of fish in there to keep the weed down, but then there also you've got the production of ammonia, and then with it being light open to light and air, the uh the algae blooms you get in there, and you you have oxygen aeration on there as well, don't you? So um, but yeah, that's such that having this site enclosed now with the fence and being able to Replenish your stocks internally is just the best by a biosecurity plan uh you could have as a fishery, really. And we encourage people to do that.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

You mentioned uh the amount of funnel enough, or not funnily enough, the uh the line stop on now uh a couple of fish popped up dead and stuff, and we checked the water thing, and the ammonia levels were bloody through the roof. So we uh we drained the pond down about half and put some fresh water in, and that that's brought it back up. Or uh I think this winter I think we really need to empty it, lime it or treat the bottom because I think now there's like seven or eight, because it's an enclosed it's like seven or eight years worth of build-up on the bottom, yeah. Literally just whatever you call it, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

So how does it how do you get by in like summons like we're having now where it's been very dry for so long? How often do you topping something like that?

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Er like so a few weeks ago we we drained it down half and topped it up, and it's not too bad again at the moment. It might want but we normally take it from the lake. Yeah. Of course, the bloody lake's going down in water level, so you'd have been caught between the devil and the deep blue sea now. I don't want to take any more out of there, but we need some in there, so yeah. I've been doing a few rain dancers, but for uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

And so we've got a good example this weekend of what you're doing for the next generation of anglers coming into the sport or trying to broaden the reach of angling with the um what's it what do you call it this weekend? What's the other junior carp camp? Junior carpet camp, and what does that involve?

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Er a brief history would start with it started years ago. Uh I don't know, probably maybe in the 80s before they got all through the carp society, started doing junior carp camp. And uh what it we normally have the last few years we have 30 youngsters and 15 instructors, each instructor has two youngsters, and we designate them some pegs and they go out there. We have a sort of tick list of things we we want the instructors to go through with the juniors, so basically they they set up behind the juniors and sit with them all three days and three nights and go through his checklist and just generally try and you have different I mean some of the kids that come here about like 12 and 13, they've already got 30 pounds. Yeah, but and some of them come here that haven't really caught anything, so there's a yeah a bit of a mixture, so each junior probably needs a different sort of level of teaching. Yeah. Some of them can to be honest, they don't really need a lot of coaching, some of them are as good as the bloody anglers. Yeah, that that's no disrespect to the judges, but you get some really uh quality youngsters on here. I've lost count of how many lads that have been on the junior carp camp have gone on to win the uh British junior camp, but it's it quite an impressive record, yeah. It's a lot. And then not only that, I mean one of the instructors who've just turned up today. Uh they said, bloody hell, it's 35 years since I'd last uh since I did my first junior carp camp.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Really?

SPEAKER_01 47:28

He came here as a a student, a young lad, and now he's come back as a coach. And we have a we have a few lads this year in the same boat, and what we have this year, a few of the lads that have come to a previous carp camps are now like 18, 19. Yeah. They're driving. So they're coming up here, and we're uh we're sitting in with one of the instructors and they're learning how to be instructors as well. Yeah. It's it's a lovely little excitable.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah, I think um it's not only the with like events like that, it's not only about encouraging anglers into the sport. I think a lot of it is about encouraging them the disciplines of angling and the correct way to do it. Because if they don't go to things like that and they're brought into it maybe by somebody who's half-assed about fishing and they're chucking litter around and you know they're not not w realising the real way. I think as we're sort of future-proofing the the disciplines of angling that we want to sort of pass down rather than allowing it to happen.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

That's massively important. I mean, it's whether it's right or wrong. At the end of carp camp, I'd rather they went away as better people than better anglers. You know, it it it carp angling now that there's a lot of bloody herbits involved, and and I've been an herb myself at times, so I'm not disrespecting herberts, but you know, there's a there's a lot of guys who just see it as a piss-up and a you know, just anti-social sport, and really it should be the quietest unsocial sport, you know, you should kick yourself away and try and catch a fish, but there's a bit of a like I say, I don't people do what they want to do, but otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Do you do you get some of like all sort of audiences come and perhaps some that you'd less desirable than others to you experience?

