onefishmike

Rightihooooo! I have been in touch with a veterinary supplier in UK and have all the info. This is copyright so I have requested permission to post the text here, which was specially written for leisure fisheries, and cite the name of the professor who wrote it. Good news: 200 litres of Vircol solution costs only £10, 100 litres only half that price. WATCH THIS SPACE

Has anyone ever had a problem with getting a big cat in the net? I find it quite difficult once they get to over 60 lbs. When I fished the Ebro we had a special sling made of reinforced PVC and with two aluminium poles around 10 ft long. We slid the fish into it and closed the poles together, then it was easy enough for 2 guys to lift a heavy fish out. However you can't really carry gear like this around when you are fishing for carp. The best way of course is unhook the fish in the water and release it without weighing or to get right into the water with the fish but you can't always do that e.g. when you are on your own, when it's cold, in the dark etc. The problem with trying to net them is that they are just too long and tend to slide out backwards, which is not doing the fish a lot of good because it tends to remove the slime. I find the best way is to slide it across one unhooking mat, placed partly in the water, onto another. The fish can be grasped by the bottom jaw with a gloved hand after carefully locating the position of the hook.

Yes, I have seen that one but £15.00 might not be cost effective for fishery owners who have to provide multiple tanks, plus there is all the hassle of servicing them every week. They might just as well do as Les Kaolins do right now i.e. supply the gear and prohibit anglers from using their own stuff. Virkol is produced by Dupont and it contains their Oxone + other chemicals. I use Dupont Oxone + Sodium Bromine to shock (sanitize) swimming pools and it does not even cost £15 for 50,000 litres. One problem could be that the water has to be correctly balanced but that is simple enough and all pool owners have to deal with it. Another is that they may not be able to chuck it on the grass after use. Then the concentration has to be correct. What I do know is that this sanitizer kills, ALL bacteria, viruses, fungi and algae in seconds but, within 30 minutes, the water is safe for people to swim. Possible problems could be - a) They may need two tanks. The first with a detergent to remove the dirt because otherwise a lot of the sanitizing power would be lost. b) It might not penetrate porous surfaces such as landing-net fabric. Lets see what Dupont say, they put me on the right track before. Hi Mike , from what i can see the stuff is around £10 /kg lets say a 100l tank @ 2% solution = 2kg of it so around £20 below is where i got my info from . The problems i can see with dip tanks are will everyone use them and does the chemical affect the fish if the nets are not rinsed properly , Supply nets and slings and matts , that has to be the way to go . It is sold as tablets or powder which dissolve readily in water. It is intended to be mixed with water to form a 1% to 3% solution (by weight, i.e. 10g to 30g per litre). The pink colour is useful in that it helps gauge the concentration when preparing the Virkon, and importantly, as the Virkon ages it discolours, making it obvious when it needs to be replaced. The solution is generally stable for five to seven days. In the swimming pool game some suppliers are wrapping up some fairly cheap chemicals and selling them at extortionate prices, which is OK for Joe Public because he does not use a lot, but on a professional scale it pays to buy in bulk. To treat a swimming pool it costs around £12 per year for the Sodium Bromine and £8 every time you shock - that's buying the stuff in 25 Kg bags. However, swimming pool water is not drained off every time but, if it was we are talking about £20 for 50,000 litres for a 10 ppm shock. On a pro rata basis this works out at £0.04. OK, 10 ppm might not be enough, a 100 litre tank could be too small, we might not be able to tip it on the grass, it might not even work, a certain amount of skill in measuring is required etc. etc. Dupont will tell us - they want to sell the stuff! Most certainly there is no need to dry off, just wait 30 minutes before contact with fish. The oxygen from the Oxone "gasses off" into the air. The residual chemical trace in Bromine Ion - sea water has between 50 and 80 ppm. WIKIPEDIA: Virkon is a multi-purpose disinfectant. It contains oxone (potassium peroxymonosulfate), sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, sulfamic acid; and inorganic buffers. I am not thinking that I am right about this. There must be a drawback, otherwise someone would have got onto it before me. Lets wait for the answer from Dupont.

