3lb Perch caught WEEKLY! Episode #14 with Rich Green from Springs Heath Fishery

Rich tells his story of how his dream was realised when he found Spring Heath Fishery quietly on the market without too many knowing about it. Nursing the site from neglect into a fantastic mixed fishery with incredible numbers of big Perch and a Carp fishery which sees very little angling pressure. A great holiday venue with quality fish of all species.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We often get guests that comment on the quality of the fish. The perch cups of four four and a half pounds and we've got a really healthy stock of good quality perch and you know three pounders come out every single week. Last year a lady turned up and she hadn't fished before and um I saw her struggling to land a fish and I went to the edge of the pool to help her, thinking she had a car pod and she had um a perch of three and a half pounds. I said to her husband, that's fantastic. You know, people spend years trying to get fish of that size. And he said, You won't believe it. He said she's never fished before. She's just had another fish that I weighed over there that was three and a half pounds, and she's had a two-pound roach. Where did it all begin? I bring in large computer systems globally, so I work for multi-billion pound companies. No, I'm not an IT expert by any means, but for me, we couldn't get the bloody mics to work on your own. Yeah, I blame you. Buying the fishery was always in the back of my mind to allow me to have an income when I finally retired, which I still haven't managed. On the day we were moving, there was an issue with the contract, and so on on the day the truck was loaded up with our furniture, we got a phone call from the solicitor to say we can't exchange today. And we'd already exchanged with people buying our property, so we're effectively homeless. After two or three years, um we stopped enjoying it as much as we do now. The otters came in and devastated the place, and um a rabbit dug under the wire fence, and the otter came straight in and killed two fish, and the dogs chased the otter out. That first winter I remember the cormants were also out and they were hammering the fish, and as a heron kept stabbing large bream and roach, and they were too big to swallow, so it was dragging them on the bank and leaving them. And I went for a walk, and then this kingfisher dived down and took a fish, and I just thought, why are they bloody bothered? Maybe I should have bought a golf course, not gonna like golf. You've got to want to do this, you don't do it for the money. What we look for as anglers is completely different to what we look for as a fishery manager. Yeah, and you can cloud your vision and judgment as a fishery manager if you take on board too many of the anglers' comments. We had one guy from the Midlands, he turned up for a week's fishing and he had a pint of maggots and a tin of sweet corn, and he took half a pint of maggots home with him after a week.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

How important is the fish stock to get in repeat business?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

And Viv said to me, they won't grow very fast. He said, I know you really like those, but they won't grow fast. Well, one of the Felita Gold mirrors was one of the fastest growing fish we had. It just pulled on the weight, and I think that's a really good point. One of the words of advice that stick with me that Andy gave me was.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Okay, Rich Green, thank you for having me down to Springs Heath Fishery. Uh, I think it was how many years ago was it I was here last with Andrew? I think it was five.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Yeah, I think Andy's been twice since you last came, so yeah, must have been five years ago.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, so to explain to those listening that your fishery, well, how would you wrap it up in a nutshell? Because we're in at one of the lodges here by the side of the lakes, is it more of a cabin style business or is it uh ultimately a fishery?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

It's more for holiday makers. So whilst we do get anglers that are keen on their fishing and you know every weekend, we really cater for those that want to break with their family, um, particularly the car fishermen, because we don't allow night fishing. So we cater for anglers that just want to spend time with their family, particularly in the evenings, they go to the pub and have a nice meal, and then the wife will usually sit in the hot tub with their friends and drink a bottle of wine whilst the husbands and kids go fishing.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, and you've got a couple of lakes here.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah, we've got two lakes. One we focus on uh just for the carp, so we've got some nice carp, um, up to about 35 pounds, and the other pool is just a really good mixed fishery. So in that pool, um, we've got good quality roach and rod and perch up to well, the perch up to four four and a half pounds. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Wow, yeah. I remember when we did one of the pools, I think it was it, it wasn't a carp on, was it the smaller one? And the amount of big perch, the you go places and you find the odd one, but we were finding more than that in the in there. It's quite a funny little pool, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 4:21

It is, it's good, it's got lots of nooks and crannies, lots of places for the um silvers to hide and the perch do well on it. Yeah, I think last year a lady turned up and she hadn't fished before, and um I saw her struggling to land a fish, and I went to the edge of the pool to help her, thinking she had a carp on, and she had um a perch of three and a half pounds. And I said to her husband, that's fantastic. You know, people spend years trying to catch fish of that size, and he said, You won't believe it. He said she's never fished before. She's just had another fish that I weighed over there that was three and a half pounds, and she's had a two-pound roach.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Wow. So let's um with these podcasts. I like to give a little bit of an introduction, a little bit of a flavour of the sort of business you've got here, and then I like to rewind it right back to the start. So, where did it all begin for you, Rich?

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Uh, where did it all begin? I I learned to fish or I was became interested in fishing when I was about six. Um, and we all go through that, I guess, when we learn as kids to fish, and then for whatever reason, I didn't do particularly well at school, but I always had in my mind I wanted to be involved with fisheries, and I was fortunate enough to get work experience with Thames Water when I was 16, 1983. So I went to Kempton Park Fish Farm as it was then, um, did some work experience and went back to the school. And the school I I'd lived in um Greater London at the time, so there weren't really any opportunities at all for somebody who wanted to get into fishery management. I kept getting pushed down the road of doing motor mechanics and all that sort of thing by the school, and I had no interest in that. Um, so after I'd got that ex that work experience with Thames Water, um, I think there was a youth training scheme at the time, shows you how old I am. And uh I managed to get a work placement near in a place called Hook near Basingstoke on a trout farm. Um, but that meant I was having to get up at half past four every morning as a 16-year-old to get cycle to the train station, which was half an hour, and get a half past five train to get to Hook for 8 a.m. every morning.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

