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 Wednesday at 12:03 by yonny

[kevtaylor]

2 hours ago, yonny said:

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?

Probably not checking mate but again I've not seen otters on it yet and they are blatant as anything - cannot be missed IMO, when they were on the medium lake I saw them straight away.

I did see it stated that my lake has 250 fish in it when they were selling tickets in spring, that figure's gone straight back down to the 80-100 usually stated lol  Prob lower than those figures too in actual fact 

[Roughtor]

Local river adjoining the lake ,went into spate yesterday  river looks like Bovril ..

 

The search for an easy food source starts now,being extra vigilant, as always ,but even more so as two orphaned otters have been rewilded locally from Shropshire, let go in a 500 acre rewilding estate..The stream where let go ,leads via other ditches and streams to many local pools and lakes ..

 

Battery on charge ,new battery for fence ordered, isolators checked ,no shorting out ...the rest is down to god ...

[commonly]

Not a believer personally, but good luck.

Nature can be a real beach.!!

Seeing you're power requirements had me asking a question? 

Has anyone had any experience with solar power gor fisheries?

Thankfully we dont need an electric fence, but do need to run aerators & or a fountain.

I would be interested in anyone's thoughts or expertise. 

Thanks

[Roughtor]

Good question, funnily enough for the last 12 years ,the lake in question is fully otterproofed with two very large solar panals,the battery is trickle charged from the solar panals ..

The panals also have a USB charging outlet built in so we use it to charge mobile or power bank,its great cept ,no signal much ...

 

I change the battery ,maybe once a yr ,unless it shorts ,generally caused by the local hounds ,bending the isolators and hitting the mesh ..

 

System works very well,...

[Roughtor]

To do our 2 acre lake ,12 yrs ago ,I reckon was 900 quid ,we only had one solar panal at that time .

 

also the pics dont show it ,but the mesh is double ,and in one stretch triple meshed ..

battery i showed earlier ,will niw be used as a spare,i have another already on the system in my insulted box ,and on thurs ill buy a brand new one for this winter

 

I did all the work ,and continually maintain it ...