Newsletter & AGM Report 2017
The 2018 ASTBURY NIGHT PERMIT will increase to £50. All other SUBSCRIPTIONS for 2018 will remain the same as 2017.
2017 Annual General Meeting . The AGM was attended by 39 members. Geoff Beckett was re-elected as Assistant Secretary and Brian Banks was re-elected as Astbury Manager. Ray Lightfoot and Dave Rowe were re-elected to the Committee. Andy Bickley was elected as the new Match Secretary. Andy Riley, Jordon Riley, Rob Byrne and Andy Cartlidge were elected to the Committee.
There was only one Notice of Motion concerning the Constitution and General Rules - this refers to an increase in the number of rods from 2 to 3 at Stanley Pool. Membership Subscriptions for 2018 Senior 22 to 64 years of age on 1 January 2018 £65. Senior Citizen/Lady/Disabled £40. Juvenile age 12 to 16 of age on 1 January 2018 £1. Intermediate age 17 to 18 on 1 January 2018 £20. Intermediate age 19 to 21 on 1 January 2018 £40. Astbury Night Permit £50. Non-Fishing Guest Permit £10 for a named individual. These were agreed unanimously by the members in attendance.
Treasurers Report 2017 - The Balance Sheet showed an excess of Income over Expenditure of £2,142. At the AGM, copies of the audited accounts were distributed and an explanation of the Balance Sheet was given. The Treasurer said that the cost of work party expenses had been offset by income from Canal and Rivers Trust of £7,840. This income is a contribution towards the costs of the improvement work at Stanley Pool ( platforms,etc ) Mr. Mick Hann Treasurer Membership Renewal Members are reminded to renew by 1st March if they wish to guarantee that their membership can continue into 2018. Membership books will be available from 14 December. Memberships will be on sale at our HQ on 14 Dec, 11 Jan, 8 Feb from 7pm.
Chairmans Report 2017 - Good evening and welcome to the 2017 AGM. I hope you have all had a good year and have been enjoying your fishing It’s been a good year for the Society with a surplus over expenditure. Therefore we will not be asking for an increase in membership fishing fees for 2017 with the exception of the Astbury night permit The changes we made to allow people to join online have proved to be a success with many people using this facility. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to promote the Society, so please all continue with the excellent work you have done this year.
Astbury Water Park - Astbury continues to improve and the money we invested in fish stocks is resulting in some great catches, creating segregation from the public in the fishing areas is proving to be a success. Most of the work has been done by Dave Rowe and Roger Watts who have done a sterling job on the committee, supervised by Brian Banks who once again has done an excellent job managing the lake on behalf of the Society.
River Dove - All our sections of the river Dove have fished poor this year particularly barbel catches this is down to predation and is something we are monitoring very closely, we are still trying hard to resolve the car parking situation on Riverside farm.
Stanley Pool - Stanley Pool has been the success story for me this year with the introduction of the fishing platforms and fish stockings, with many members having enjoyable days fishing, plus also with the match fishing really taking off with some excellent weights.
Rode Pool – Following the removal of the net across the lake we have seen improvements in the catch rates with good catches across all fish classes - bream, tench,roach and carp. River Sow – Good news once again with further stockings from the E.A , all good news following work on the river this year, should be good for the future.
Blithfield – members have enjoyed Blithfield this year, the new system has worked very well, also the river has fished well with some excellent catches of chub and dace, it is planned for work to be done on improving the fishing pegs.
North Road – Continues to improve each year a lot of improvements have been made this year and will continue in 2018. The introduction of the tench have gone down well with the membership with some excellent catches I will be asking the netting team lads once again to remove more of the lily pads also you will see the introduction of improved fishing pegs.
Woore Fruit Farm – We have seen improvements this year on fish catches and we will continue to monitor the water over the next twelve months.
General Rule Changes – You will see for 2018 membership changes in your ticket. We have aimed at making the ticket more user friendly and easier for the bailiffs, the Constitution will no longer be in the ticket but will be available on line or on request from the Secretary. This and other changes of duplication have resulted in reducing the ticket from 52 pages to 40.
Juvenile Fishing – Over the last 3 to 4 years we have seen a reduction in our juvenile members to a stage where it is less than 5% of total membership, last year we introduced a cheap ticket with a view of attracting more juveniles, however, we have not seen an increase and need to keep working hard to attract youngsters to our club, we all have a part to play.
Committee Restructure – For 2018 we have restructured our Committee with a view of getting more youth on to the Committee, five people have left the Committee and the replacements are as follows Andy Bickley, Rob Byrne, Jordon Riley, Andy Riley, Andrew Cartlidge. Tony Burt will be replaced by Andy Bickley as Match Secretary, allowing Tony to fully concentrate on his senior position of Club Secretary. Well this is the time of year when I can publicly thank people for all their hard work , once again Mick Hann for all his sterling work , The Committee for all their contributions, Tony and Gerry on the match fishing front , Brian Banks and his team, Kev Grocott for volunteering to organise the work parties, Jim Thomas at Trentside Tackle, One last thing before I sit down it gives me great pleasure to thank Tony for all his hard work and service as Match Secretary over many years to the Society and now welcome Andy Bickley into that new role Well that’s it once again for another year thanks for your attention Mr. John Davey Chairman
Asbury Manager's Report 2017 Again 2017 has been another successful year at Astbury with some fantastic fish reported, there are more and more fish breaking the thirty pound barrier and lots of multiple carp catches reported, other species are also doing well, members have been catching more Bream this season and fish to over fourteen pounds landed, also Catfish are still putting on weight and are now close to forty pounds. Again there has been lots of work carried out by the work party team creating some excellent new fishing pegs and fencing off more areas from the general public thanks lads, also thanks to Paul Berisford for his sterling work bailiff the Mere. Mr. Brian Banks Asbury Manager.