And then I was getting home at about half eight, nine o'clock after doing a hard day's work on the trout farm. And I did it for probably six or eight months, um, and quite enjoyed it to be fair, and and obviously I was going to Sparshalt College as well to do the formal training, which I really enjoyed, but I'd I'd struggled at school, and so you know, academically I I really couldn't manage the coursework at the college, and I wasn't uh enjoying the fish farming towards the end because once you understood what they did day to day, and I guess this is a danger for anybody thinking about getting into the industry, fishery management can be quite mundane, like any job, really. So, you know, you're feeding the trout every day, and we were catching trout and gutting them and selling them in the shop and selling them wholesale, and it and it all got a little bit mundane, and I kind of lost my direction really. Um, but I always had that passion to keep well, I had an interest. So, like a lot of people, just carried on with your your angling, but I got involved with my local angling club, supported those with things like nettings and fishery management, bank side management, etc. And starting to look at things like water quality, and just always kept that interest, yeah. Um, and then I'd been nagging the wife for years to buy my own fishery, and uh we we lived down in Surrey at the time, and we lived in a lovely little village and on the edge of the countryside and had no reason to move whatsoever. So she was quite content, and and I'd literally been looking on these angling um estate type estate agents, looking at different, not angling, uh fishery estate agents, looking at different fisheries that were for sale, and constantly asking and constantly being told no. And then one day my wife decided that as my youngest daughter was just about to leave secondary school, if we were ever gonna move, then that was the time. And she phoned me up. I was fishing at Frimley at the time, and she said, if we're gonna do this thing, we're gonna do it now. And I was like, What are you talking about? So uh I'd already found this place and another fishery I'd been looking at. Um they were two totally different fisheries, one was about 25 acres with three or four match pools on, and but the house wasn't very nice, and this place, fishery-wise, wasn't what I was looking for at all, but it had a nice house and it had the cabins, and for me, buying the fishery was always in the back of my mind to allow me to have an income when I finally retired, right? Uh, which I still haven't managed.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

But that so and if your family was to move, then it was to become a new family business, I guess. Was your wife working with it?

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Definitely. I I don't think my wife realised what she was letting herself in for, and and particularly living out here in Shropshire, you know, we we we live about eight miles away from the nearest town. Um, we haven't got family and friends around this area, so we moved 180 miles away from where we used to live. Right. So it's a big change, and it took a few years to get used to the fact that you can't just pop out and buy stuff like you used to buy because that the town in Farnham in Surrey, where we used to live, was only a few miles away.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

So um once you got used to that and you sort of you buy online and you sort of make sure you've got plenty of food in the fridge, yeah, and it's it's a lovely place to live. There's a really nice community around here, farming community. Um, it's a slower pace of life.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Right. So it wasn't like that when your wife said that we're if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it now. Was there a pressure then to did you have to compromise because you're under that time pressure, or was this exactly you had you had your eyes on this and this is what you wanted?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

I'll be honest with you, I was just so keen to get fishery, I would have bought anyway. But um as I as I mentioned, I'd I'd been constantly looking, honestly. I'm not kidding you, for five years I'd been constantly looking, and either properties were outside of our budget, particularly down south, because everybody knows it's so much more expensive. Uh, but here in Shropshire, you know, the prices are a bit lower. I was timing-wise, I was lucky. I found this place quite by chance. It wasn't on the usual, in the usual channels, um, on the usual websites, etc. I picked up a copy of Dalton's Weekly and found it in the back of there. It was just there's no other fisheries in there at all, it was just this one. I saw the house, which I really liked. I thought, well, the wife's gonna love that. Um, and yeah, it moved really quickly. We had a friend who was an estate agent who helped us sell our property, and from the moment we got an offer, which only took two weeks, um, we'd exchanged contracts, and we were and then on the day we were moving, there was an issue with the contract, and so on the on the day the truck was loaded up with our furniture, we got a phone call from the solitors to solicitor to say we can't exchange today, right? And we'd already exchanged with the people buying our property, so we're effectively homeless.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

But what what was the business you were buying? Was it established as a fishery?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

It was so there's this particular site um had been run as a trout fishery. Um well, in fact, before it was a fishery in uh 1999, this site was actually just a small holding of 10 acres with lots of small fields and paddocks, all hedgerows everywhere, and a few sheep and a few goats. Um, and then the chap who purchased this site from the Duke of Bradford um dug out the fishery uh in the first instance, set it up as a trout fishery. He ran the the site for ten years, and then he told to a chap who was a king fisherman and thought it'd be great to go fishing every day, not realising the work that was involved. Um he didn't really understand fishery management, he had lots of problems feeding the fish with the wrong food, so he had lots of fish deaths because he was feeding chicken pellets and unsoaked uh maize and cereals, and so he had lots of problems with the fishery, and I think he lost um his enthusiasm after two or three years. Yeah, so yeah, it was running, it was an established business, um, but they'd lost the passion. So for the last three years, the previous vendor sort of kept the wheels turning. Um, and that was really noticeable to us when we bought it. One, the fish weren't in great condition because they weren't being fed very well, the water quality wasn't great. Um so we reduced the biomass straight away. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Um we so when I met you, you hadn't long been here. We hadn't, no, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah, so it must have been longer than I thought, actually. We we've been here just over nine years, so I think you yeah, it must have been seven years ago when you came. So we reduced the number of silvers. That helped reduce really the the impacts on the on the environment overall. Um we saw growth straight away with with the roach and rud improving in size. We then introduced perch, which I know that can be controversial because some people can uh say that you can end up with lots of small perch, but we found the perch just boomed and and we've got a really healthy stock of good quality perch, and you know, three pounders come out every single week. Wow. Um yeah, so so yeah, going back to your earlier question, yeah, it was an established business, but as I say, the guy had lost the passion, and so the cabins were pretty run down, the fishery wasn't at its best, and we've just worked really hard, and any money we've made in the last nine years we've put back into the business. Um, so if you're thinking about buying a fishery because you're gonna make loads of money, go and get a job in the supermarket. You've got to want to do this, you don't do it for the money.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

No, I think that's it's not uncommon, I don't think, for fisheries that have issues. They feel like if you're especially anglers that have got a lot of angling experience, if they take on a fishery and realise that dream and they have an idea of in their head of how they're gonna do things, and when things don't pan out the way they think they're going to, it is quite quite easy to fall out of love with it, isn't it? Like the person perhaps that was before you might have just felt like ah a bit disheartened, his plan didn't work, throw in the towel, and it can make you fall out of love with it. But like what you've done straight away, come in and taking advice from Andrew from the off, and uh having a bit of a plan off the bat was uh must have been uh to see things got what we see out there today. Definitely got now.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

You can't know enough, and you know, you I met Andrew Ellis um as you say seven years ago. Um, he's got great advice, he goes to hundreds of fisheries every year, and um there's some advice I didn't take, and some advice we did take, and and it's trying to get a balance and make the fishery work um for us as a business, but also make sure that we're not creating problems for ourselves by mismanaging the livestock, and that's what the fish are, you know, they're livestock, so you need to make sure they've got the right environment, the right nutrition, um, and and stress is the biggest killer, really, and it causes most problems.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah, I think that's it. I notice a lot of fisheries that don't really have an idea of the destination they're trying to get to. They don't have a plan, don't know what type of fishery they want to be, they're just being a fishing lake full of fish. So I think, yeah, to have a bit of direction and and knowing what you're trying to create out there, like this is quite a nice sort of it's not it's not commercialised, is it? It's a nice mature setting that it's uh so is would you say that your market then is holiday makers that are perhaps mixed species sort of angling, or is it more special?

