Angling Enterprises is owned and run by England International Sea Angler Mick Toomer.

Born into a fishing and shooting family Mick has been involved in all aspects of angling. He won his first major senior open match at the age of 13, and went on to represent England in the boat, beach, and big game fishing teams. These days Mick still represents England in the E.F.S.A Big Game team. His latest International appearance was in the 2008 E.F.S.A European Game Fishing Championships held in Mexico.

During his International angling career Mick has won two team World Champions Medals, and the individual World Champions medal in the Ski Boat Big Game Fishing World Championships.

With fishing in his blood Mick turned his hobby into a business. Angling journalism and photography were a start, followed by angling videos, lectures, TV appearances, consultancy, casting tuition, and tackle shops. From there Mick moved into Fishery Management, and since 1993 he has run Gloucester Park, Northlands Park and Lake Meadows.

THE END OF AN ERA

FISH REMOVED FROM THE PARK LAKES

• LEASE ENDS
• GLOUCESTER PARK, LAKE MEADOWS AND NORTHLANDS PARK NETTED

After almost sixteen years Basildon District Council has decided not to renew my lease on Gloucester Park, Lake Meadows and Northlands Park and I have received a letter instructing me to remove my fish. My offer to sell the fish to the Council was rejected and as a result I am removing my fish from all three lakes before my lease ends on March 31st 2009.

As you can imagine with more than ten tons of fish to net this is a pretty big exercise. However Quiet Sports Fishery Management who are buying most of my fish have been doing much of the work, and I’ve got my own netting gear to back them up when it’s necessary. We’ve already done most of the work at Lake Meadows and Northlands Park, with netting now underway at Gloucester Park.

We’ve had some tremendous hauls of fish. At Northlands Park our first sweep of the net covered less than half an acre but it produced over half a ton of tremendous bream weighing up to 5lbs each. Subsequent sweeps of the net produced a mountain of roach and bream, much to the delight of the Quiet Sports Team who had orders for them all. After eight days netting we had got most of the bigger fish, just leaving us with a days work to mop up any small fry we had missed. Good news for the clubs and fisheries receiving the fish, but sad for those who used to fish for them at Northlands Park.

The bream were smaller at Lake Meadows, but they made up for it in numbers. There were also plenty of roach. Four days netting saw the vast majority of them removed, with a final day to get the few smaller fish that had evaded us.

As regular visitors will know Gloucester Park held the majority of my fish. In February we spent a day there to take over a thousand pounds of carp, as well as a fair haul of roach and bream.

We didn’t go back to Gloucester Park until March 9th when a few small sweeps of the net produced more than six hundred pounds of mainly roach, bream and tench. Two days later we were back to take a similar haul. Today, (March 12th), we will be starting in earnest using the bigger nets, We will also be using electro netting gear to get the fish sheltering in the snaggy areas.

We are expecting some big hauls over the next week and wouldn’t be surprised to take approaching a ton of fish on some days. A week of concentrated effort will see the majority of my fish removed, leaving us with a further week or so for mopping up operations.

The Gloucester Park fish are of superb quality. Again good news for the waters receiving them, but a disaster for Gloucester Park and the anglers that fish there.

So how do I feel about leaving fisheries that have been a big part of my life for nearly sixteen years, and will I miss them?

On one hand I’ve certainly enjoyed the challenge of turning park lakes with dubious reputations into first class fisheries full of quality fish, and when you’ve spent sixteen years building up a fishery it’s sad to see the fish going and the heart torn out of it. It’s even worse when it’s three fisheries. In addition many of my regular customers are smashing people, and I’ll certainly miss them. Hopefully I will still bump into most of them from time to time.

But will I miss the fisheries? Strange as it might seem to somebody that has never run a fishery, but I doubt it. In fact I am looking forward to getting my life back after being totally committed to the lakes for more than fifteen years. It will be a novelty to be able to book a holiday in the summer months, and for the first time since 1992 I will not be working on Christmas day. Oh yes, even on Christmas day somebody has to keep an eye on things, and being the boss the buck has stopped here.

The truth is, even at the best of times, running a Public Authority day ticket fishery is a twenty four hour a day responsibility fraught with problems.

As anyone who keeps a koi pond will tell you, you don’t keep fish, you keep water. If the water quality is good the fish pretty well look after themselves. It’s the same with lakes, and water quality is the biggest problem that a Fishery Manager has.

During the time I have spent at Gloucester Park, Lake Meadows and Northlands Park keeping the fish alive has been increasingly difficult, mainly because all three lakes are silting up badly. The problem is especially severe at Northlands Park which takes the balancing water from the adjacent storm drain, and at Gloucester Park which is fed by a storm drain, making it one of the biggest silt traps you will ever come across.

