I apologize for my tardiness as until now I hadn’t realized that the last Syndicate newsletter was back in February, before the start of our season and since then many of you will have renewed your membership, thank you. There will have been several new members, to which we offer a warm welcome and hope that you have all had some good times fishing our lovely waters and will continue to do so through the autumn.

This year our season opened at Piplye on 1st March and at Cinder Hill on the 21st. Catches during the first months were excellent at both venues, with Cinder Hill dropping off a bit during June. However Piplye continued to produce right to the end of the month. Since then we have experienced the dreaded dog days of summer, with warm sunshine leading to high water temperatures and with little or no rain to freshen things up, the fish just don’t want to know, with catches mainly consisting of the odd fish here and there, with numerous blanks. However, just to buck the trend, Ian Chandler enjoyed a red letter session one evening in mid July on McArthurs Pool at Cinder Hill, capturing his four fish in 3 hours, including a fine rainbow of 3lb.

Stocking has contained some larger fish, including a few browns; the heaviest landed being a rainbow of 4lb and a brown of 3lb 4oz, both from Piplye, with another 4lb rainbow and a brown weighing 3lb 5oz coming from from Cinder Hill. Water quality monitoring has shown that dissolved oxygen levels in the waters have remained adequate, but due to the high water temperatures, no fish were introduced in July or August. Recent rains and cooler weather should improve things and given that the water quality is O.K. we expect to recommence stocking in September in readiness for the autumn fishing. It is quite likely that some of the fish will be larger than the average, so be prepared for some good battles should you be lucky enough to hook one. 

Work Parties

Our first work party of the season scheduled for the end of February coincided with a severe snowstorm with blizzard conditions, but never the less, 4 hardy souls still turned out and managed to do some work cleaning out the drainage ditches on the field side of Grubbero Pool. We held a further session at the end of March when we did further work on the ditches and made and installed barley straw sausages in Grubbero & Piplye Pools to reduce the growth of blanket weed. This must have worked as we have so far been relatively free of this nuisance so far this year.

With the advent of the warmer weather the weed in Grubbero and Piplye Pools had put on a bit of a spurt, so over the past four weeks members have been hard at work removing vast amounts of the stuff. Attendances have generally been good, boosted no doubt by the fine cakes and buns provided by Brenda Newington to be enjoyed during the mid session tea break. Unfortunately however, at the last session only 5 turned up and as a result there is still work to do.

A further session will therefore be held next Wednesday, 26th August, when hopefully, given sufficient volunteers, we will be able to complete the job in readiness for the autumn fishing.

As usual we will muster on site at around 9 a.m. Any help would be much appreciated, just turn up, we’ll find plenty for you to do. Old clothes and wellies or waders are recommended and tools required rakes and forks.

Here are some photos of the work party activities so far this year

  

  

Best regards and tight lines, hoping to see some of you on the 26th.

 

Mike Richardson, Syndicate Organiser.