I agree with you about birds and wildlife. Nevertheless, until it is proved that nets etc. do not spread disease, then the issue has to stay on the table. As far as your gear is concerned I have two thoughts - 1. You should be congratulated for taking care and I wonder how many of our comrades do the same, so we still have to either to ban anglers own gear or provide dunking tanks. 2. How can you be sure that simple washing and drying is enough? Perhaps you use Dettol, or similar, but how can you be sure that it works.

Yes, I have seen that one but £15.00 might not be cost effective for fishery owners who have to provide multiple tanks, plus there is all the hassle of servicing them every week. They might just as well do as Les Kaolins do right now i.e. supply the gear and prohibit anglers from using their own stuff. Virkol is produced by Dupont and it contains their Oxone + other chemicals. I use Dupont Oxone + Sodium Bromine to shock (sanitize) swimming pools and it does not even cost £15 for 50,000 litres. One problem could be that the water has to be correctly balanced but that is simple enough and all pool owners have to deal with it. Another is that they may not be able to chuck it on the grass after use. Then the concentration has to be correct. What I do know is that this sanitizer kills, ALL bacteria, viruses, fungi and algae in seconds but, within 30 minutes, the water is safe for people to swim. Possible problems could be - a) They may need two tanks. The first with a detergent to remove the dirt because otherwise a lot of the sanitizing power would be lost. b) It might not penetrate porous surfaces such as landing-net fabric. Lets see what Dupont say, they put me on the right track before.

Well done! I don't know how I missed that, must have been having a senior moment. Anyhow got it now. Made by Dupont and contains their Oxone which I use for swimming pool sanitation. I'll get in touch with Dupont right away. Could be a big moment. We may have saved the UK carp population and the French as well. WATCH THIS SPACE. I have written to Dupont technical support and will publish their response.

Well done! I don't know how I missed that, must have been having a senior moment. Anyhow got it now. Made by Dupont and contains their Oxone which I use for swimming pool sanitation. I'll get in touch with Dupont right away. Could be a big moment. We may have saved the UK carp population and the French as well. WATCH THIS SPACE.

That's quite right. It started out with the simple question: "What's best, disinfection tanks or supplying the gear?" Then others raised the point about KHV and cormorants, which was what made me start looking around. I had hoped that other French fishery owners would come up with some advice.

Rightihooooo! Drying your gear does not help except that it will destroy bacteria. KHV is a virus. Viruses are not strictly alive anyway because they need a host cell to invade, thrive and multiply. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=326147 Logically KHV can survive for along time after the gear has dried completely. So the only solution is proper sanitization but how and with what? What I do know is that halogens e.g. chlorine and bromine kill viruses in seconds. These chemicals are used for sanitizing swimming pools, jacuzzis, hot-tubs etc. and are quite complicated to use because of their short life after activation.

and thats from another lake owner, that aint a bad recommendation Looks good to me!

