Week ending 18/sept/06 goldenloch

This weeks report from the Goldenloch has been hard to write, as we had been looking forward to anglers enjoying their fishing after a long hot dry summer, with all its usual problems of low water, fish not feeding, fish not rising and all the other usual problems associated with running a fishery, your support and encouragement over the incident that has occurred here at the weekend is very much appreciated, most if not all of the fish have been killed and the loch is looking a bit empty, to-day for the first time ever we have been officially closed since my father opened it to the public way back, and we are waiting for SEPA to give us permission to reopen, and the Police are investigating it as a crime scene, The up side is that the insect life is intact and flourishing, the oxygen levels are climbing and the first large load of fresh new fish will arrive on Thursday, To try and help the public understand what has happened I can only explain that it was not poison that killed the fish but something that was introduced into the water that deoxygenised the water and it asphyxiated the fish, what ever it was it has now gone, and has not affected what fish remain, surprisingly a lot of the surviving fish are the bigger ones, as they managed to get out of the deoxygenated water, what else can we say other than we look forward to your company again, and for the lads that were always complaining about the lack of fish I now know that we had at least 1500 fish in the loch and on the arithmetic that we used to calculate our stocking we were spot on with our stocking levels of 150 / acre, so its not our fault you cant catch fish.

This is the story so far

Monday Night and an update, firstly thanks for all the calls of support and emails didn’t realise that so many people were as angry about this, words are just about not able to describe the mess, firstly, the loch Sunday early am saw fish dying and we all thought it was the Algae going bad but after a few hours and on discovering that the area affected was a straight line about 50m wide from the top SW corner to the Bottom NW corner and that the fish were concentrated at both ends in trying to get out the water for oxygen we became a little bit more suspicious of foul play then another call to more experts its amazing how many people know somebody that’s when we started examining the fish and finding completely pale gills, white in some cases concurrent with the fact that 3 o2 tests showed zero o2 in this 50 m strip at 9am, and yet by noon the o2 had risen to 3 p/pm and by 3pm 7p/pm, however the bottom corner showed a steady 8p/pm all day, it was here that any surviving fish moved to, so what does this all mean, well SEPA have now confirmed the presence of blue green algae albeit in a relatively small quantity, however it is way passed the stage of being toxic and it really needs to be in a very high constant temp like mid July was so that rules that one out. So what is the next answer it seems that this one is a bit like a murder mystery story and your gonna find out who dunnit But the Goldenloch wasn’t the only target on Saturday night another loch not a million miles away was done over, I eventually got through to them on the phone ( they are having a news blackout) { unlike me I am telling it like it is } and it has been confirmed that Mr Tupper from the Victor was responsible I am not saying who for fear of reprisals we reckon we have suffered enough, our ins co tell us that as this was an act of terrorism we have no claim, boy that one stung hard, anyway what’s the point in crying now, all I need to do is restock and to-day the order was placed to restock with the first load of several hundred fish due on Thursday, please everyone understand the loch was not poisoned nor the fish, it was deoxygenated and the fish died due to asphyxiation (that took a while to look up) it wasn’t Cymag but something else ( suspected is a product that is used to calm large fish) unknown, however yesterday it was observed by us that the loch life is still massive and that Daphne, snails, shrimps, etc are still abundant only the fish and anglers are missing, its sad but this has been one of the most depressing days ever, yesterday saw anglers in the morning lifting out several hundred fish and in the afternoon fish from the deep starting to float and this morning about 450 more that had died yesterday which were all dried up and to crown it all an angler arriving at 4 commenting after getting all kitted up that there didn’t seem to be many fish feeding to-night, totally bewildered when I asked him which planet he came from, as the local paper and radio stations have been broadcasting all day, the answer was he had just got back from Spain on the morning flight and after getting his dog and dropping of the wife and bags he came fishing, now we have another person offering to brake legs as he had been looking forward to coming fishing since he went on holiday,
Back to the current situation, we have lost approx 1500 fish with about half being brownies they seemed to be more susceptible all in the sizes 2 > 3 lbs SEPA still have not told us that we can reopen, they also told us that we were not allowed to bury the dead fish and definitely not to burn them, however we have got rid of them as the blue bottles were having a field day {where do they come from and how did they get here so quick } The loch is getting a good battering to-night with rain and the water is crystal clear.

To book a boat or a place phone on 01337840412 or email to info@goldenloch.co.uk
Yours sincerely: John Nicol. Goldenloch.