dead fish

Lord Paul of Sheffield · Dec 29, 2010

Today walked the dd round KJS and it looks like most of the fish are dead - lack of oxygen - noone breaking the ice - I've tried - but if soemoen lived nearer he should have done it

not sure about renweing my mmebership next year

Morespiders · Dec 29, 2010

Same will be happening on a lot of waters up and down the country

Chevin · Dec 30, 2010

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:
Today walked the dd round KJS and it looks like most of the fish are dead - lack of oxygen - noone breaking the ice - I've tried - but if soemoen lived nearer he should have done it

not sure about renweing my mmebership next year

Unfortunately just breaking the ice isn't enough. One of the greatest problems is the snow on top of the ice, that cuts out the light and the plants cease to produce oxygen by photosynthesis. If the ice could be broken and a fountain installed in a small water, some fish might survive but it is almost impossible to combat the low oxygen problem in the whole of a lake. Sadly a lot of waters are going to be denuded of fish this winter and unless the owners can find away help their fisheries, a lot of the pay and catch waters will be finished. Small shallow waters are particularly susceptible to winter kill.

There is one area in which anglers and everyone else can help though, and that is by getting food to the birds you love to see. Many of the small birds will die and some will be endangered. Very small birds like wrens suffer dreadfully in harsh winters and in 1962/63 their numbers were severely depleted. Robins seem to head for populated areas and many can be fed by people in their gardens. Sadly a lot of Britain's birds and wildlife are as poorly prepared for extremely harsh winters as are the local authorities when it comes to keeping roads, railways and airports free of snow.

dannytaylor · Dec 30, 2010

I knew this would be coming after last winters fish kills and i would be surprised if it is a shock to anyone. When the ice gets as thick as it has done it is very hard to break, also i have heard that the very act of breaking the ice can effect fish in a bad way?? vibration?? so i suppose you are buggered if you do and buggered if you dont

Why after last winters problems have clubs and fishery owners not took steps to combat the problem. Build up of silt on shallow venues was cited as a problem so if this was the case why where de-silting procedures not put into place on these venues?

I suppose all that we can do now is cross our fingers and wait and see what happens next.

Luckily Mother nature has a knack of coming good out of disasters such as this. Last winter a local pond lost all of its small carp and as a result many anglers ignored the small water. I hadn't fished the venue for years however a mate had a dabble and caught some stunning crucians up too 3Ib. It seemed to me that as the crucians can tolerate very poor levels of oxygen they had survived the freeze up. With all the larger carp dead the amount of food available to the crucians must have doubled providing an ideal environment for them to thrive. Nature always has a way, i know where i will be fishing this coming summer

Ray Daywalker Clarke · Dec 30, 2010

The same thing happened back in 1963 after all the snow and ice.

I have been working in between the holiday periods and many of my clients have ponds with pumps running so the ponds havent frozen over, and the fish are fine.

In one house the small fountain in the front garden had stopped working, so we smashed the ice, freed the pump, and got it working again, the fish are ok there.

I havent seen a lake that hasnt still got ice over 80-90% of it, and on some lakes the ice is that thick you cant see the water below. In 1963 i can remember when we started to break the ice some fish were frozen in the ice, it was as if they had come to the surface to get air, and got caught in the ice, but the truth is more likely that they had died long before.

lets hope that the cormorants are dying off from lack of fish, but i doubt it somehow.

Chevin · Dec 30, 2010

dannytaylor said:
I knew this would be coming after last winters fish kills and i would be surprised if it is a shock to anyone. When the ice gets as thick as it has done it is very hard to break, also i have heard that the very act of breaking the ice can effect fish in a bad way?? vibration?? so i suppose you are buggered if you do and buggered if you dont

Why after last winters problems have clubs and fishery owners not took steps to combat the problem. Build up of silt on shallow venues was cited as a problem so if this was the case why where de-silting procedures not put into place on these venues?

I suppose all that we can do now is cross our fingers and wait and see what happens next.

Luckily Mother nature has a knack of coming good out of disasters such as this. Last winter a local pond lost all of its small carp and as a result many anglers ignored the small water. I hadn't fished the venue for years however a mate had a dabble and caught some stunning crucians up too 3Ib. It seemed to me that as the crucians can tolerate very poor levels of oxygen they had survived the freeze up. With all the larger carp dead the amount of food available to the crucians must have doubled providing an ideal environment for them to thrive. Nature always has a way, i know where i will be fishing this coming summer

I think that it is quite likely that breaking thick ice might damage fish, but I guess that anything is worth a try.

There is no doubt that some fish can tolerate low oxygen better than others and carp are probably one of those species, but at the same time, some waters are far more likely to suffer winterkill than others. In my experience in the '60s it was the shallow lakes that suffered most especially those that had a deep bed of silt covering the bottom. My theory is that the silt is full of poisonous gases such as methane and so if the low oxygen doesn't kill, the increased methane in the water may. Of course as the oxygen content falls then the carbon dioxide content will increase and so the fish will be in a pretty hostile environment.

If there was anyway of avoiding it, I would not be happy to leave Mother Nature to sort out the problem. Up until the 62 - 63 winter I had a beautiful fishery that contained some lovely carp and rudd. I couldn't get to it through much of the worst of the winter, it was just too dangerous to drive there and I wasn't aware of what might happen anyway. Once the snow had melted I took a run to the lake just as the ice was melting. I was devastated. There were so many dead fish, including all of my carp floating on the surface. I never went back to the water, there was no point, even if there was some fish left, it would have been far from the fishery it had been and I really wasn't prepared to put all of the time and effort into it again. Perhaps Mother Nature will help some waters, I don't know, but sadly I am inclined to believe that a lot of fisheries will be totally wiped out. I hope that I am wrong.

richiekelly · Dec 30, 2010

from what i have read if a water has weed in it that hasnt completley rotted before the water becomes iced over the weed will continue to rot and produce gasses that are poisenous to fish.

