The Changes at Newbarn Farm
In 2007 plans were made to make the Fishing in Devon a
much more enjoyable experience, where fisherman and
guest could have more of a choice, a comfortable stay
and more, expanding the whole vision to selfcatering
cottages and fishing.
We know that the fishing fraternity are predominantly
male, but like most warm blooded males there is a
partner and maybe children, who may not want to fish. I
now it’s hard to believe! But there are some who don’t
want to fish.
We decided you should all have a great time, fishing is
not mandatory. We are coming to the end of a massive
refurbishment program and have to say that all the
regulars, fisherman and guests, think the changes are
great. Incidentally, thank you to all those who keep
coming and telling us that it gets better every time
they visit and all your Self Catering Cottages and
Fishing suggestions are gratefully received.
So come fishing in Devon
on a Devon fishing holiday, stay at our holiday cottages
and fishing for fun, enjoy Devon self catering cottages
and fishing experience extraordinaire on a fantastic
fishing holiday Devon
To the fishing devotees we have made many improvements.
But first a little history on why we fish
Coarse fishing was determined, long ago, in the 19th
century, by the noble classes. Trout and Salmon were
classed as game fish as they were deigned to be more
tasty, whilst all the others were classed as coarse,
possibly because “they” decided the coarse fishing
species to be less palatable.
The history of recreational fishing can be traced back
to the 15th century, where rules were laid
down by the gentry on hawking, hunting and fishing, with
a view to preventing the lower classes from
participating. Fortunately the sport is much less class
driven now, although there are particular parts of the
sport which are more accessible to some, than others,
whether this be due to class or money.
Have a look at “A treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle”
at
http://www.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/berners/berners.html
I think this is an amazing piece of history and a prime
example of kids spelling if you don’t send them to
school, or maybe, nowadays if you do send them to
school.
Obviously the mechanics of the sport came from the need
to fish for food originally, but blossomed into a sport
in the 16th and 17th centuries, to
keep the idle rich from getting too bored. Have a look
at
Izaak Walton's
The Compleat Angler,
or Contemplative Man's Recreation in
1653. This book is probably the first to describe the
beauty of fishing for fishing’s sake
More than 300 editions of The Compleat Angler have been
published, which makes it one of the most frequently
reprinted books in English literature. Read it, although
it isn’t an easy read nowadays, but you can extract all
those things that attract us to fishing. You can almost
imagine Izaak, on the bank, rod in one hand and biro in
the other, “ah history”
Angling was the title given to the method of fishing by
using an "angle" the angle being the hook, something
bent to or natural forming an angle.
Why Population Control ?
There are many different species of fish that can be
caught by coarse fishing. At Newbarn Farm, some of the
fishing fun is the interaction between the different
species of fish, especially when you are a specimen
angler. If you want to catch a 16 lb Perch, there is
nothing more annoying than pulling out 20 lb plus Carp,
I don’t know you can’t please some fishermen.
Who coined the phrase “why more is less” must have been
a politician telling us how lucky we are. In fishing
terms it means you reach a fish density where more fish
in the lake, will mean you will catch less fish. I know!
how can that be? It’s like this, more fish, cramped
conditions, lower water quality and the result stressed
fish. Fishing can sometimes stress the fish anyway, so
it is important to keep the fish in as an unstressed
environmental as possible.
Then there is the fisherman. Do you know that we object
to go fishing for Carp and the Roach keep pinching the
hook bait, get attracted by the ground bait and
generally become a nuisance?
Whilst it is great and indeed healthy for the fish to
spawn and young healthy fish added to the general
fishing population, it is also just as healthy to
control the numbers of fish confined to finite body of
water. This is less important if you are talking about
rivers, streams or larger bodies of water where a
greater throughput of fresh, and I emphasize fresh or
pure or probably better described as non contaminating,
water.
Flora & Fauna, that well known gardening duo
Less important, but still important. If you don’t
control the flora and fauna, these will have a massive
impact on the water conditions.
Whilst the fishing is the main feature, the main purpose
of the lake or body of water, it is more than that. If
not you could argue that a tiny swimming pool with the
world record fish would then suffice, or course it won’t
and would certainly not last for long for the health of
the fish.
