In 2012 with the help of our local Environment Agency Fisheries Team – we netted Kingfisher Lake and cropped 10,000 fish (mainly roach and rudd) and relocated them to Drinkwater Park Lake.
The reason for this was twofold – firstly a lot more people fish Drinkwater Park Lake than Kingfisher and we wanted to improved it as a fishery, secondly there were so many fish in Kingfisher Lake that fish were becoming stunted as there were just too many fish for the lake to support.
After cropping 10,000 fish from the lake in winter 2012 the fishing actually improved ! With the average size of roach being caught rising from 1 oz to 4oz within the next two years. Fish it with hemp and caster now and the stamp of roach you catch is even better.
As Kingfisher appeared to be something of a “natural fish factory” the Environment Agency came back in winter 2015 to crop the lake for a second time – this time with the intention of moving fish into Agecroft Pond to improve fishing there.
As you can see from the video below of the 2015 netting – there are some tremendous fish in Kingfisher…..
Sadly we could not move any fish this time, as the fish didnt pass the EA health check – lots of fish had the gill parasite “ergasilus” which is a common problem on waters with high fish stock density.
Hopefully if we keep an eye on the fish health on Kingfisher we should be able to crop the lake again soon – to improve fishing elsewhere…
In the mean time – enjoy the fishing – on what is probably our “easiest” water.