In reply to Post #35
Allegedly, my mate did pi$$ in his kettle once, many moons ago

Since when did having an absolutely disgusting, black stained tea cup on the bank become some sort of weird badge of honour?

"Look how badass I am and how much tea I've drank!"
translation...
"My mummy doesn't come with me to do my washing up. You should see the state of my botty"!

You know who you are! You're animals!

Yeah, we felt the same way unfortunately.

In reply to Post #3
I left a voicemail so no idea if they'll action or not,

Just a heads up to anyone thinking of fishing Burghfield Gold Lake.

They do mention crayfish briefly on the website, and that they are dealing with them, but I thought people should know the extent.

We fished the lake about 4/5 years ago (2019?) and there were no signs nor mention of crayfish.

This time round, November 2024, the number of crayfish was staggering. I have fished other lakes with crays, both in UK and Europe, but I've never seen anything like this.

The margins were actually pink, and when you looked closely, it was tiny baby cray larvae. Tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of them.

As you walked around the path, you would crunch under foot. It was dead crayfish! BIG dead crayfish. Up to about 20cm long.

If you looked into the margins you would be guaranteed to see at least 3-4 big crayfish crawling or just mooching.

At night, they were crawling out of the lake. I read online that this could be due to overpopulation and/or a lack of oxygen in the water.

My mate found two in his bivvy and was constantly having to kick them away! Like something from a horror movie!

There are a few crayfish traps in the lake - maybe 5 - but this won't even touch the sides.

Admittedly (and amazingly), the crays did not cause any problems with the fishing, but we did wonder if there was something else going on as the fish all seemed very unhappy at the time too. An oxygen crash perhaps.

Anyway, I'm not trying to slag the place off, but just be informative. It was definitely a surprise to us.

In reply to Post #28
Yeah we fished it (Gold Lake) about 4 years ago, just before Covid and there were no crays then. This time, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands and they were clearly breeding well.

There were about 5 crayfish traps that won't even touch the sides!

I haven't posted here in YEARS but came online to see if anyone was discussing this issue.

We just returned from a dreadful trip at Burghfield Gold Lake. A very heavily tree-lined lake with some decent fish.

From the outset, we could see the fish. There were 12 almost permanently jostling for pole position to get their faces into the water inlet pipe. We're talking mid 30s here. They looked very unhappy.

Throughout the days we would see lots of fish cruising very, very slowly just below the surface, sometimes mouthing for oxygen.

They was absolutely no interest in feeding. They did not look happy.

On top of that, the lake is absolutely overrun with crayfish. I've never seen anything like it. The margins were red with crayfish fry. And peer into the water and you would always see at least 5-6 really big ones (up to about 20cm). The reason I mention this is that throughout the trip, the crays were walking out of the lake. You'd crunch them under foot. My mate had two crawl into his bivvy during the night. Never seen or heard anything of the sort!

When I looked into this phenomenon, apparently crays leave lakes if they're overcrowded (very likely here) and/or there is insufficient oxygen in the water.

All in all, points to a fairly big problem there and after reading these earlier posts, I'll give the management company a call to advise in case they weren't aware.

James

In reply to Post #4
Thanks for this. I joined Uxbridge Rovers. At least it gives me a few options whilst I search.

Circumstances dictate that I have moved from Essex to Pinner, Middlesex. The Colne Valley is next door but other than that I know nothing about venues around here.
Any suggestions? Syndicates preferred, but a couple of day tickets would be good too just to scratch that itch - it's been a while.
Thanks

Thanks all. Yes it's Angling Direct Chelmsford which is local to me.