An ambience needs to be created for the fishing
experience. Most discerning anglers need great
surroundings, great fishing and a great catch. Different
levels of each to each anglers taste.
The ambience is greatly enhanced by the surrounding
visage, which is made up partly from the flora and
fauna. Well maintained planting will enhance a visit to
a lake for the angler and wildlife. Some anglers resent
the intrusion of wildlife, but the discerning angler has
a more success against adversity view on their fishing.
Thunderstorm, force gale winds, dive bombing crane,
forgot the favourite reel and caught your personal best,
“how good is that!”
But remember, planting also prevents bank side erosion
and deters wildfowl, such as geese, from gaining access.
That’s fine if you want to prevent wildfowl, but
inefficient unless you encourage planting at the swims,
which is undesirable.
When plants have been lost from lake banks the soil will
become hard and compacted and areas of erosion can
undermine paths and leave tree roots exposed. Bare and
eroded banks are visually uninspiring and certainly not
the sort of environment to inspire the angler.
Marginal plant life is as important as bank side plant
life for the enjoyment of the angler and wild life. And
fishing on the margin is a favourite fishing phrase.
Margin fishing has a slightly different meaning to each angler, look it
up and you will get a definition of An edge and the
area immediately adjacent to it; a border. That is
as good as you need.
Or margin fishing is dropping the baited rig within a rod length of the
bank, that is the bank you’re standing on. Casting to a
distant margin is still the margin, but isn’t always
what is meant.
The margins on any lake are the largest feature. You
have the bank, stretching all around the perimeter and
then you have the banks of any islands, stretching
around the islands. They all offer a place where food
can accumulate either by wind action or water movement.
Food will always end up at the margins, unless it is
eaten first of course, again by wind action or water
movement. Or be thrown in the margins, aquatic and
semi-aquatic life will often lay eggs, hatch larvae or
nest in the vegetation lined area of a lake.
It is a safe place, a place protected by cover and
vegetation, a good place to live and therefore to fish.
It is not as spectacular as, perfecting the 13 mile cast
into deep water, don’t forget that most Carp lakes don’t
exceed 1.5 metres or 5 foot. Whilst you are perfecting
this 13 mile cast, don’t forget that Carp are quite
drawn to safe places.
Pleasure anglers by definition, fish for pleasure, they
aren’t interested in the 13 mile cast, “I can’t do
one anyway” would much rather see the action under
their noses and can easily ground bait accurately, Fish
might not know this, by they certainly know that this is
where the majority of food can be found.
How often have you seen walkers, children etc feed the
ducks at the edge of a lake / pond? It stands to reason
that any food thrown into a lake, any left over will
also attract and be eaten by the fish, all species. It
is all the more true when large amounts of water are
entering the lakes, carrying flotsam and jetsam, those
well known fish aperitifs
As we said before, the margins of lakes are a good place
to live, they often have overhangs & covering
vegetation. Overhangs can on occasions stretch back
several feet under the bank side, due to water erosion,
these are safe places to live and hang out. If you can
drop the favourite delicacy into these places, when the
fish are feeding, you are guaranteed to get a bite.
Don’t forget, if you can drop a favourite delicacy over
a fish when it’s biting you will always get a bite, but
where’s the sport in that, I wish. But the margin can
often be a great place to fish.
Why Netting ?
When netting and thinning out stock it is important to
remember certain things. Species, such as roach and
bream, reach sexual maturity at an early age. Allowing
the chance to crop these on a yearly basis whilst
leaving the juveniles to grow on for a later date. 2+
year classes are ideal to crop as they will always be in
demand hence they will hold their value. Fast growing
species, such as roach, rudd, perch, bream and carp, are
suited to yearly cropping. Higher value species, namely
tench and crucian carp, will rarely accept annual
cropping as their growth rates are much slower; often
they are cropped every three years.
There are a great many good reasons to netting and
sorting our fish numbers. High density fish numbers
increase the stress on the fish, increased stress means
increased susceptibility to diseases. Stress can be
caused by other things such as water chemistry,
pollution, metabolic rate (chemical causes); handling,
transporting, stocking, treating, (procedural causes);
temperature, light, sound, low dissolved oxygen
(physical causes); diet, fright (biological causes).