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Yeah, and it always has been. We we tend to s attract anglers that want to just go course fishing. We've we've don't get a huge amount of kids here, and the anglers that do come and the repeat business that we seem to um get and encourage is people want to come to a non-commercial environment, if that makes sense. So whilst we cut the grass and keep it all nice and low, around the bank side, we let the um undergrowth grow as much as it can, and we we've got lots of flag iris and um Norfolk Red, etc. Um, and that's that non-commercial environment is why why we get the repeat business. People like to come and feel that they can leave their tackle by the bank and it's not going to be pinched, or they're not fighting for a swim. Um yeah, it's it I guess everybody's in in business for different reasons, and with I work as well as run in this fishery business, um, and so money hasn't been the driver or the primary driver. Um so that's made a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, is that would you say that a lot of your guests and they're not anglers?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Um, no, I would say probably 40% are non-anglers, maybe even a little bit less than that now. Um, but what we find is usually uh two couples come together, the guys usually go fishing, and the ladies spend the day going out and visiting the local area, yeah. Um, or sitting in the hot tub and drink a bottle of wine and read a book. Yeah. Uh and then we've got a couple of great pubs within a 10 or 15 minute walk, and they book the evening meal and kind of a few drinks and come back, and the guys are usually up early in the morning fishing for a few hours. Yeah, uh, some of them get dragged out for the day to visit the local attractions, but it's usually reluctantly.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Do you think that um the location is important? Do you because I find from our farming family, we look at diversification projects and you think there's not much around us that's gonna make people want to come to this area in in Wiltshire. We don't find that we're that close to anything in interesting, but um, is that a big part? Because I speak to other people that say that perhaps they're in a less of a desirable area and they still have plenty of bookings from people that just want to go and uh diff try different venues, go fish in, have a holiday.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

I think that's a really good question, actually. And I think it all depends on what the guests want from their fishing. I mean, we had one chap turn up earlier in the year and he was in probably nearly nearly 80, and he said he spent the first two hours just sitting on his chair along the woods watching the birds and taking in the atmosphere before he even got his rod out of his bag. And we often get guests that comment on the quality of the fish, yeah. So don't come and expect to get 80 or 90 pounds of fish, although on the right day you can, but you expect to catch really good quality fish that fight like mad. I try and encourage people not to pole fish because there's lots of little nooks and crannies, and even the small four or five pound carp go tearing off because they're not used to being hoarding every day, yeah. They're like wild fish, and and so really it's for for me. Um it feels like an old-fashioned sort of fishing uh as it used to be. It's quite simple, loads of nature around, um, and and just fishing a basic way, nothing complicated.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

A friend of mine who runs a small fishery on the is right next to the M4, so it's real noisy, and he's um got some accommodation on the side of there, and he was didn't know whether to do it or not because felt like no one's gonna want to come in this the racket next to the M4. But actually, people from perhaps the the city that want to get get out into the countryside, they're used to it, and they they don't they said the bookings uh you couldn't believe the bookings he was getting. So it did make me think maybe I'm overthinking this.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Uh I used to fish a syndicate down in Kent, and one of my favourite swims was literally 20 foot from the maybe 30 foot from the edge of the M25. Yeah, but uh and you kind of do block it out, but here generally it's really quiet, yeah. There's lots of nature, and as I say, from a settings perspective, it's very picturesque, yeah. And and it for me uh it just sort of takes me back to what fishing used to be like rather than turning up to a commercial that it's just a little bit too twy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or run down, you know. Some of these waters are there's lots of litter around and and the fish aren't aren't in great condition.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

So where where do your customers find you? Do you do you do any advertising or is it repeat customer you're finding?

SPEAKER_02 21:05

We've got uh some customers that have been coming here since before we bought the place, um, which is fantastic because um we have made changes when we first bought the business. We tried not to make any changes for the first year or two, um, just not to upset the balance, but then we've realized we want to put our own um uh slant on things, and and so we have made changes. As I've mentioned, we we don't allow night fishing and um we don't have matches anymore because I really do worry about fish welfare and stress. So but the majority of our customers now come either through an agent that we use or our website, and uh we've uh refreshed our website this year. We're doing more on social media um and we've seen improvements and in then uh increasing bookings. Um Social media is a bit of a double-edged sword and it's hard work, you know, finding fresh content um is it's hard work. And and also the audience, the the demographic of our customers tends to be people that are aged sort of 55, 50, 55 to 80. Um, and I always worry that perhaps social media is not hitting the spot for those, but then other people tell me that though, you know, that demographic news Instagram perhaps more than Facebook. I'm not an Instagram person, but I rely on my daughter to do that, and my wife. So yeah, um we we do rely on repeat business, we get quite a lot of repeat customers, but like anything, it goes in cycles. So some of our best customers, you one lady in particular used to come for six weekends a year. Um she's had ill health herself and her husband, and so she's coming less and less, and we've had several other examples where people, for one reason or another, are coming less, and so we try and encourage new people and try and get them back as much as we can.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah, how important is the fish stock to getting repeat business?

SPEAKER_02 23:09

For me, uh, it's getting the right and not necessarily volumes of fish, it's it's getting good quality fish.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Because you've got up the road, there's obviously blackthorn with big carp, and that's uh, you know, some of the the 50 pounders and all sorts, and that you think having that so close is that do you see like competition with fit venues like that, or do you feel like you've got a bit of a perhaps a bit of a niche here with being the log cabins you've got, the stunning that where we're sat here now? It's uh thank you.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, and I think they're they're slightly different businesses. I've been up and met Ben, lovely fella, beautiful sight. Um, Ben's cabins are right on the water edge, and he's got a lot a lot larger fish. To Charlie Charlie, Charlie Charlie? Yeah, Blackthorne, yeah. He said Ben, I'm Ben. Oh, did I have sorry apologies? We could have to cut that out. Charlie, sorry. It's definitely Charlie. Yeah, so I was gonna let you in with it. I've met Charlie, and he's got a beautiful sight, um, and he's got much larger fish. So he attracts a different type of angler. Um, and as I say, because we don't allow night fishing, um, really what we're trying to get is guests that are a little bit more casual in their angling. They just want to come and have a break from work, get the rods out for a few hours, maybe have a barbecue or go up the pub in the evening, and it's a different sort of setup. And we're we've also got the the course fishery, so we're attracting more general anglers. Um, and what we're found in historically is that the course pool has been more popular than the carp pool. Um, so it's it's trying to work out what's attracting anglers and maximising that really, which is why I'm really keen to we've got a little stock pool out there all growing on pool. We've got some fish in there that we've literally moved from on pond to the other roach predominantly that we've been growing on. Um they're coming out over a pound, pound and a half, which we'll take out this winter and put into the course pool. We've bought a few hundred crucium carp that are in there, small ones. Again, we'll grow those on and put those in the course pool. We've got some fantastic perch as we've mentioned earlier. Um, so it's it's rather than trying to change the site, we're trying to get the best out of the site.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah, so you don't allow anglers from outside to come on, it's only the people that are staying.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

