Saturday 29th June 4pm further update
The health check report highlights that the fish mortalities were caused by spawning failure due to erratic weather conditions with the carp being somewhat susceptible to this due to not being in the best of condition associated with high levels of stress.
These high levels of stress following spawning are more than likely due to the high stock level and angling pressure at Broadwater.
Saturday 29th June 8am update
Broadwater will be reopeing at midnight on Sunday 30th June for the new season.
We are delighted to be able to confirm that the fish mortalaties were not due to any fish diseases or significant water quality problems.
A futher update will be added to this report later today with further background information including a summary of the results of the health check.
Saturday 22nd June midday update
Since visit of the EA it has been decided to get a full health check on a sample of fish.
Following this visit aquatic Consultants have been contacted and it would seem that the mortalities over the past few months are possibly spawning related that could be directly connected to the unusual weather conditions that have prevailed since February. Therefore the aquatic Consultants will be collecting a sample of fish on 27th June for a full health check. Once the results are known then a decision will then made as regards opening the lake to angling and a further update will be posted.
Wednesday 19th June 2pm update
There havn't been any more fish deaths so far today and no large amounts of fish in distress. The fish that was particularly distressed was caught and removed from the lake. On inspection by the EA officer and ourselves the gills showed no signs of any disease. The fish had very badly deformed spine and hence had swimming difficulties.
The EA are providing a transit tank to transport live fish samples to the EA labs at Brampton if required. The lake will now be monitored for the coming days for further mortalities. Should no further deaths occur then the live sampling will be delayed.
Wednesday 19th June 8am
Since reopening the lake at 5pm on Saturday 15th June new fish mortalities have occurred.
On the evening of Tuesday 18th June in particular a number of carp were seen in distress.
Currently it is not known what is causing these problems which includes random ongoing mortalaties.
Therefore our Fisheries Management Secretary took the decision to close the lake to fishing again until further notice.
The EA will be visiting today Wednesday 19th June to take samples of live fish away for investigation.
We will update this news item as regularly as we can as and when we have any new information.