fish disease

hi can anyone help,ive just returned from a walk around a local carp lake i fish and was shocked by how many dead skimmer bream i saw,they seem to have a white fungus over there heads and sides.some were on the surface struggling to survive, i was wondering if anyone had any ideas what this could be?the club is allready aware and are apperantly taking steps but i am worried that it may not be affecting just bream as i caught a mirror last season of about 15-16 pound which had a very thick jelly like substance covering its head and side which also glowed white in the water,i told the bailiff but he didnt seem worried and said it was due to spawning but this was in july,can anyone help?

If the club have contacted the EA there's probably not much that can be done. If you have any contact with the water it might be an idea to wash off your boots before going anywhere else. Fungus (if that's what it is) is usually a secondary invader on fish which have already been weakened by something else.

It sounds as if your club may have already looked into this already or may have knowedgable people in the club which know what the problem is. It mayjust be spawning deaths (although it sounds a bit early) so bring it up at the AGM to see what the club and its membersthink.

As the Carpwas the onlyCarp you saw; it may have been nothing unusual. It may have been caused by other things.

We have quite a history of fish deaths caused by a company that once discharged into an inlet streamthat flows intoour lake. they were granted permission to discharge into the inlet stream because they convinced the authorites that it was safe however when their filter system failed every couple of years we had a slug of pollution come into our lake killinghundreds of fish. However we had a couple of members who worked there and could investigate from within the company and could feed us information, so the company didn't have a leg to stand on as we knew the exacttimes and dates that their filter system failed. They have now built a bypass pipe which goes around our lake and re-enters the stream below us. Not Ideal but at least our lake no longer suffers every couple of years.

If the club suspects such things then they should take their own water samples immediately noting the time and dates the samples where taken and give them to the ACA; who will investigate and also take their own water samples.

This needs to be done in addition to Notifying the water authority as in our experiencethe Water Authoritee will not always release the details of what they find.

If you know of any companies that discharge intoyour feeder stream then take samples by their outlet into the stream marked with the place, Date and time that you took the samples from.