We do let a few day ticket anglers on. Um mainly locals. Yeah. Um, we just want to get the right balance, really. We've we've found that some day ticket anglers come on and and they they forget that the anglers that are staying in the cabins have paid an awful lot of money to stay. Yeah. Um, and we try and give the guys in the cabins precedence. Um, we don't have day ticket anglers every week, um, depending on how busy we are, or if if on any given week we find that there's a lot of people fishing on one pool or the other, we'll only allow day ticket anglers on the pool that has the least amount of anglers on. Right. So we try and get a good balance, really. We don't want the fish um to be stressed. Um, we want to make sure that the fish maintain their condition. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's trying to get a balance on the side, and that's what attracts most of our repeat business is that it's not too commercial.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

No. Are you managing the lakes for to like progress the stocks, or do you think you're running the business with what you got?

SPEAKER_02 26:24

No, uh for me, is you mentioned earlier about having a plan. For me, I've got a plan in my head that you know, since meeting yourself and Andy um seven years ago, most of my work, what I see as my work rather than my wife's work, is is managing the fishery through the winter months. So cutting the roots back, getting in the water, cutting the roots back, managing the silt levels by applying chalk, maintaining and uh monitoring the water quality, making sure we're getting the right feed going in, the right volumes of feed, and the right type of feed at the right time. And so if we can get the fish in their best condition, um I and and I try and introduce the minimal amount of fish, new fish to the site. Yeah, so I try and move fish around. The the roach seem to do really well in the carp pool, so we net that every couple of years, and we've moved roach up to two pounds across into the course pool. We're growing fish on in the um small stock pond, are going to move into the course pool. We've got lots of small carp in the course pool that are now hitting double figures, perhaps even upper double figures that we'll be moving out and putting into the carp lake. So it's really managing the fish stocks you've got, yeah rather than keep reintroducing fish.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Have you do you notice any changes once you move fish like that?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

We do, yeah. We we um you notice if you introduce more carp into the carp pool, the the the carp in because it's a small pool, the carp are quite cagey, to be honest with you. And if you're if you introduce more stock and get more competition, right, they suddenly suddenly start feeding harder. Okay. Yeah, so you do, yeah, it definitely makes a difference.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah, a lot more people have said that that does work, whereas in my head, I can't I'm I'm I don't run a fisheries, I obviously grow carps, so you don't really see that side of it. And I would when people tell me that I'm like, no, but then enough people have said that it makes me think maybe I'm wrong with that one. But it does stir them up then when you put when you put a few in.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

And what we've noticed now is you know, because we're managing the stock that we've got, reducing the smaller silvers, that we're getting much larger roach coming through generally, they're in really good condition. The perch have uh just doing really well every year with with we're getting fantastic perch out. I was really worried that perch don't live particularly long, and and I was worried we were going to get into a little bit of a cycle and find that some years were pretty barren for the larger perch, but they seem to be re-reproducing reasonably well. Right, they predate heavily on the smaller perch, so you don't get masses of smaller perch, but you manage to keep sufficient to close the gap when you do lose those larger perch.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah, I guess I think one of your biggest challenges here with the lakes in the nature that they are with the islands and the interesting lake bed being uh up and down, it does give you that you you don't have quite so much control over the total population of your lakes, do you? So I guess you have to keep that in the back of your mind that whilst you've got an idea of what your stock and densities are, you need to be a bit naive to what they actually are, what they actually are.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Yeah, I I think you're totally right. Unless you completely drain the place, you'd never really know. There's so many nooks and crannies. And and that's a good thing in a way, because like most fisheries around the UK, we're getting cormorant predation. Yeah, so the fish have got places to hide. Um, it's also good for the juveniles to get away and and have the opportunity to grow on a bit because if they're constantly being eaten by the cormorants or even the herons and the kingfisher and the perge, we wouldn't have that um regeneration of of smaller fish. And I don't want to get in the cycle of buying fish because one, they're expensive, and two, you've there's always the risk of introducing a pathogen. Yeah, could cause you an awful lot of problems. So try and keep everything in on on site and um just move stuff around between the pools.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, yeah. Do you find that you're getting good juvenile recruitment or your rep your purchase?

SPEAKER_02 30:18

There is. I I get real pleasure in you know, when we're rooting around doing work, you might you might pull fish out and a big ball of roots and and you're finding small cruisions or small tents, and yeah, but we we when we first purchased the place, the small roach and rudd were a problem. There were just too many of them, and you could you'd have to fight your way through to get to the better fish. Right. Um, now we encourage anglers not to use maggots, particularly as a hook bait, bring them if you wish, but we encourage anglers to use larger baits to get the better quality fish. But you see small shoals of uh juvenile fish swimming around. Um so there is that you know constant um replenishment of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

So so what do you have a plan with your stock management to crop and remove fish?

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, well, net every two years generally. Um we're finding that there's we probably only take maybe four or five hundred kilos of smaller fish out every couple of years, um, and then move the larger roach and perch around in from the carp pool into the coarse pool. And and that seems to be sufficient.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Um do you notice any changes immediately after netting and taking that?

