news :5th March

Hi folks , Just an update on the ponds. Firstly the Trustees are aware of the weed problem in the ponds at the moment. There are still a few fish in the big pond, but they are not easy to catch amongst the weed. We will be clearing weed in the two smaller ponds and part of the big pond over the next four weeks.

It has been suggested that the increased weed has been caused by a combination of : the disruption in our usual weed control program last March due to Covid , the high level of nitrogen in the ground water in this locality , the long growing season this summer, and the work done to deepen the ponds last October which caused a pulse of sediment through the ponds that may have encouraged new growth. However we can see that weeds may be an ongoing problem at the ponds and we are investigating various methods of weed control. Our current method, which is funded by Lion Foundation, uses hand controlled cutters and rakes may not be able to handle the growth in the future.

We anticipate have much of the weed will be removed by early April and stocking with some salmon and trout will occur in mid-April prior to a series of fishout days. The fishout days in April will be for a number of special group such as Police Blue Light, Big Brother Big Sister , and some cancer groups. We will have one or two public fishout days in May , watch our website ( youthfishing.org ) for the dates, and then open the ponds for children to fish with adult supervision in June .

Please also be aware that TDC will be closing off the old River road access point some time soon. This will mean the only access will be via Challies road.