Fishery Manager's Report 2017 Reflecting on 2017 there have been some fantastic captures reported with many of the Society’s waters continuing to represent excellent sport and value for money. As always there is plenty of hard work going on behind the scenes to help further improve our waters and the fish stocks within. I personally thank everyone involved for their support, you know who you are! Firstly, much work has been carried out at North Road this year to help minimise and reduce the silt levels within the pool. Most of the work was carried out during late winter and early spring with the banksides strimmed and cleared of brambles. The debris was subsequently burnt on site along with vast amounts of dead wood and rotting organic material which has built up over the years and is likely contributing to the silting of the water. Further, half a tonne of calcium carbonate (Siltex) was distributed across the entire surface area of the pool in three separate applications, to help reduce organic silt levels and improve the water quality. Following the removal of large numbers of lily pads during previous years, a further thinning of the lily pads that had overtaken the angling pegs closest to the carpark was undertaken. During the lily removal the fishery management team also removed large amounts of terminal tackle and mainline that was entangled within the lily pad roots. The root systems in North Road are vast as can be seen in photo 1 which requires sensible angling with sufficiently strong tackle to prevent fish and tackle losses. During the summer, the team helped to drain a nearby pond resulting in a small number of fish being re-homed into North Road.
More recently, we conducted a netting of two pools in Lichfield that will be impacted by the controversial High Speed 2 project, resulting in circa 100lb of small carp being transferred to North Road. More work to minimise silt inputs, thin out the lily pads, improve angling pegs and the car park is planned for 2018 to further enhance the fishery. (lily pad removals (left) and an example of a carp being stocked into North Road right) In addition to the North Road stockings, we have also boosted fish stocks in Stanley with >1,400lb of bream averaging 3.34lb, stocked into the reservoir earlier in the year which is to be followed by a second stocking of bream in 2018.
Astbury Mere kicked off in fine style at the beginning of the year and I even managed to bag a few myself of up to 27lb 10oz. During the Spring an unprecedented number of upper 20’s were caught along with several 30lb plus mirror carp and a couple of 30lb plus common carp thrown in for good measure, prior to the water being closed for fish spawning. Many of the carp stocked into Astbury from Viv Shears Fisheries in 2013 and 2015 continue to progress well, with a few now over the 30lb mark and many others coming up through the ranks and not too far behind. Beyond the carp, double figure bream and catfish to over 32lb have also been caught breaking personal bests for some anglers. Unfortunately, the Mere suffered an algae bloom towards the end of the season which unsurprisingly coincided with a decline in captures. Water quality tests were carried out revealing slightly elevated nutrient and phosphorous concentrations leading to eutrophic conditions which would explain the proliferation of the algae. A full suite of chemical analysis was performed on water samples collected from around the Mere with most parameters found to be within typical UK freshwater concentrations and therefore of no immediate concern regarding aquatic life. Looking back through the fishery management records for Astbury provides very interesting reading with the Society stocking >10,000lb (4.5 tonnes) of fish into the Mere since 2009, which has undoubtedly had a huge impact on progressing the fishery.
The Society remains committed to improving and safeguarding the future of fish stocks in Astbury, which will see further stockings in years to come, inline with a sustainable fishery management plan that will ensure genetic variation and a good age distribution of fish, to ensure the maximum potential of the fishery is reached. We announced that a number of pike had perished in Rudyard Lake over the summer months. This is not the first time that the pike have met this unfortunate end, however with such huge shoals of coarse fish within the water I’m confident the pike will recover once again. I would like to remind all anglers to help to protect our fisheries and prevent the spread of fish disease by ensuring all nets, slings and unhooking mats are completely dry before they are bought on to any of our Society waters.
Finally, I would like to wish all members a happy and prosperous 2018! Dr. Andy Freeman Fishery Manager.
Match Secretary's Report 2017 The introduction of the new platforms at Stanley Pool in 2017 has meant that the shallows became the new match length. The restocking of bream has seen match weights improving steadily throughout the year with the new fish giving a welcome boost to sport. Feeder fishing on natural venues is more popular than ever and Stanley Pool is now well placed to meet this increasing demand. The main success story on the team fishing front was reaching the final of the Angling Times / Bait Tech Supercup competition.
Round 1 saw the SOTAS Match Group in a close match on an away draw at Blake Hall - we tied on points but had a narrow advantage on weight. In round 2 we had a home draw at Stanley Pool and used our local knowledge plus focussed practice sessions to secure a convincing win. On to the semi- finals of the Midlands Region held at Tunnel Barn Farm and our Match Group squad put in another impressive performance to finish 2nd on the day to secure a place in the final at Barston Lakes. In the final we finished in 5th place out of 15 teams At the AGM the 2018 match calendar was unanimously approved. The main changes include: The majority of matches at Stanley Pool being fished on Saturdays A new winter league of 6 matches between October and December 2 new inter club challenge matches 2 veterans matches at Stanley Pool on Sundays If you are interested in taking part in fishing any of the Veterans matches scheduled for 2018 please get in touch with our Assistant Match Secretary, Gerry Brookes.
If you enjoy team fishing and/or wish to take part in any of the individual matches at Stanley Pool in 2018 please get in touch with our new Match Secretary, Andy Bickley. Mr. Tony Burt, Match Secretary
