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10/06/2010

Latest on Claremont Gardens

Over the last couple of months there have been a lot of speculations flying around the angling community in Tameside that claremont gardens has had a big fish kill. I would like to put those people straight who are putting it around that we have not had a big fish kill and that we have lost a few fish due to the weather, just like many other fisheries have.

The pond was frozen for six weeks from feb to march and since then we have had no rain and very hot weather. This has caused a bacteria infection in the water which has put the fish under a lot of stress.

An action plan was therefore put in place by the fishery manager Ian Bayley. Firstly we tested the water to see if any pollution had come into the pond, that was all clear. We then closed the pond and placed water pumps around it to circulate oxegen through the water until we could get an airator installed.

we estimated that there was 4000 fry.

We then realised that there were a lot of fry in the pond due to the bream and crusians carp breeding over the last couple of years. We contacted the enviroment agencies to see if we could get consent to net the pond to remove unwanted stock. Permission was granted and so we contacted our local fish farmer for them to come and remove the fish.

Bream and crusian fry being put back into clarmont gardens.

The pond was netted on Thursday 3rd June and once the net had been pulled though we then knew what the problem was, there was to many fish in the pond. Most of the fish we had ranged from 1lb to 3lb, but there were also alot of carp ranging from 4lb to 6lb. We estimated that there were 3500lb of fish in the pond and therefore we came to the conclusion that we needed to remove the fish that were over 3lb.

Grading the big carp

The task then was the grading of the fish and doing this in the hot weather was taking its tole on the fish. We needed to move quickly and get the fish back in to the pond, and the big carp back in to the waiting tanks on the back of the trailer. With thanks to the hard work of some of our members we managed to get them sorted out with only 12 casualties.

We put 1750lb of fish back into the pond and the rest went back to the fish farm to be treated for bacteria infection. The fish in the pond have been fed on antibiotic pellets and are a lot better now.

The new airator which has now been installed.

We have now installed an airator and the pond is back open to members and is fishing well. I would like to thank all the members who have put time in to help sort out this small problem, without there help it could have been alot worse. I would like to say a big thank you to Eddy Hichin, the water officer at claremont garden, for acting on the problem straight away and contacting the committee. Thankyou for all your hard work on keeping the pond and its grounds in great condition.

We will be netting the pond in October and removing all the carp and restocking with 2000 8 to 10inch carp 500 tench.