I wrote to my colleagues at Les Kaolins last night, Title: "Does Terry own a Shotgun" also a link to this post. Thinking some more about that. If Terry does see a cormorant on the lakes hopefully he knows what to do; then recover the body and burn it - in spite of the fact that they are protected! However that may not be a problem because we have never seen a cormorant there. We do get the occasional duck but there are some, quite large, birds of prey; one actually make a investigatory pass at matey John Richard's bait-boat. The real risk could be the herons and we often wake up in the morning to the sight of one on the other side of the lake, standing in the margins. But how can anyone shoot a heron? I know that I couldn't! I think that the real problem is due to the fact that Les K is such a vast area and so remote; very often there are only a couple of anglers on the whole fishery. I've done my brains in Googling for information but there just does not seem to be an answer at the moment. KHV is a virus, just like colds and flu and the only protection from it is the immune system, apart from vaccination - which has not yet been developed. Us humans have cracked it fairly well and those at risk are advised to have a jab every year. As well as that a healthy persons's immune system develops antibodies to quickly combat the virus because the body has learned to do this from previous infections; but a carp lake is a closed environment and the fish's immune system never gets the chance until it is too late. Mankind created the problem in the first place, by stocking the fisheries with non-indigenous species. So now mankind has to provide the answer. Whilst writing there is something else that I have noticed. When I visit my "home town" and look around the lakes and gravel-pits of London, I see a whole variety of water-fowl in huge numbers and the same situation probably exists all over the UK. They all seem quite tame and accustomed to the presence of humans. Meanwhile, travelling around rural France and Spain I see very little "bird-life" - at least the variety with feathers! Perhaps an answer: UK angling groups should provide culinary courses for our eastern european fiends who fish for the table. Perhaps "Heron au Vin" or "Cormorant a la Orange"! This is getting right off the topic - sorry! I started the post looking for opinions regarding dunking tanks vs supplying fish-handling gear; also the sanitizer to use in the tanks. Any further thoughts, please?

I think that we can dismiss this as being fairly obvious. Part of my job is to maintain a number of swimming pools and I can say for sure that water is a far better medium than air for transmitting bacteria, virus and fungi. If the water is not correctly balanced and the sanitizer present it only takes one person to infect practically all of the others, especially in warm weather. With large community pools we are dealing with a relatively small number of bugs in millions of litres of water. Having said that, I also think that drying gear is not sufficient either. Eventually someone will say that we have the risk from animals and even birds pooping as they fly over but these are things we can do nothing about. I am really worried about this. Our "babies" are really beautiful fish, chunky, healthy, putting on weight fast, each one different from the other and it would really be a shame to start losing them in a few years after all the TLC, winter feeding, etc.

The other option is for the fishery to provide the nets, slings etc, but even then we have sticky fingers at various venues. Therefore there has to be an effective way to clean your kit between trips, but equally it may not be practial or possible for the angler, so the theory of dip and rinse tanks is a good one, but they should be checked and replenished, and the active ingredients should be safe for the fish. The first problem is what chemical to use, so I would be interested in any other fishery owners who have hands-on experience. Then the "dip and rinse" question. At my old syndicate we just dipped and laid the gear out to dry. Finally: We have 4 lakes at Les Kaolins, which are spring-fed and all connect via tubes and ditches. Do we have to disinfect if an angler moves from one lake to the other? IMPORTANT: My colleagues at Les K did the stocking before I got involved: 300 fish (mirrors, cats and sturgeon), just the main lake which is 16 acres. All the lakes had a resident stock of commons, pike, perch and silver-fish. Just after this stocking a lot of the resident commons died, fortunately only small fish and only in the main lake. Curiously now there are only large commons in the main lake, 30's and up, but still a lot of small ones in the other lakes. I witnessed scores of fish spawning in the Island Lake this year, mostly all in the 5lb - 10lb bracket. So we need to think carefully about the best way forward. We purchased a few sets of gear which we provide against a cash deposit. It's early days for us but the fishery holds up to 20 anglers. We either have to buy more gear or go for the disinfection tanks.

I am involved with a fishery in Brittany, France and we have a rule about nets and unhooking mats. Anglers are not allowed to use their own gear. Obviously that's logical because we have to avoid all risk of infection from other lakes but I am wondering if there is another way. Additionally these days, there is some really good carp-care equipment around and it seems a shame to deny anglers the right to use their own gear when it's better than ours. I once belonged to a syndicate in London that provided dip-tanks for such gear at the entrance, so I am wondering how safe this method it, what disinfectant to use and what concentration. The first thing that comes to mind is Jeyes Fluid but that may only work on bugs that infect humans. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks

Hi Ian I did as you suggested. I PM'ed a couple of moderators but nothing has happened. If you can help, please PM me or send me an e-mail. Feel free to delete this. OneFishMike