Another good reason to net the lake and destock is to
prevent deoxygenation problems in the summer months.
Obviously the more fish per square metre will cause
problems with oxygen and increasing ammonia due to waste
products To resolve this problem netting and removal of
the excess relieves pressure to allow excellent angling
throughout the year.
Reducing the density invariably leads to increased
growth rates with a massive improvement in general fish
health
Where we started
To start with there was originally a mix of fish in
every one of our pools, some of the huts were showing
signs of disrepair, some places were impassable and
things needed to be sorted out!
If you want the fishing experience to be great, you have
to provide easy access to the lakes, there are some
devotees of stalking who may disagree with this, but in
the main anglers want to fish in relative comfort, catch
fish without breaking their necks.
Ground workers were employed, a professional netting
team were called to net the lakes and of course the hard
working team at Newbarn Farm had a hand in things, just
the one hand of course.
After long days, battles with bad weather and the odd
discussion here and there, because we are well versed in
odd discussions, it was well into June 2008 and many
changes had happened.
Mirror Lake
Mirror, our main pool, was netted by a team of
professional netters from the Midlands. A head of 10,000
Roach had been placed into Mirror pool on top of the
Carp that were already in there and it was decided that
they had to come out. The carp anglers were constantly
plagued by the Roach, not being able to hold a bed of
ground bait long enough for the Carp to find the hook
bait as the attracting ground bait would be hoovered up
by the Roach.
Not a problem if you want to fish for Roach and indeed
Newbarn has been voted in the top ten in the UK for
Roach fishing, have a look at the article, “fishing for
the elusive roach” in the fishing section of this site.
But if your trying for Carp they can be off putting,
some do say that you just have to be a craftier
fisherman, but then a lot don’t.
The other reason for removing the Roach was to create
more room for the Carp so they could increase in size
and that has happened. The average Mirror Carp is 14lb
8oz and the average Common Carp is 13lb 8oz, we are
finding that more 20lb + are coming out of Mirror with
one gentleman catching a personal best of 19lb then
followed it with a 22lb and then a 22lb 8oz Mirror Carp.
We have also noticed that the quality of fishing has
improved dramatically.
We have added new huts to Mirror making the fishing more
comfortable for the angler. Pathways have been made more
accessible for the less able and people using trolleys
to carry there gear to the swims and finally channels
have been dug out behind the huts so that people can
walk around the lake without disturbing other anglers.
OK well that’s Mirror and Carp, but what about the other
species, there is a lot more to fishing than just
Carp.
Willow Pool
Willow has been made our match lake an idea that has
proved to be a good one and has had great comments along
with the applause for the stunning holiday cottages and
fishing generally. Devon
fishing holidays just got much better.
It really has become a great match Lake
! Doing really well and liked very much by Newton Abbot
AC and 3 Elms Clubs (X2). From the March 2008 netting
approximately 8000 - 9000 Silver fish have been put in
from the Mirror netting, it’s now going from strength to
strength.
It has been widened around the banks so people with
match poles could fish 90 % of the lake, also the lake
has become more accessable with better, safer and
drained pathways and more parking. Absolutely fabulous
fishing holidays in Devon
Now we are seeing matches where people are catching
total bags of 200 lb plus and with one gentleman having
two good day sessions with one day bagging a weight of
103 lb 6oz and the second day catching a bag of 52 lb.
we are also seeing regular bags of 40lb bags of silver
fish.
So all in all the netting has been an enormous success
for all the lakes and species, allowing the fish to
stretch out, increase in size and improved well being.
Island Pool
This has some excellent specimen Perch to 5lbs. A few
thriving and breeding Barbel, normally a fast running
river fish to about 4lb, but they seem to be enjoying
Island, there are possibly quite a few, we couldn’t net
everything, we don't know yet.
Lots of Roach and Rudd and Carp to about 9lbs. Don’t
forget Newbarn Farm was voted 10th in the UK for
specimen Roach fishing, that hasn't changed.
A few small tench as well.
So come fishing in Devon
on a Devon fishing holiday, stay at our holiday cottages
and fishing for fun, enjoy Devon self catering cottages
and fishing experience extraordinaire on a fantastic
fishing holiday Devon
Big Catch
