Mrs Down's Diary March 18 2009

About three years ago, John restocked our big pond with carp. We already knew there were rudd and roach. The grass-eating carp went in to try to get rid of the pond weed which a friend had kindly introduced and which had almost totally fouled up the water.

Most of the rainbow trout John had put in for fly fishing had died and we were generally despondent about what fish we could keep.

After taking advice from relevant experts, he chose carp to deal with the problem of the weed. We then sat back and watched with amazement as the carp stirred up the mud on the bottom of the pond, creating such muddy conditions that the weed was unable to thrive and died. That was the good thing.

The bad thing was that the carp didn't stop grubbing up the bottom of the pond once the weed had gone. They kept at it so that the water never really cleared and was useless for restocking with rainbow trout.

By now, John also realised that the pond was seriously overstocked with rudd and roach. Throw in fish food or bread and the surface boiled and bubbled with fish. Plus it was the favourite takeaway venue for a large number of herons.

Part of the deal when John stocked the pond was that it would be a commercial enterprise. The supplier was keen to buy back the carp once they had grown. They would never reproduce in this pond, but that certainly never applied to the native rudd and roach. They have been having a fine old time in there and the dealer had expressed an interest in buying as many as he could net from us.

Over the last year, our supplier had been once or twice to keep an eye on how things were progressing and last week let John know he was ready to come and harvest some fish.

This is not quite as simple as it sounds. He has to get various licences and movement orders for the fish and could not come until all the necessary formalities were complete. And he needed to net so many fish to cover his costs/diesel/labour before we even reached the stage where we could be paid anything.

Astonishingly, the first catch out of the long net stretched across the water was the green picnic table that had blown in about three years ago.

I had totally forgotten about it and was delighted to see it back on land again. Once the net had been emptied for the first time, the two men stretched it out again across the pond and dragged the pond once more for another harvest.

I remembered how we had tried to clear the pond of the weed using a similar technique with a chain and two tractors some years ago. It had not been a success.

At the end of the day, there were enough fish to fill all the oxygenated tanks on the trailer. The carp especially surprised us. They have grown to quite a respectable size and the dealer was impressed with how well they had done. So everyone was happy.

There are still plenty of fish in the pond and the return will pay for restocking with rainbow fish and a profit to show the accountant.