No hand job any more !!

[Roughtor]

As a long time Silkey manual saw for lake maintenance, I bought this...

 

Wow,man this is awesome...

[Roughtor]

Literally, makes my old stihl and parker saws redundant  half the weight, 

[kevtaylor]

Very nice - I've been using my new pole saw in every swim this year, great bit of kit for the money, really sharp.  Will feel odd not putting the gardening kit in the car for next weeks trip as it's a day ticket and the tidying up has become part of the fishing tbh.

I was looking at a strimmer, trimmer, chain saw combo in spring but decided a bit much as I'm not even a bailliff lol  Wish I had really as getting near the river to perch and chubb fish is difficult before the dead of winter.

Had a huge willow branch come down behind my swim this summer too big for me to deal with so it's perching over the foot path looking dubious still.

 

 

[Roughtor]

We had 70 Ash trees removed due to die back ,then the Oak fell over and that was a load of Gabion cages to reinforce the bank ..

 

There's always something needing doing on a lake/fishery ,it's about now the sprainting starts ,so I'll be checking that fence everyday 

 

That Ego saw is blooming brilliant ,cuts like nothing I've ever used ..

[kevtaylor]

16 hours ago, Roughtor said:

it's about now the sprainting starts ,so I'll be checking that fence everyday 

What's this?

[yonny]

9 minutes ago, kevtaylor said:

What's this?

Otters.

[kevtaylor]

8 minutes ago, yonny said:

Otters.

knew I'd heard the word, damn Mr O

Do think the fish and birds are getting used to their threat and are managing to avoid to a degree, low stock and much weed seems to put them on the back foot a bit?

[Roughtor]

No,makes no difference  if they want the fish  they'll take them ,found my first female spraint of the yr ,they smell a bit like Jasmine ,seriously ..

 

This is on a pool I recently discovered 

[Roughtor]

There was also a well used push through ,hollow leading drekkly to the lake ...

 

Just be vigilant one and all,it starts now,when first frosts come and rivers spate ,that's the time 

 

 

[yonny]

7 hours ago, kevtaylor said:

knew I'd heard the word, damn Mr O

Do think the fish and birds are getting used to their threat and are managing to avoid to a degree, low stock and much weed seems to put them on the back foot a bit?

Dunno mate. The Denton biggun finally got eaten last winter after years managing to deal with their annual onslaught. It was a tricky carp and I honestly thought it had learned to deal with them. Alas, no carp is safe.

[kevtaylor]

14 hours ago, yonny said:

Dunno mate. The Denton biggun finally got eaten last winter after years managing to deal with their annual onslaught. It was a tricky carp and I honestly thought it had learned to deal with them. Alas, no carp is safe.

Wishful thinking then, some of ours have obviously managed to avoid them for decades but show the signs (eaten faces the lot, other old ones are mint still), they've open access to the site but I've only seen them on one lake so far but the swan deaths were on my lake every spring.

Is it then partly down to having big numbers of swans and geese also on the menu?  The lakes have always been there and otters have never wiped the fish out- something about the lakes makes it difficult some how - no idea really they obviously get some.  Up at Bluebell they swim past without a care in the world, packed out lake - lots of dogs, no worries until my man turns up to move them on!  👍

[salokcinnodrog]

2 hours ago, kevtaylor said:

Wishful thinking then, some of ours have obviously managed to avoid them for decades but show the signs (eaten faces the lot, other old ones are mint still), they've open access to the site but I've only seen them on one lake so far but the swan deaths were on my lake every spring.

Is it then partly down to having big numbers of swans and geese also on the menu?  The lakes have always been there and otters have never wiped the fish out- something about the lakes makes it difficult some how - no idea really they obviously get some.  Up at Bluebell they swim past without a care in the world, packed out lake - lots of dogs, no worries until my man turns up to move them on!  👍

Our lake has had them on, and in winter coots were the main diet. We rarely lost swans, but did find occasional pike were on the diet.

There were a couple of carp with damaged tails. Again the lake is open access, and unable to be fenced.

[yonny]

2 hours ago, kevtaylor said:

Is it then partly down to having big numbers of swans and geese also on the menu?

They'll go for the easiest target for maximum reward so the birdlife may well be doing you a favour mate. Interestingly, at Denton you'd tend to only get a couple of carp taken in winter as they're all sat in the middle 250 yards from the nearest bank - difficult for Mr Otter to take. Then, in spring when carp start to gather for spawning in the shallows the otters would be back and you'd see a flurry of kills. Easy pickings innit.

The issue where you are is the island on the big lake..... the bailiffs used to go over there and find corpse after corpse after corpse 😔. Not sure if they still check?

Edited 1 hour ago by yonny