22/08/2026
**Important Notice**
As many of you are aware we closed the fishery 2 weeks ago due to fish loss, and in the importance of transparency we wanted to update everyone on how things have progressed over the 2 weeks.
On the 8th of August we found 2 dead carp floating in Oak Lake and removed them and on the 9th of August we found a further 3 carp floating in the margins. At that point we realised we may have some kind of issue going on and the decision was made to close the fishery until we could determine what was causing the mortalities. We quickly determined the dissolved oxygen levels were quiet low and it appeared we had some kind of reduced O2 events in the preceeding days, probably due to a dense algal bloom, prolonged dry weather and interruptions in the electricity supply during the previous week, meaning the water pumps were on as much as they usually were, creating what can only be described as a perfect storm.
We immediately got the pumps back working and installed an extra pump to try and increase the O2 levels within the lake and continued to monitor fish mortalities and O2 levels over the next few days.
Over the next few days the oxygen levels started to get back to where they were the week previous but the fish mortality numbers continued to rise.
Almost a week after the incident started I managed to net a fish that was still alive to check it gills and found the fish was showing signs of KHV as well as sunken eyes, and immediately contacted the EA to let them know my concerns, they inturn contacted CEFAS and a visit was made by a Fish Health Inspector a few days later.
After meeting the inspector, talking through the timeline of events, showing photos of some of the fish, the species affected as well as him seeing the lakes for him self, he concluded that we had probably had a KHV outbreak. Without a recent dead fish to take take samples from he couldn't say so 100%, but given everything he had to go on it looked highly likely it was a KHV outbreak triggered by a recent oxygen crash. He also concluded that he was happy with everything we did by getting the pumps back working properly straight away, closing the fishery on day 2 of the event and contacting the relevant authorities immediately we thought it maybe more than just an O2 crash event.
It has been such a tough couple of weeks watching around 50% of our larger carp floating on the surface but thankfully half appeared to have survived the event and with no further deaths in the last 4 days it appears as though it's finally over.
We wanted to be open and transparent with everyone so that you can make your own judgement on when to visit the fishery again, once we open.
We are looking at opening the fishery to everyone from Wednesday 26th August and would like to thank everyone for there patience during this recent closure!
PS, we would also like to remind everyone to use the net dips located near the entrance gates at either end of the fishery.