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Oh, that's interesting. Um the carp shut up shop for a while because it's only a two-acre pool, they're cagey at the best of times. I know the anglers are around, doesn't matter how quiet you are, they they realise there's people on the bank. Um, and after being chased around and and possibly netted, um they do shut up shop for a few days. But we we do put supplementary feed in and they soon get back on that feed and soon get back into their usual habits and cycles.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Are you seeing good growth across the stock? The car? Oh, it depends on what you call good growth. We see cons consistent growth. So we they put on about three pounds a year.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

So, you know, I always like a lot of people, you hear about these fisheries that have seven, eight pounds of growth, and and everybody thinks they're doing things wrong if they're not getting six or seven pounds of growth. I guess if you're doing three pounds a year consistently, then that's good. At least they're growing and the fish are healthy.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, I think people will only publicise the best fish that are growing the fastest as well. Like it's it's it's no secret that in a batch of fish, any batch of fish, in my opinion, that you'll have ten percent which really crack on, and the 80 the other 80-90% that don't really get publicised because ever all of us fish farmers are putting our best on social media, aren't we? So, so yeah, that's there's definitely uh an element to that, I think. 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. Do you see that you'll be introducing any more carp or do you think you're happy with the densities that you're operating at?

SPEAKER_02 33:49

I think the only carp we'll introduce will be out of the course pool. Um as I say, there's fish in here to double figures, well, not double figures, sorry, the um upper teens. So we'll move those across into the carp pool and there'll be double figures, yeah, uh, low 20s, um, before you know it. And um they're a good strain of fish. So we bought VS fish. Um, it's quite interesting what you say about shooters. One of the first batches of doubles we bought from Viv Shears was um included a few fully scaled mirrors. And Viv said to me, they won't grow very fast. He said, I know you really like those, but they won't grow fast. Well, one of the fully scaled mirrors was one of the fastest growing fish we had. It just piled on the way and it's now slowed down. It's 30, 33 pounds or so now, and it's slowed down, and the other fish are continuing to you know do that three pounds a year.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

You think that they grow that quickly in the course pool then? Because that's quite again in that quite intricate little um bays, and from what I remember, I'd say not.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

I'd say the they grow slower in there. I mean they don't get I don't feed it as hard. Um the biomass is higher than in the carp pool. So I'd say the growth is definitely slower in that pool. But I'd put 300 C1s in there from Viv, uh really nice scale pattern. So I'm I'm getting some really nice fish coming through now that I can move into into the carp pool.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

I think I remember when we when I came up here with Andrew and we were doing a stock assessment on the course pool, and I think like 80 or 90 percent of it we've found nothing, and then didn't we find in one bay it was just stacked with silvers where the cormorants have obviously I think crowded them into there?

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Yeah, and they do group up. We we noticed in the winter that you get two or three big shoals of silvers. Um, you see the perch hitting them, and all the silvers are jumping out the water like sardines in the winter. Um, so they do group up quite tight in the winter, which is when we usually net anyway. Um, and it can, you know, I we've had one netting when we didn't produce very much. We've got our own nets and we've had a go at netting. Um and you just seem to miss the fish. I think there's as you said, there's so many nooks and crannies and roots, they hide away. One year we were really despondent and didn't think we were going to have a great year in relation to uh our opening week, and and it was one of the best weeks we've had. The fishing was off the scale, the fantastic quality roach and perch coming out straight away. Um, so you just can never tell.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

With the nature of the shape of those lakes like that, though, do you find in the summer that it's quite peggy or is it through?

SPEAKER_02 36:22

It can be, and I think that's a really good point. One of the words of advice that stick with me that Andy gave me was ignore what anglers say. Um, and we often get anglers turn up, and uh I wouldn't say often, but occasionally we get anglers turn up and they're not catching. And my first piece of advice is either try some different bait or reduce your hook length diameter or reduce your hook size, do something different, and if you're still not catching, move because there's four islands on an on a pool of an acre and a half, there's lots of nooks and crannies. And if the fish aren't there, rather than sitting there all day and moan that there's no fish in the pool, move because as you say, you could then have a real big hit of fish.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

One thing that really sticks out to me when I go out with Andrew, uh electro fishing or anything, and the amount of water you can cover hours and hours of uh electrofishing, covering acres of water, and you can just find them in the most unusual places and they'll just be stuffed in there. Obviously, we're going out in the winter when obviously cormorants are pushing fish around and fish are shouldering up more, might be quite different in the summer, but really opens my eyes to my angling brain when you do a lot of electrofishing and where you find fish and in what densities they'll sit at, particularly when they're chased by the cormorant. But do you get much trouble from the cormorant then with that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yeah, I think across the UK everybody's seeing greater numbers of cormorants coming in. We we're we live on site, so we're walking around with the dogs constantly, and when the guests are here, um they're scaring the cormorants off. The cormorants predominantly come in November through to probably the end of February. We've bought an agricultural bird scarer, which makes a hell of a racket. Fortunately, we get on really well with our neighbours. Um, and I've had to turn it off while we do this podcast, otherwise it would sound like a war zone out there. But that that tends to keep the cormorants away. They do they are clever, they do realize that the the bird scarer is going off in a sequence and they'll nip in between the bangs, and you have to change the sequence on the bird scarer. Um and if you if you ignore the one or two cormorants, because we can all suffer some fish loss, the numbers quickly increase, and before you know it, you'll have 10 or 15 cormorants coming in and they can do a hell of a lot of damage.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Yeah, one thing I've noticed with cormorants is I won't see any for a long time, then I might see one, then it's almost like they bring their pals over, innit? And as soon as one disappears, um generally if it's that one, you won't see any for a long time again, but they tend to sort of bring their mates over, and uh it's just a constant. But even the ponds with that have got predator nets across them at the farm, I've had them under there before. I guess they manage to land on the net and tuck themselves between, I guess they're a sort of what would it be, five or six inch, might be might be less than that, four-inch hole, I suppose, in the predator nets, and then they just manage to just think like as as a fish farmer, you're so up against it. I don't I take my hat off to those that farm silvers and and smaller cut, and uh constantly keeping on top of them because obviously it's the winter generally that we see them more around my way.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

