Welcoming anglers since...1948

September 2024 Newsletter

Welcome to our latest newsletter at the end of the summer that never was, having been one of the coolest and wettest for some years now. Due to the weather, catch reports have been very mixed over the past few months which would be worrying except for it seems it is not only our waters that have been affected. We have also had predation issues at several waters and those of you that have been to Underhill, or visit our Facebook page, will have seen that we are trialling a couple of bird scarers here. If these work then we will be purchasing more and setting them up at other waters, and if they continue to do their job then we will be in a position to look at doing some restocking as, we are sure you will agree, there is no point in us spending your money stocking new fish for those fish to then be eaten within a few weeks!

One gripe for this newsletter, we have had issues with gates being left unlocked and worse still actually left open. As there are animals at more than one of our waters this is taken very seriously and we do not want to be getting more phone calls from owners about this issue, so if you have to unlock and open a gate then please close and lock it again after you have passed through.

We held a family weekend over the weekend of August 17th/18th at Pennybridge. This was very successful as we had 49 people on the Saturday and 64 on the Sunday, all tried their hand at fishing with almost all of them managing to catch including some nice Crucians and Tench. We hope to do the same next year with a few tweaks to make it run a bit smoother.

One of those tweaks will be to have more volunteers helping out over the weekend but we also need more help with things like grass cutting and general tidying of our waters on a regular basis as well as at the work parties. If you could spare a few hours every month, particularly March to October, we would love to hear from you as we are a bit thin on the ground and struggling to keep on top of the day-to-day maintenance of our waters and we do not want to be spending your money on expensive contractors when we could, and should, be spending it on improving the waters and the fishing. Also, if you think you would like to be involved in helping make decisions on how things are run, we are always open to having new (preferably younger) members on the committee to move the club forward.

In the June newsletter we mentioned Asian Hornets, these are still about so please take a look at this link https://www.bbka.org.uk/identify-report-asian-hornet and if you spot one of these do not kill it but report it, the reason for not killing it is that it can then be tracked back to its nest.
Also we mentioned the Argulus parasite at Mill House Farm, we are pleased to report that the infestation is not as bad as we first feared and we will continue to monitor this until the water temperature drops.
Another problem that is around at the moment is KHV, a couple of waters in Kent are currently under restrictions by the Fish Health Inspectorate. Due to this we have banned the use of keepnets on all of our waters, except in club organised matches where the nets are all inspected to ensure they are dry before being put in the water. Obviously, we cannot ban landing nets so please ensure you let them dry completely (preferably in the sun) between uses as KHV has a 90%+ mortality rate in Carp and we do not want that to happen at any of our waters, this ban will remain in place until November.
While on the subject of fish health we would ask that all anglers use unhooking mats to protect the fish, as even putting them on damp grass in a landing net can still cause damage, and consider carrying an antiseptic spray for use on any obvious injuries  on the fish you catch. These sprays can be bought for less than a fiver but might save a fish from dying so well worth having.

We have been getting more reports from members since we asked for these in the June newsletter and some have been quite critical, which as far as we are concerned is great and has let us know what you feel is wrong and we will endeavour to get these things resolved or improved. We are continuing with our water quality testing program and doing what is required when the results indicate corrective action is needed. Once we are satisfied that a water is ready, we will then look at if it needs, or can take, an increase in the stocking level, but please appreciate it is not just a case of chucking a load of new fish in a water and hoping it will be ok as if it is not (like the predation issue mentioned earlier), we will just be throwing your money away and not improve the fishing. On the positive side we have had reports of a 17lb Mirror Carp being caught from Scaland Wood by young member Josh and Matthew letting us know of his 3lb 8oz Perch caught at Pennybridge.

In the June newsletter we mentioned we were going to build two proper platforms at Scaland Wood on pegs 1 & 2 and resurface the path from the car park, this will now happen on the 3rd-5th of October. The lake will be closed to everyone on these dates due to the heavy machinery that will be onsite and moving about, particularly in the car park area and entrance as we have to replace a gate post and resurface the entrance.

Club Welfare Officer (CWO) – as mentioned 3 months ago we now have a CWO and assistant and they have completed the required course and are now drawing up a policy for us. When this is done full details of how to contact either Janet or Sandra, should you need to, will be available on our website, social media and in our December newsletter.

Juniors – we are coming to the end of our junior season with one more match on the 21st September being the First Diesel Junior/Senior Challenge Cup. Despite the weather it has been a successful campaign for the youngsters this year and we hope this will continue again next season so if you know of any youngsters who would like to fish matches let them know they are welcome to come along. The match dates for next season will hopefully be on the website sometime in December.

On the subject of new members, we will be doing our usual half price, mid-season, memberships from October 1st so if you have a relative or friend who might like to join us and fish our waters until March 31st 2025 point them our way, please.

As you are probably already aware there are several ways of contacting us but can we just point out that the quickest ways of getting a response are either Facebook messenger or email at the moment. If it is an emergency and you call our number this has a message giving you another number to call as the club phone is only checked each evening for any messages or missed calls.

Best wishes & tight lines on behalf of the CDAA committee. 

Chairmans corner:

A man went fishing one day. He looked over the side of his boat and saw a snake with a frog in its mouth. Feeling sorry for the frog, he reached down, gently took the frog from the snake, and set the frog free.
But then he felt sorry for the snake. He looked around the boat, but he had no food. All he had was a bottle of bourbon. So, he opened the bottle and gave the snake a few shots.
The snake went off happy, the frog was happy, and the man was happy to have performed such good deeds. He thought everything was great until about ten minutes later, and he heard something knock against the side of the boat. With stunned disbelief, the fisherman looked down and saw the snake was back with two frogs!