Despite resuming stocking in September and October, the autumn fishing last year proved to be somewhat disappointing. Although there were plenty of fish in all the lakes and the long awaited rains arrived to boost the feeder stream flows and freshen up the water, unfortunately just a little too much came down, colouring up the water and as a result the fishing proved difficult most of the time. All of the fish that were caught however were of excellent quality and slightly larger than the average. There were also quite a few browns amongst the rainbows stocked and we hope that these might overwinter better provided they escape the attentions of the cormorants.

Because of the extremely wet conditions early in the year, making access for stocking and anglers extremely difficult, the start to our 2014 season was delayed, commencing at Piplye in the middle of March and at Cinder Hill at the beginning of April. Fish were caught consistently through to the end of June in all the waters, but we then suffered the usual dog days of high summer when the lack of rain and high temperatures made the fish lethargic and not very interested in our flies.

A total of 2083 trout were stocked during the year, more than last year, 933 at Cinder Hill and 1150 at Piplye. Fish were stocked at Cinder Hill from mid March through to June in all the lakes, with further introductions to the top and bottom lakes in September. No further fish were put into the middle lake as past years have shown that it does not fish at all well after the end of June, probably due to the high wildfowl numbers present. At Piplye, stocking was carried out from March through to July, with further introductions to all the lakes in September and October.

We had 106 members in the Syndicate this year and analysis of the catch returns show that while a few used up all or most of their 25 visits, some hardly fished at all and as usual, on average, a member fished 10 to 11 times during the season. 1528 fish were caught, 654 at Cinder Hill and 874 at Piplye, at a total weight of 2387lbs ( that’s over one ton ), with an average weight of 1lb 9oz, giving an overall return of 73% fish caught / fish stocked, which is quite good really, better than last year and on a par with many commercial fisheries. At 1.45 fish per visit, the average catch returns were identical for both venues, again an improvement over last year.

As last year, the best performing individual water proved to be Grubbero Pool, the top lake at Piplye, yielding 86% of the fish stocked. Surprisingly, Hurstwood, the middle lake at Cinder Hill, returned 78%, despite no catches from June on. Had we poured more fish into the water no doubt this figure would have been considerably lower. All the other waters at both venues proved remarkably similar, with returns between 67 and 73%. Piplye showed the best venue return at 76% to Cinder Hill’s 70%.

The largest fish recorded was a fine rainbow of 6lb 4oz from Grubbero Pool at Piplye, caught by Stuart Bromham at the end of April, while the best from Cinder Hill weighed 4lb 12oz, captured from Hurstwood by John Collins at the beginning of May. David Drury took the best 4 fish bag weighing 9lb 12oz from Piplye at the end of October, while the best bag from Cinder Hill, caught by David Clark at the beginning of April, totalled 8lb 8oz.

We held 8 work parties during the year and thanks are due to all the members and one or two guests who turned to help. Although we attempted to clear the silt traps at the inlet to Grubbero Pool, the build up of leaves and silt proved too much for us to remove by hand and we had to utilise the services of a local contractor to do the work. A large quantity of spoil was removed which shows the effectiveness of the traps in reducing the amount of rubbish which would have ended up in the lake without them.

 

Best regards and tight lines in 2015,

 

Mike Richardson, Syndicate Organiser.