Every year the silt level has increased, and correspondingly the water has decreased. The resulting algal blooms and low oxygen levels have been a nightmare which has got worse every year. Regular night anglers at Gloucester Park will be familiar with my compressors and aeration gear which I have to keep in place from early June to late October. With the parks open to the public this equipment needs guarding, and the oxygen levels need to be monitored through the night. Believe me it gets wearing trying to snatch an hours sleep in a Landrover before the alarm wakes you up to do another round of oxygen checks. When you’ve got simultaneous problems at two or more fisheries it gets really interesting as you spend all night towing a compressor back and forth doing the oxygen checks at all of the lakes.

It’s always tempting to ignore it for a night and get a proper nights sleep in your own bed. Do that and there’s the chance that the oxygen level will crash and you will be woken up by phone calls telling you the lake is coved in dead fish. Try sleeping with that on your mind, its easier to get up, drive to the lake and do the checks.

Why not just remove the silt you may ask? Well that’s the answer in an ideal world, but it’s also horrendously expensive. Every year for the past fifteen years I’ve discussed this with the council, but with no action taken the situation has got steadily worse.

A few years ago I got quotes from a professional de-silting company, and last year the Council paid for a consultants report. Everybody agrees there are serious problems, but understandably the Council has higher priorities for its finances. A staged programme started in 1993 when I first made the Council aware of the implications of doing nothing would have avoided the current situation.

In comparison with these water quality and dissolved oxygen problems all the other irritations associated with running a fishery fade into insignificance, but they still take up a lot of time.

When you’ve spent all evening keeping watch over suspected fish thieves and dealing with troublemakers, all night monitoring oxygen levels, and then the dawn period on cormorant patrol, the last thing you need is to start clearing up the rubbish left by irresponsible night anglers. However that’s the real world of municipal water day ticket fishery management. If that’s not enough there’s tickets to sell, bins to empty, swims to build, reeds to clear, trees to prune, banks to maintain, paperwork to deal with, etc, etc, etc.

Amazingly there are still anglers that think a Fishery Manager has an easy life, spending all day wandering along, rod over one shoulder, shotgun over the other, trusty canine enforcer at heel, and collecting a fortune in day ticket money for little or no effort. If only!

Having said that I still enjoyed it and I would have carried on given the opportunity to do so, but only on my terms. My proposal to the Council was dependant upon the Council installing aeration equipment at all three lakes, and commencing a comprehensive de-silting exercise. This would have been costly and given the current financial situation I am not surprised about the outcome.

But will I miss it – Not a chance!

THE FUTURE

There are lots of rumours that I have another fishery hidden away somewhere, I’m going to open another tackle shop, or that I’ve been headhunted to run one of the big commercial enterprises.

Well, no I haven’t got a secret fishery, and at the moment I’m not sure if I want the commitment of another fishery. Nor have I been approached to take over one of the big operations. It’s true that I have been approached by a couple of other fishery owners who desperately need to book a family holiday away from their water, but given the potential for problems have never dared to do so. I know all about that, and it looks like I will be spending a bit of time running a couple of well known fisheries while the owners spend a well deserved fortnight in the sun with their families. Even then I bet they will be on the phone every day just to check everything is ”OK”. I know I would have done!

For a number of reasons it might amuse me to open another tackle shop. For one thing a tackle shop midway between Gloucester Park and Northlands Park would keep me in touch with many of the anglers, and still let me get a decent nights sleep.

Apart from that I have nothing planned, but I am looking forward to taking it easy for a while, and being able to do everyday things that people in normal professions take for granted.

Things like the C.L.A Game Fair. I really enjoy this huge three day fishing and shooting event. Apart from anything else it’s a chance to meet up with friends from all over the country. You bump into people you haven’t seen for years.

The problem is it’s held in the summer, and because of the oxygen problems I haven’t been able to go for at least five years.

This year I can go to the game fair, to meet old friends, watch a few displays, pick up a bargain, have a beer in the beer tent, all with no worries about what’s happening back at the lakes – bliss!

That was the first thing I said to Ricky Cook, owner of Wickford Angling, when he phoned me after hearing my lakes lease hadn’t been renewed. His reply was “Great, I’ve got a big stand booked up there, you can come and work on it”. So much for my relaxing few days at the Game Fair!

So if you’re at the CLA Game Fair at Belvoir Castle on July 24th, 25th, or 26th come and find me on the Wickford Angling tackle stand in Fisherman’s Row.

I’ll see you there.

Mick