Beautiful sunset at Heatherton this evening!

Mike Coles with an absolute banger @ 16lb

We continued our improvement efforts at Heatherton Pond today in the form of a new peg front. You may have noticed that we suffer greatly at the hands of bank erosion and we’re gradually tackling it in a few different ways; peg fronting, marginal Reed planting and the introduction of coir rolls. The 2 pegs that have so far been fronted will be ready for top dressing as soon as we see a little warmer weather to help dry out the muddy surface. We’ll be using ballast and a thin layer of stone. With drainage, bank erosion and natural aesthetics in mind, this is what we came up with.

The Heatherton dog rescue team at it again. Please people, use common sense. Keep your dogs on a lead around Icy water!

This weather certainly separates the men from the boys. Plenty of ice free water to go at at Heatherton if anyone is brave enough?

Another Sunday, another work party. The Heatherton team have been at it again. This week we continued our efforts on the island. Clearing years of overgrown trees and the thickest bramble you’ve ever seen. There are multiple reasons for doing this. To remove habitat for potential predators. To allow for a greater flow of oxygen through the lake. The allow for better bird nesting. Maintainability.

For near on 4 years the Earl of Harrington’s angling club have been campaigning for dedicated car parking for Heatherton Pond. We managed to obtain the funding around 3 months ago. This week we were finally granted planning permission via Derby City Council. Construction will begin imminently. This is a major step towards our wider fishery plan for HP. This year is going to be massive for the pond.

It is regrettable that we must inform our members that Heatherton Pond has been subject to an Otter “attack”. Over a period of 1 and a half weeks starting on Sunday January 13th we have lost 6 of our beloved carp with a weight of circa 8 - 14lb. We also lost at least 3 adult water fowl. From our recent netting we have been able to get a fuller picture of the damage caused. We have one fish that has major otter damage and a very small handful that have minor tail fin damage, all of the damaged fish are still swimming strongly. The very high majority of stock remain untouched and in absolute pristine condition. As many will be aware, the UK Native Otter is a European protected species ( EPS ) and is also fully protected under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. You're breaking the law if you: capture, kill, disturb or injure otters (on purpose or by not taking enough care). This very much left the Heatherton and wider Earl of Harrington teams with tied hands. The only options we had available were to survey and deter. We were quick to find the route in and out of the Pond said Otter was taking. It didn’t take long to find very distinguishable paw prints along the brook that runs parallel with the pond. Within a day or two we had setup motion detecting cameras, within a short period of time we had captured the Otter entering the pond in the early hours of the morning. We were also quick to clear the thick growth on the Island which the Otter was using to eat it’s catch. Heatherton was the last place we expected to see an Otter given the distance from the nearest river but it has happened. We are truly devastated. This isn’t anybody’s livelihood per se but thousands of volunteer hours have gone into HP and it’s stock, this is our passion and our love. In some cases, lives revolve around Heatherton Pond. To say that the lakes management team were hit hard is an understatement. The timing could not of been worse, for the past 12 months+ the Heatherton team had been planning to thin out the Biomass with the purpose of growing on large fish. We had already made steps towards this goal with our first netting survey. We had already agreed as a committee and a team that the moving of 35 fish was what was needed to realise this plan. This threw a huge spanner in the works and made us re-evaluate the situation. First and foremost, it was decided that not a single fish would be removed until we were confident that the Otter was no longer visiting Heatherton Pond. Eventually the killings stopped and there were no sights to be found on the cameras that had been setup. After a lot of consultation, we opted to lower this number to 22 - well in excess of the 6 carcasses that have been found. To put this in perspective, our fishery management consultant had advised us to remove 50% of our stock (100 fish) to grow on large carp advising this should not have an adverse effect on the number of fish put on the bank. It is very unlikely that an otter will ever take up residence in the area due to people and dogs and the visit is very likely to be an otter travelling further away from its natural habitat to find food, very likely due to high winter river conditions on the Trent at the time. As such, a visit is likely to be on a very infrequent basis. Moving forward, we are in talks with Derby City Council on whether an otter fence is going to be possible, if we get permission, it will go up - no question. However, being a city park area, we’re unsure at this stage whether this is a feasible option. This leads onto the current legal and legislative position we find ourselves in as a fishery management team; in regards to the European Otter, the fact of the matter is humans have caused this problem that fisheries all over the UK are currently facing, Humans need to fix it. The current legal stance is simply unfair. We implore you to look up the Predation Action Group (formerly spearheaded by Tim Paisley), support their movement and get involved. Our community needs to get together to make change.

It is with great pleasure I can today inform our members that there has been a "thinning out" of the biomass at Heatherton Pond. As you will recall we performed a netting survey of Heatherton Pond in October of 2017. From this we were able to have a selection of fish Health tested. In turn, this gave us the ability to obtain consent from the EA to move fish. Today, we have again netted HP and have removed 22 fish with an average weight of 10lb. These fish have been distributed between Alvaston Park Lake and Markeaton Park Lake. As you will know our strain of fish are excellent and it's brilliant to be able to share this with our other park lake counterparts. In total, including the fish that went for Health testing we estimate that we have removed around 300lbs worth of fish. The purpose of this is to allow for larger residents to continue growing with a larger amount of water per fish as-well as feed. Heatherton Pond is a carp water through and through and our aim is to grow large fish. Our mission is to hold the biggest day ticket carp in Derby. The dedicated Heatherton Pond team will not stop until our mission is successful. Thank you for your continued support.

Heatherton Pond will be closed to anglers from 6pm this coming Friday evening for a 24 hour period due to essential lake maintenance.

It is with a very saddened and heavy heart we feel it necessary to let you know of a tragic incident which occurred at approximately 8pm on 6th February 2018. One of our club bailiffs, conducting his usual rounds at Heatherton Pond unfortunately came across the body of an elderly lady. Said bailiff immediately contacted the police who were on scene quickly. Club committee members and bailiffs were onsite to aid the police where possible in terms of access and general information on the lake and surrounding area. We were later informed that the lady was a local resident and was reported missing that evening. There are no suspicious circumstances around the discovery as far as we are aware. We sincerely hope the angling community will rally round to pay the respect that is due and keep the family of the poor lady in their thoughts and prayers. The Earl of Harrington’s AC have no further information and will not be commenting further on the situation.