But I did feel like that one year actually. I we didn't when we first purchased the place, it wasn't fenced, and being in North Shropshire, right on the boundary of Wales, there's loads of otters here, and we were aware that otters were around when we purchased the place, but we moved in in the August, and there were no real signs other than old signs of um fish predation. But then come the winter when the ground nesting birds and the small mammals and amphibians were all getting scarce and hibernating. The otters came in and devastated the place. And um that first winter I remember the cormorants were also out and they were hammering the fish. And as a king not kingfisher, a um heron kept stabbing large bream and roach, and they were too big to swallow, so it was dragging them on the bank and leaving them. And I went for a walk, and then this kingfisher dived down and took a fish, and I just thought, well, I've ever bloody bothered. I I maybe I should have bought a golf course, not that I like golf, and and uh if you're not careful, you can let things drag you down, and and we quickly realised we needed to put a decent predator fence up to keep the otters out. Yeah, you know, there is gonna be some natural losses with the herons, they don't bother me that much. It's lovely to see the kingfishers. We usually have a couple of pairs of kingfishers, and we've been lucky that the otter fence has has done its job. Yeah, so the otters are still around, you hear them um calling and stuff, but they've not got in. Um, but it's you've got to keep on top of it, you've got to keep the fence line um clear of weeds, yeah. Um, make sure it's electrified as well. So we've got an alarm on the fence, so if the fence is shorting out, we know there's an alarm in the house and it lets us know. Um, it's like anything really, you know, it's um for the for the animals, it's an easy food source, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Yeah, yeah, particularly if they if they get in. And I I was amazed when when I've had them get in fences before and they find the tiniest little weak spot and they manage to find where it is to get back out again. And they're so clever.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

Are we when we put the electric fence up uh which is on the outside of the wire fence? A rabbit dug under the wire fence and the otter came straight in and killed two fish, and the dogs chased the otter out. So we've now put a a a wire of four or five inches off the ground to stop the rabbits digging under the fence, and that's worked. Oh wow. Um, but yeah, the otters are like you know, they just look for opportunities. I've just seen a corner go past then. Rich, do you enjoy running a fishery? Can you relax? Um yes, I do. No, I I genuinely do. Um we were talking earlier about when we first bought the property and business, we were open 365 days a year, and uh after two or three years, um we stopped enjoying it as much as we do now. And and I think because we live on site, we there was no break, um, and the phones constantly ringing, or we had lots of daytime anglers coming, or people we also have people stay in caravans, and so there was never a break. So now we only open seven months a year. Um that gives me the opportunity to do work whilst we're closed, particularly with things like cutting trees, and I can I can afford to make a mess and leave stuff from uh laying around that you wouldn't ordinarily do from a health and safety perspective when you've got people on site, and I do enjoy being in the water, I do enjoy doing the work, I do enjoy seeing the fishery improving. So just this week I've planted a small bed of um yellow flag iris, and it'd be great. You know, you don't really appreciate what you're doing in the winter because uh it's all a bit of a mess, but over time, once the new plants get established and you start to see them sprout in the spring, I get real reward from that and feel that the fisheries progressing. Yeah. Um, so and it's nice with the cabins as well. As I mentioned earlier, when we bought them, the cabins were quite run down, so we've put a lot of time and effort into improving the the standard of the cabins, and and that's reflected in the number of repeat businesses, uh big customs we get, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Yeah. The summer that we've just come out of being such a dry one, very dry summer, long dry summer. It seemed like right from the spring, as soon as we got into April, it was uh it was dry right up until just recently, really. So how is what sort of challenges has that brought to a bris business like yours?

SPEAKER_02 43:53

So this this area, this site is lowland. Um it it was a heathland and um Back in before 1999, whilst it was a series of small paddocks and fields as part of small holding, it was a very wet ground. So we've always been lucky that the pools are usually full of water, but April this year was particularly dry and the water levels dropped by about two feet, which was a real concern, particularly in the coarse pool, because it is only a shallow pool. The average depth is probably three feet. There are deeper areas up to about six. So to lose two feet of water is a real concern. And obviously, when you lose that volume of water, you've got oxygen problems. So we've got aeration in both pools, but that comes at a cost. So our electric bills went through the roof as usual. So we worry again, you know, it is stress on the fish. Um I think looking to the future, we're probably gonna have to get solar panels to help us keep the uh electric bills at a manageable level and not not reduce the amount of uh aeration that we're running.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

It may be that because the carp pool is that much deeper, it's up to about nine foot deep. In the margins, it's about six foot. It may be if if we get really worried one year we could pump water from one pool to the other.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

But do you find having then quite a contrasting set of lakes that the deeper pool is more consistent in its water quality?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Or yeah, definitely. For one or two reasons. One, it's deeper and you've got larger volume of water, obviously, but there aren't as many trees around it. The the coarse pools surrounded by trees, we've got woodland along the edge, so the leaf litter that goes in the pool is horrendous. And going back to some of the first advice that I didn't take from Andy, for not entirely anyway, uh, was that he said you need to cut all the trees back. And my wife said he just hates bloody trees. But the trees for me are um they're a blessing in some respects, um, but they're also a problem because one, the volume of leaf litter is problematic and it does uh significantly reduce the water quality, but it also blocks the wind and sunlight. So I'm quite mindful in the winter of working out where the wind comes from, how I'm going to increase the wind channels, how I want to improve the circulation. So um, not last summer, the summer before, I was really worried about the circulation in the pool. So last winter I took out some quite large trees all the way around, and it was quite pleasing in the spring to see those new wind lanes opening up, getting that circulation in the pond. Um so as harsh as it is cutting back some of the larger trees, I think it's necessary.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Yeah, I think as I've noticed in our advice this year that you realize the advice that we're preaching with opening it up to sunlight and wind, it's all really kind of depends on your plan. Like obviously, here you're you're also a holiday sort of your log cabins that you need to understand that there's also a bit of character that you want for those that aren't anglers, perhaps. And and our advice of open it up as much as possible. I would say if you're a fishery which is trying to improve and you want better for your a better environment, you're having challenges of oxygen and the issues is of all the leaf fall and that organic to be breaking down, then that is your solution. So it's not like everyone should knock all the trees down, it's almost like that's the solution to a problem. If you're experiencing this, this is what needs to happen. So it is a kind of when you when you look at fishery management like that, you need to kind of take into account of what you're trying to create, what sort of fishery you are. Um, and again, this isn't a commercial fishery that's driving for five pound progression every every year, trying to push these carp on to 50 pounders, it's it's more of a holiday venue for all, it seems to me.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

