Yesterday we were very lucky. It was cold (very cold indeed initially) but dry, unlike today and probably most of the coming week. This was particularly important as we assembled another work-party at the Reservoir in order to apply the second annual treatment of Siltex (which is basically Chalk) .
We were very grateful to Andrew who had been able to borrow a perfectly suitable boat, and a transit van to get it there. We just had to transport it from the parking area to the reservoir, but that was made easier as the boat had wheels. The next little job was shifting 40 x 25kg bags to the reservoir. Luckily we had two wheelbarrows and several members needing to keep warm, and the combination worked well. After that, the bags needed to be decanted into buckets and rowed out to the next spot for distributing across the water, by Keith and later Nigel. Meanwhile the bankside water was being treated more directly by John and Paul.
As you can see from the picture we did actually pause at one point for the traditional Suasage Rolls, Coffee and Doughnuts, (and Talk) but we worked it all off again by lunchtime. Finally we spent a good spell trying to clean the chalk off all the equipment (a lot harder than you'd think) but everything was done so efficiently, that we were all away by about 1pm - much earlier than expected.
There were almost no rises while we were there, which was perhaps not surprising, but I'm sure the trout have shaken off their dandruff by now. It will be interesting to see what effect the treatment has on the weed, though it may still take a few more annual applications before we can see results.
Meanwhile you may be interested to know that we plumbed the centre of the reservoir and gauged it to be about 12 feet deep, assuming you can cast that far of course. Don't forget your Catch Return if you do go.
Thanks
PeterB
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