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...but given that KHV outbreak in 2008, who’d want them?
ONCE again pigeons – or rather carp – are coming home to roost, this time at Earlswood Reservoirs (see pages 6 and 7).
I first fished the place before the carp stocking, and it was great roach sport unless you drew well, when it was a bream job.
After the stocking it became another carp water – I remember telling Steve Ringer about some success I’d had with PVA mesh bags. He told his dad Geoff and promptly took the place apart.
Now those pasties have grown. The size of the water and matchmen pouring in bait have provided the perfect environment but now those carp are caught in the middle – too big for matches, not big enough for specialists.
I completely understand Canal and River Trust fisheries manager John Ellis wanting to move them on, but Earlswood suffered a Koi Herpes Virus outbreak in 2008 so can they be moved? I certainly wouldn’t want them, should I be a fishery manager.
Add to these problems the illegally-stocked wels catfish that C&RT are hoping to take out when the level is lowered for essential work and I’d describe the entire thing as a beggar’s muddle.
I find it thoroughly ironic that while one group of anglers complain about otters, others have been guilty of spreading far more efficient fish-eating machines in the form of zander and catfish to where they’d like to catch them.