I might be wrong with that, but no, that's definitely the right view. It's uh and for me, it's just keeping a balanced fishery. I'm not looking for massive growth, I'm just looking for good quality fish. But going back to the tree issue, you know, the advice Andy gave was was the right advice, it will reduce the problems we have by reducing the the volume of trees around the pool and particularly how close they are to the water's edge. Yeah. So what we try to do now is to take the mature trees out and allow the growth of the smaller trees. One, it's good because we've got lots of wood to burn in the log burner each year, but um, we're allowing the wind to get across the water and let the sunlight in, um, cut the roots back as well. So that you know we found tree roots are a big as big a problem as the trees. Um we found one root mass going out 18 feet across the body of the water, right? Um, and so one the fish will hide under the root ball, and and the fishmen struggle to land the fish because the fish are straight into the root ball and and snap you off. And two, if you're not fishing near the root balls, you weren't catching fish. So I spend hours in the winter freezing cold, um cutting, hand cutting all the roots around the pool to reduce the sanctuary. I know the sanctuary is important and it does help you know give the fish somewhere to hide and and get away from the cormorants, but it's trying it's trying to get that balance.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah, it's with with trees and all vegetation, really. The the worse it gets, the faster it gets worse. I think tend to find particularly with the lakes of of that nature, with the coarse lake being quite intricate and and channels and all sorts, getting that wind, it's not like you've got a big sheet of water there. No, getting the wind on those small channels is can be quite a challenge. And the more bank space you have, the more saplings that are gonna naturally seed and want to shoot, and the the more bank space you've got, the more management is required.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

So and and that's it is a vicious circle, but it's an enjoyable vicious circle, otherwise you wouldn't do it. I was cut all the trees down and not have the problem. Um, but I'm getting to the stage where in late summer I'm already planning on the trees I'm going to cut down that winter.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

Just and having those four islands on that course pool helps the circulation. So if I can get one or two really good strong wind lanes, the water naturally circulates.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did think if there's gonna be dead spots as well. If those you think my earlier question about the this year being so dry and warm, obviously it's great for fry recruitment. Yep. Very warm means the bacteria is gonna be breaking down all that the organic debris in a lake of that nature with all the trees around it. And you just imagine that's gonna be quite a load on oxygen, particularly well, there's a lot of fisheries that had issues this autumn, so as we record this, we're sort we are November, mid-late November. So this autumn there's been a lot of fisheries that have been in touch with autumn oxygen issues, I guess, with the long, lengthy summer, and then it stayed warm later into the season, the leaves, the leaves on the trees started to drop, and that warm water is is great for bacteria to start breaking things down, but you're losing your sunlight hours because we've got longer nighttime hours, which means longer time for the oxygen to for the well for the respiration of weeds and algae that are still thriving because it's warm, the bacteria are churning out lots of food for the algae. So it's been quite a challenging year for a lot of fisheries this autumn. I just didn't know if if that had sort of reflected with you having two different lakes out there that are very kind of opposing, one being quite a nice open water and deep, and the other one being shallow and very intricate, whether you'd notice that contrast then.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

I did, and I I got caught out a couple of years ago. We were on holiday, and I was laying on the beach listening to one of Andy Ellis's YouTube videos, and he mentioned that there was a fishery he'd just been in contact with that had very low oxygen in November, as you mentioned, and we flew back and I thought we'd be okay. And I did a test on the water, and it was 1.4 milligrams per litre, scared the life out of me. And we've had that again this summer in the little stock pool. The oxygen really, really did drop, but the fish weren't gasping. We put our aeration on through the night, and we've got the levels back up. The levels come up quite quickly, to be fair. Yeah, um, and we we just it's always expect the unexpected.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

That's it. When you when you get an oxygen meter, you think I say I'm gonna test me oxygen now, but that's the start of your worries because then you know what the oxygen is. Before you have an oxygen meter and you don't know, all fisheries should have an oxygen meter, by the way. But if you haven't got one, you don't worry because you don't know what the oxygen is. But when you do have one and you can test, it it does send uh send you into a bit of a panic when you find a low reading, and it is such that's uh hugely stressful, particularly with the summer we've just had for some fisheries. It's been uh quite a challenge getting that oxygen balanced and consistent in the warmer water, the more volatile it is, and uh, particularly with the the you're getting longer nighttime hours at this time of year, it's uh it can be quite a challenge.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

It's funny you should mention that. There's another local fishery uh owner manager popped in a few weeks ago, and we were talking about oxygen and venturies and all the other sort of tools uh our disposal we use, and he said exactly the same. He said he he um had been talking to another chap who owns a fishery, and he said that his biggest worry was having an oxygen meter because it dictated his life, so he doesn't use one.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

It is uh yeah, it's one of them. It's I think it's reading your water as a fishery owner or fishery manager. Reading your water is a skill which you develop through normally getting it wrong, like because you're because you can see the water every day. That's why I think there's no danger of any automation taking over our jobs as fishery managers, because I rely on seeing my ponds every single day, and you can notice the tiniest little changes in either fish behaviour, colour of the water, or anything's different, you know it's different to yesterday. Whereas if you're only seeing that water once a week, you don't pick up on that.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

That's absolutely right. I mean, I've I've said to my wife a few times, I've looked out of the pond because we can see it from the house, and I've said, God, that water looks good. And she looks at me like I'm mad. And you can tell, like you say, you you you're out there every day, you're getting a feel for it, you know when it when the water's looking good, or or perhaps it's looking a bit still, and yeah, perhaps the algae's blooming and and you're getting a bit worried, but it's times when it just looks polished and looks really good.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Do you find that anglers will try and influence your decisions as well as all the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

And and I think you touched on it earlier. What we look for as anglers is completely different to what we look for as a fishery manager. Yeah, and you can cloud your vision and judgment as a fishery manager if you take on board too many of the anglers' comments and don't be too sensitive either. You know, you grow thick skin after a while because I guess being coming from a farming background, you appreciate that having a fishery is managing livestock. So whether you're managing cows and sheep or whether you're managing fish, you've got to give them the right environment, you've got to give them the right nutrition, you've got to make sure they're not stressed. And anglers just want to catch fish, um, and and even good anglers, you know, we get some some good anglers that are used to fishing commercials where you've really got to just cut you catching, not angling, you're not fishing, you're just catching. Um, and so I try and encourage anglers to put bait in. We find often we had one guy from the Midlands, he turned up for a week's fishing, he had a pint of maggots and a tin of sweet corn, and he took half a pint of maggots home with him after a week. So, and and so for me, we want anglers to catch, we it's in our interest that they catch and have a good time, and we try and help anglers understand that if the fish aren't feeding for whatever reasons, environmental reasons or whatever, then they're not going to catch no matter what you do. But often you can tweak and change your approach to catch more fish. Yeah, being sat in the same swim for two or three days, moaning you're not catching doesn't mean that it's not a productive fishery. No, it probably means you're doing something wrong or you're in the wrong place.