Jeff Woodhouse · Dec 30, 2010

Chevin said:
My theory is that the silt is full of poisonous gases such as methane and so if the low oxygen doesn't kill, the increased methane in the water may. Of course as the oxygen content falls then the carbon dioxide content will increase and so the fish will be in a pretty hostile environment.

Entirely correct.

The methane first of all replaces the oxygen layer between the water and the ice in the first cold snap and after several weeks can dilute to some degree in the water itself, but the co² is by far the bigger killer. However, this does take some weeks and provided we get a full melt before the next bout of snow and ice, I doubt it will be a major problem. There will always be some waters affected, shallow ones, as has been said, but that's nature for you, it is neither kind nor cruel, merely indifferent.

The bad one · Dec 30, 2010

Chevin said:
Unfortunately just breaking the ice isn't enough. One of the greatest problems is the snow on top of the ice, that cuts out the light and the plants cease to produce oxygen by photosynthesis. QUOTE]

Slight flaw in that one. Weed does not grow or photosynthesise in the winter.
Water circulation is a great idea as it allows gasious exchange from water to air. Failing that holes broken or cut with a still-saw in the ice allows the exchange. Whilst hammering on the ice to break it will cause vibration and distress to the fish, but is not like to kill them.

PS there is an upside to this, the cormorants can't get at them and plunder the stocks.

flightliner · Dec 30, 2010

The bad one said:
PS there is an upside to this, the cormorants can't get at them and plunder the stocks

The down side is that they are murdering thier local river

S-Kippy · Dec 30, 2010

Rest assurred some numpty somewhere will be putting sprats out on the bird feeders.

Chevin · Dec 31, 2010

the blanker said:
from what i have read if a water has weed in it that hasnt completley rotted before the water becomes iced over the weed will continue to rot and produce gasses that are poisenous to fish.

I believe that is true and of course the decomposition burns oxygen so the content is reduced still further.

The bad one · Dec 31, 2010

flightliner said:
The down side is that they are murdering thier local river

Who's murdering their local river? Not this side of the hill mate the rivers have had a lid on them as well for nearly 3 weeks. I think you'll find many have gone the way of the Monty Python parrot over here

S-Kippy · Dec 31, 2010

Along with a lot of other species too.This freeze will hit small birds hard again but if it takes the cormorants out then I'll shed no tears.

waggy · Dec 31, 2010

Breaking ice may seem like a good idea but, if a freeze persists, the broken pieces merely refreeze thicker than the original ice, like a form of pack ice. It then takes longer to thaw.
In 1947 my father and grandfather were asked to blast a channel into one of the lower Trent ports so that ships could get in from the main channel but it just made things a lot worse. Huge blocks of ice were refreezing together almost immediately.
Of course it may temporarily relieve the toxic gas build up in small lakes and ponds providing the percussion doesn't stun or kill the fish.

The bad one · Dec 31, 2010

No evidence of it killing fish on the waters my club controls last year Waggy and they number many tens. Also if you remove the broken sheets of ice you don't get the pack ice syndrome.
The holes need daily tending to keep them relatively ice free and best if it's done from 11 00 am, so you get what is the warmer part of the day for them to stay ice free for a couple of hours for gas exchange to take place.

waggy · Dec 31, 2010

That's the way to do it, if you can get the hired help.

flightliner · Dec 31, 2010

The bad one said:
Who's murdering their local river? Not this side of the hill mate the rivers have had a lid on them as well for nearly 3 weeks. I think you'll find many have gone the way of the Monty Python parrot over here

B1-- maybe not all- true-- but on my favourite bit of Trent opposite a large gravel pit that sustains the largest colony of comorants in the country, because its frozen solid the birds have been hammering the river for the last three weeks- I shudder to think what it will be like in the coming months. My mate went two weeks ago and he said that he had never seen so many roach going down so many birds necks.

jimmy crackedcorn · Jan 5, 2011

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:
Today walked the dd round KJS and it looks like most of the fish are dead - lack of oxygen - noone breaking the ice - I've tried - but if soemoen lived nearer he should have done it

not sure about renweing my mmebership next year

I probably live nearer but the owner is far nearer than me !

KJS lost a few last year as well and it didnt affect the fishing THAT much. I must get up to west end and see how thats going, but as its bigger and far deeper that might be OK. Aston SHOULD be Ok because its spring fed, but I did notice quite a large number of dead roach last year but that was about april I think might have been later) apropos of nothing. Also bare in mind that although a hundred dead fish will look a huge amount dead on the surface, but not a huge number considering stocking levels.

As others have said, its really natures way. I tried venting our own pond but still lost two nice koi anyway. Maybe I should have got rid off all the dead vegetation but once it was frozen over that was it anyway.

Lord Paul of Sheffield · Jan 5, 2011

I went up to Aston on 03/01/2011 - some where fishing the snake lake but it was frozen in most part, the big pond was frozen but there were 2 fishing it , the smaller pond (No1) was mostly frozen but a few spots were clear. Not sure about the other 2 I didn't look at

The 4 pond about there that aren't own by KJS were iced over but the owner had broken the ice and had aerators in them so there were clear areas.

West end should be ok if it's deeper - but if they were my ponds and I owned the JCB that he does I'd have broken ice every day and scooped it out.

dead fish

Well-known member

Senior Member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Moaning Marlow Meldrew

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member