Fishery Management update

Well I am back from our normal November holiday and I am out of touch with the detail of what has been going on fishing wise. Simon's regular updates on our main Facebook page as well as the 'Beyond the Gates' private Facebook page, do contain photos of Carp captures.

Whilst mentioning Facebook, if you are a past guest, or you have booked to come in 2026, you are entitled to be a part of this private 'Beyond the Gates' community. We provide more information on this page, as well as run various offers/exclusives from time to time. So why not request becoming a member of this community?

We worked very hard at the end of October, literally including the day before flying off abroad. As you can see from the photos above and below, we took the opportunity to empty and clean our stock pond. I am stretching a point to say we worked hard, because with my broken ankle, I was (fortunately) restricted to purely supervisory duties. Indeed I almost lost my voice shouting out 'you missed a bit over there' (sounds like a line from a famous song!).

The real excitement around the emptying the stock pond, is that it gave us the opportunity to see how the Carp have been doing over the last year. In truth it was a mixed picture. Typically the stock fish put on around 3lb. We did have some real stars with the biggest gain being closer to 7lb. We also had several which did not grow at all.

I am not clear why we should have such a wide range of weight gains. Maybe we should have fed the stock pond more heavily, possibly giving the less aggressive Carp a better chance to find food (although we are always anxious to ensure the food is eaten and water quality is good. Next year, we are investigating having an automatic feeder.

We also had a pleasant shock of 'finding' about 100 C1 Carp which typically were in the 8-12oz weight range. These little fish were the result of this year's spawning (C1 means one summer old). I am sure we would have had thousands of fry at one stage, but the bigger Carp would have fed on these resulting in just 100 hundred survivors. Maybe those Carp which grew the most had a big appetite for the fry? As the stock pond is netted throughout the year, these little Carp were not preyed on from above, otherwise I suspect we would have just had a handful of survivors. There were some absolute beauties, including around 10 Ghost Carp and a Blue common.

As you might expect I hand picked around 30 of these C1's and returned them to the stock pond. Hopefully in 3 years they will be 15lb+ and ideal for stocking into Cherry Lake. The other c70 were introduced into the three exclusive lakes. Hopefully some of these will survive the next 12-18 months and become useful additions to the stock in these lakes. I am sorry not to have photographed any of these small Carp, I wish I had!

I mentioned in one of my updates earlier this year that we were considering chipping our Cherry Lake Carp. This is not because we are too concerned by Carp thefts etc, but because I would like to better understand how our Carp are doing. Tracking by photos (which we have done for years through my 30+ catalogues) is fine, but it does require both good photos (with the Carp being properly presented to the camera) and for them to be sent to me.

It will take us several years for us to chip the majority of the Carp in Cherry Lake. All the new stock introduced into Cherry Lake (and in the stock pond) are being chipped. Whenever we net Cherry Lake, we will look to retain the Carp caught within the net and chip them. Once we reach a critical mass, we will supply anglers with a scanner. Providing the chip number is recorded by the angler then we will be able to identify the Carp, know its history and capture its current weight.

One of the stock carp introduced was this beautiful heavily scaled Carp of 16-08 pictured below. You can see from board, that the chip number for this fish is 2619 (there is no need to worry about the other numbers etc), the date and weight it was introduced into Cherry Lake.

Sadly Carp do die, and the condition of the Carp, especially in warm water, quickly deteriorates, meaning that it is not always possible to identify which Carp has died. If the dead carp has been chipped, providing we scan it, we will be able to identify it.

During the Spring and autumn, we might ask for short periods of time our Cherry Lake guests to retain all the Carp they catch. This will enable us to scan the Carp (the chip if present is under the skin on the left hand shoulder), and if the Carp has not been chipped we will do so.

I know I should have chosen to do this years ago, and I wish I had. but better late than never?

The above photo shows a stunning Mirror Carp of 21-10, the biggest of those introduced. The board is again interesting. This Carp has chip number 4702 and shows its weight as 21-10. You can also see that the previous fish weighed in at 14-02, and was instead placed in the stock pond. Hopefully if we can get the feeding right, this Carp will be close to 20lb, and be ready for stocking into Cherry Lake next year

Managing the Carp stock is always a challenge. We have over the last 8-10 years sought to manage the stock levels to around 300 Carp. This level of stock is too large for the Carp to grow big naturally without supplementary feeding. Whilst this is partially undertaken by anglers, it has to be significantly added to by ourselves. Indeed fish feed is one of our biggest annual costs.

Whilst I would like all of the Cherry Lake Carp to be over 30lb (and we have at least 75 Carp over this weight), we do need to ensure we have a balanced population with good head of younger quality Carp growing and coming through. We try to ensure that most of these stock fish are around 15lb+ in weight before they are introduced. There are a limited number of smaller Carp (principally from natural reproduction),which when caught we might remove (if nothing special).

One of the advantages of introducing new Carp is that they can encourage the bigger/older Carp to feed more aggressively. It is often the case, that without younger Carp coming through, the fishing can get harder and harder as the established fish become wiser and wearier! One thing is for sure is that these recently introduced Carp will be the easiest to catch, especially through this winter, before they settle down.