SPEAKER_03 55:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

Um, and anglers they're a blessing and a curse.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Yeah, we hear a lot of stories when we go around to these fisheries that anglers like to have their say and they want it to be their idea, and if they don't, they generally won't support the fishery for very long. But what's always the case when the fishery is winning and it's producing good fish, big fish, they come back. So ultimately, the goal is to create good fish in a good fishery. You don't have to listen to anyone if you trust your plan and know what you're doing, definitely it's just a case. But it is hard, I guess, to take take their comments as and be polite about it and uh get that.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Yeah, it can be a challenge at times, and and one thing I advise all anglers, and and this isn't anything new, we've we all know this. The best times to fish are early in the morning and in the evening, particularly in the summer. Um, so I try to advise anglers to get out of bed an hour or so earlier, go and have a fish until maybe 10 a.m., 11, and then go and take the wife out for a few days, keep a few hours rather, keep the wife happy, go and take her out for a bit of lunch somewhere, and then come back late afternoon and fish for the evening, even have an early tea and then fish until it's dark. Yeah, um, you'll catch a lot more fish. But often we find because people are on holiday, they get up late, they're starting to fish at the least productive time in the morning, yeah. And then early evening, they're going in for their tea or they're going up the pub, and and so they're missing out on that evening session where it's really productive on both pools. Yeah, um, you're better off fishing for two hours in the evening than you are fishing throughout the day.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

You say you're still in a job at the moment, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

Yeah, I've I um I'm a business consultant, so as well as running the fishery, which we've done for nine years, I've been running my own business consultancy for 13, 14 years now. Yeah, um, that's interesting. Uh, I bring in large computer systems globally, so I work for multi-billion pound companies. I got into that quite by chance, really. I I was working in a full-time job in the utility sector, and my daughter was in private school, and and the the school fees were horrendous, and I just thought I need to earn more money. So I went out contracting, and um there isn't any job security, you have to find each new contract, which can be three months or six months, or sometimes it runs into a few years. Um, but it's interesting work. I work in all sorts of different industry industry sectors. I've worked for utility companies, I've worked for large drug companies, I've worked for manufacturing companies, uh, working for a bank at the moment. Um and so it's interesting work, it's hard work. It's it's taking me, it took me into an area that I didn't know. I'm not an IT expert by any means, but for me, we couldn't get the bloody mics to work and we just get the mics to work, yeah. I blame you. It's it's people, people management. It for me is getting the right people around you that have got those skills and pulling the plan together to deliver, you know, the an implementation of a new computer system.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

Um so do you manage to find it fits in with your fishery work as well, then you can sort of work around it does.

SPEAKER_02 59:14

So, you know, this year particularly, um, I wanted my wife keeps nagging me to take more time off, so I took the summer off, which was good because a contract ended. I was able to take a few months off through the summer, and and I'm able to pick and choose which contracts I want. Not always, sometimes, you know, if there isn't always the work there, so sometimes you pick contracts up that you don't particularly want or to come at the wrong time, but you do have that flexibility. So this contract I'm in at the moment will finish in April next year. Yeah, and if we want to take a holiday or have a break and just concentrate on preparing this place, we we open at Easter for the cabins of the fishery.

SPEAKER_00 59:51

Oh, right. So you have a close season, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:53

We have close season, so we close at the end of October for the in the cabins. Okay. Um do all of the work around the fishery in the winter, which is really nice. Yeah, dogs can have the run of the place, and the goats eat all my wife's plants running around rather than being caged, and um and then we open at Easter, Easter weekend, so early April this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

So it's a team effort, all the family chip in and it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:14

So when we first moved up, my youngest daughter and my son moved with us. My son supported us massively, he worked for us for the first two years. I was working away from home quite a bit at the time on my consultancy, so he worked full-time running the fishery for the first two years. Um, now he's got his own business, he lives locally and he's a landscape gardener. Um, he he helps out, he gives us a hand when we need the you know, uh a few an extra pair of hands, particularly in the winter. And my daughter helps with the cabins and the social media. Um, she's really helped us boost the social media this year, and and she's done a brilliant job. She's come up with some new ideas. She's done a degree in business and marketing, so uh I need to get a return on my investment with her schooling and university.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

You've got quite a team then, landscape gardener and social media.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Yep, and my wife works hard, you know, getting the cabins ready and dealing with the customers day to day. I've I'll be honest with you, she's far better at um helping the uh give the customers what they need than I am. I, you know, I help them with the fishing, but she's great at sorting out the bookings and making sure we get paid and uh making sure the cabins are as they should be, and taking feedback as well. You know, we really do welcome feedback from the customers, even if we see it as as an opportunity to improve, even if the the feedback isn't perhaps great as great as you'd like. We we've we don't live in the cabins, so there might be something that's not quite right in the cabins that we haven't realised, and um yeah, generally the feedback's always good, yeah. And there's but there's always room for improvement.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

Yeah, what does the future look like? And do you have a plan of where you want things to go next?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

It's an interesting question, actually. Uh often people say, Are you gonna get more cabins or are you gonna get more pods? And for me, that's more expense. And if you're not careful, you're just chasing your tail to pay for that asset. Yeah, what I'd rather do is try and fill the gaps in our calendar for the seven-month window that we're open. We don't want to be over commercial, you know. There are opportunities to buy a bit more land, or have been opportunities to buy a bit more land and perhaps put more cabins in, but because it's only a small site, there are the pools are only small, one's an acre and a half, and the other is two acres. Yeah, it could become over commercial, and then that would put people off. Yeah. So that makes sense. I think it's finding the right balance. Um, the business is really just so I've got an income when I do choose to retire um and live in a nice location. It's a Shropshire's a lovely part of the world. Yeah, I think if anything, what we need to do is those months that I'm not working, he starts to get out and explore the area ourselves. We don't get out of we've become a bit of a slave to it, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

Well, thank you very much for having me up, Rich. It's been uh quite an insightful conversation for for certainly me as not been up here for for many years, didn't realise it was so many years, but um yeah, thank you for having me. It's beautiful out there, and anybody that's after some big perch fishing, this is definitely the place to come. Springheath has plenty of those big perch if you're after them. Quite a rare beast to find them, the the size and numbers that you've got here, and a lovely place to bring the family with these uh great big cabins. What what wood's this? Massive great big Douglas fir.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:30

Yeah, the Douglas fir tree trunks. Yeah, yeah. No, they're all hand built uh by company in South Shropshire. Right. Um yeah, they um they've got uh grass roofs to keep the um heat in in the winter and keep the sun out in the summer, so they're quite unique.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Yeah, you've got the hot tubs as well, so it's uh good night, lovely little escape if anyone's look after a little getaway and a bit of fishing. Check out Spring Heath Fishery. Thank you. Thank you, Rich, for having me. Thank you.