Kilnsey Park fishing lakes have never looked like this…
Well, not since they were first dug out in the 1970s.
Since we began our desilting project in mid December, what is normally a quiet time of year at Kilnsey has become a hive of activity, with pumping, scraping, shovelling and dumping taking place across the site.
The first major challenge was draining the main lake, something that has never been done before. After cutting off the four inlets, we quickly realised that our 2 inch pump was barely touching the estimated 5.3 million gallons of water. A 3 inch pump followed, before we finally called in the big guns with an 8 inch pump, which still took two full days to drain the lake to little more than a puddle.
Once the water was out, the heavy machinery arrived, including a 9 tonne excavator, two dumper trucks, and – the star of the show – a 20 tonne long arm excavator. Brad, who joined us earlier this year, turned out to be an experienced digger operator and quickly took charge of the work.
The desilting project itself has been long and demanding and unavoidably messy. The material being removed, fifty years of rotted vegetation and fish waste, is more like brown porridge than solids. Each bucket contains almost as much water as silt, which is transported by dumper to a newly created lagoon in the neighbouring field, where it will settle before being moved again. This journey has already been made hundreds of times.
Draining the lake also allowed us to properly inspect the old pier, which has stood since the 1980s. Its condition was far worse than expected, with some supports held together by little more than moss. After much thought, we made the difficult decision to dismantle and remove it, whilst remembering its many uses over the past four decades, including to hold fish farm pens and as a public fish feeding area.
We had hoped for a cold, dry winter to carry out the works, but instead persistent and sometimes torrential rain has left parts of Kilnsey resembling a muddy festival site. However with topsoil and grass seed the land will recover and return to normal in the spring.
We are now through the worst of the work. By early January, several thousand cubic metres of silt will have been removed. Then the clean-up will begin, as the water flows back in, the banks are restored, and pristine fish are restocked into a deeper, more varied lake that should be far less prone to weed growth.
Please note that both lakes and the family pond are currently closed. We plan to reopen in late January, with the exact date to be confirmed early in the New Year.
In the meantime, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and look forward to welcoming you back to the improved Kilnsey Park fishing lakes in the New Year.
The Fly Fishery Team
About author
