Development
New Stock Pond
During 2006 the club dug out a small pond over on the far side of the Great Pond dam wall. After a successful trial it was expanded during November 2007 to form a second stock pond. As with all the other ponds this too is spring-fed providing water at a constant temperature. It was left for the banks, water plants and aquatic life to become established and is now being used used to develop our own stocks of crucian carp.
Fish Refuges - A winning formula
At the turn of the millenium Ravenfield. like many other waters today, became the target for marauding cormorants. After much effort, and a great deal of research the club established a petition asking the government to take action with respect to the birds. This was presented to parliament some time later and contained 36,000 signatures. Following from that and as part of the Moran Joint Bird Group the government were persuaded to ease the rules relating to shooting cormorants. Since that time the club has held a licence to shoot the birds as an aid to scaring.
In the meantime the club developed two novel ways to protect fish stocks, aid spawning and fry survival and improve water quality. The basis of these are submerged fish refuges, each 5x3x2m, and made from rolls of sheep fencing, which sit on the bottom of the pond. fish can retreat into these if they are threatened, although cormorants visit at their peril these days.
Above each one of these sit floating islands in which emergent plants grow. These not only prevent anglers lines becoming tangled in the refuges but the plant roots, which grow down into the water, provide a place for fish to spawn, a place for fry to hide and grow, and also help improve water quality by recycling nutrients. And the plants themsleves are a home for insects, bees and wasps.
This Environmental Agency provided funding in the form of a fishery grant for the purchase of coir mats to aid plant growth.