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Very very few. We we're uh we try and run it really well, and most 95% of the anglers we get on here are as good as gold. They buy into it, they see what we're up to. The ones that come here that perhaps want to piss up and be rounded, they'll only ever come once. Yeah. And it it's not that we'll show them off, but I think they get a feeling that nah this thing for us, you can't piss about on here. Yeah. Not being recorded, but you know what I mean. They're like you know, I think it polices itself in a way. Yeah. The anglers we have on here do want to come. I mean, we get all cloaks coming on their own. They don't want a damn lad pissed them and coked up across the road, yeah. Explained lady. Whoever's this week's favourite. I'm trying to think of a pop star again. Storms is probably the last one. I don't know. But you know what I mean. Yeah. And that that's not I mean, I'm all for people doing anything they ever want to do, but not on a fishing lake. No. Go to the pub or a nightclub. Go in a bloody field miles away and blasting music, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Do you is there any ways that you can police or vet the people members that are perhaps looking to fish the lakes and how you can sort of pick and choose and steer them to right perhaps towards the right venue for them?

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Or uh you can't pick and choose because we're a members' organisation, you you know anyone can join the cab society and write this sort of thing, but uh we don't some people have come here and have been proper, like when they arrived here, you you think Jesus Christ upon these guys are gonna be a nightmare. And they've turned out to be the nicest blokes. Yeah, like it's like a uh they kind of buy into it and they get into it, and uh they change as people, yeah, you know, they become better people, yeah. And I've been here 15, 16 years now, and I have seen people develop for the better, yeah, as people. Yeah, you know, when they get outside here, a lot of them carry on murdering and killing each other, but when they're here, they're as good in gold, you know, and that's I'm alright with that, you know, doing it. They don't murder each other, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

You know what I mean? Yeah, no, that's it. Like a lot of these fisheries that you you shouldn't need rules really because it should be sort of about attracting the right people that understand what good angling discipline is, but you can't because obviously you've got all levels of anglers at different stages in their angling journey, if you want to call it that. But so you do need to have a sort of base level of rules. And with that said, is there any rules that you have which is there any that are broken more than others, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Uh yeah, probably ones that they don't think we know about, like stitching your swims up and you know just but stuff like that I can do for you, get on about it, you know, as long as as long as people are arming the fish, arming the fishery, annoying the other anglers, you know, most things can sort of like I said the guys in here are pretty good. If you go to them and sell up, you can't really do that either. Yeah. Most of them are yeah, yeah. I and they settle down to it and they they sort of grow into it. Yeah. The ones that don't want to behave, they obviously got enough sense to think, well, no, that's perhaps not for us. We don't we stand out like sore thumbsy and acting like maniacs sort of thing. So it it if you if you run it right, it it kind of pleases it's yeah. I'm making it sound easy, but no, it it it it's not, but I I am pleased that if you talk to people right, you know, don't don't go over confronting and violent and get because they're probably the life, that's what they grew up with, isn't it? But if you kill people with kindness, yeah, I I say they they respond accordingly.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yeah, no, I think you do a very good job of it from what we've seen up here, and I think I would I don't want to keep you too long because I know you've got a lot to uh with this carp camp to prepare, so uh uh we'll sort of round it up here. But yeah, thank you so much for having me to come and record in the uh Tim Paisley Lodge and good luck with the weekend. I think it's been really good to bring out the story of the struggles of the carp society. I think a lot of the stuff behind the story of the carp society that perhaps is isn't highlighted enough with the what you've done as yourself and Sabrina to keep it uh afloat and the struggles that this is pretty unique to the carp society and how it's come out on top at the end of it all ultimately, and stronger as you alluded to than it ever was, which back in the day, when we look at it historically, you think wow, what a venue it's never gonna be the same again. But actually, we're we're going to a new chapter now where it is uh it's beyond that now. So uh congratulations on all that. Good luck for the carp camp, and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

No worries, but if I can just add in that although I've been here at sort of the elm of it, what the sending I'm probably getting in trouble for saying that. But um, we've had some great people up and us that are involved in like say you couldn't possibly be, it's no way near me about me. You know, we've had some great people up, but if I just uh finish off this uh the other day, I don't know if you saw it on the fishery manager's page, there were a guy who must have just bought a new lake and his advertising for a manager and duties, this, that, and the other and all that. And he says, if you're looking for a stress free life, this is a job for you, and okay now. I mean, yeah, I never ever comment on people, so but it was only here, but somebody beat me to it, so I had to leave them. Very well. Stress free life, you know it. Cheers, man. Cheers, man, thank you.