Faversham

We spent the whole week with Faversham angling club in Kent, carrying out a range of management work including applying Siltex and netting to assess stocks. The club runs a number of waters from specimen carp fisheries to smaller match venues and have been very proactive managing their fishery in recent years.

Faversham have invested in a range of essential fishery management endeavours, purchasing aerators and water quality monitors in conjunction with regular Siltex applications, aquatic vegetation management and now stock assessments. Working closely with us and other fishery management experts has helped the club create great fisheries that produce great fish.

Siltexing all the lakes will help manage organic breakdown - this is especially helpful here due to the heavy tree lining.
The netting is purely for stock assessments and advice as they have not been netted in years.



Willow Pool

Willow Pool is a pleasure and match fishery with an emphasis on helping young people get a taste for fishing, with that said a higher stocking density of smaller fish is preferred.

The lake is made up of a number of small islands, channels and bays making the task of netting a fiddly one. However with a number of stop nets and small sweeps we had the whole lake covered.

A few years ago the pool had issues with dissolved oxygen levels and unfortunately lost quite a large amount of the population. The netting confirmed the effect of this and only resulted in small numbers of carp and very few silver fish. It appeared the breeding size silver fish population suffered the most, the impact of this meant there were very few catchable sized fish, very little recruitment and very few juvenile fish coming through.
On completion of the stock assessment we advised a stocking program to re-establish the silver fish population. Larger roach and skimmer bream will be stocked with some smaller carp from the on site stock pond.
Cormorant prevention is achievable on this venue with its small and intimate nature, this paired with the use of overhead ropes to stop the birds diving means the smaller fish can survive.
Aeration has been installed in the lake and a larger percentage of the surrounding trees have been thinned to allow more wind access helping to support the dissolved oxygen levels. We finished this site with a Siltex application that we felt was necessary due to the larger amount of surrounding trees and leaves falling into the lake. This is helps to reduce the biological loading on the pond and aid the organic break down increasing general ale health and likely lake depth.



Bracher ponds 1 and 2

The Bracher Ponds are also both pleasure venues requiring stock assessment and Siltex applications. Both ponds are very similar in nature, shallow and silty with large reed beds and lily growth. These ponds had been a victim to the aforementioned cormorant problem, this became apparent post netting.

Good populations of carp and some larger bream were present but very few smaller silver fish and even less signs of recruitment. On closer inspection of some of the thicker reed beds, some smaller silver fish were present and clearly trying their best to avoid the cormorants during daylight hours. The numbers of carp present were appropriate for the venue and the fishing purposes however came at the cost of restricted biodiversity. The club would like to improve the presence of other species but we advised to only introduce fish above predation size. Encouraging the growth of reed and lily beds will help smaller fish providing shelter from predators aiding the recruitment process.
Finally, the application of Siltex will help with biological breakdown but will increase nutrient levels within the pond helping to promote aquatic vegetation growth. The calcium and oxygen binding properties of the Siltex will also aid aquatic invertebrates, helping with the organic breakdown and providing food for all fish species.