Quasquicentennial Celebrations
Raffle Night & Prize Giving
will be held at the Kay Park Bowling Club

on Friday the 14th November starting at 7.00pm prompt.

Free Entry with a buffet included
There will be £750 worth of raffle prizes including a free draw on entry.
All welcome.
Due to the Quasquicentennial Celebrations
The A.G.M . will now be held on
Thursday 20th November at the Kay Park Bowling Club starting at 7.00pm

__oOo__

KAC QUASQUICENTENNIAL (125 years)COMPETITION RESULTS

Craigendunton Reservoir, Sunday 10th August 2014

Adult Winner
Scott Malcom with 14 fish for a total weight of 39lbs 8oz

Junior Winner
Thomas Kelly (middle of picture) with 5 fish for a total weight of 15lbs

Adults heaviest fish winner
Scott Malcom weighing 4lbs

Junior heaviest fish winner
Callum Robertson weighing 3lbs 6oz

A Total of 81  fish were caught for 239lbs 15ozs, with everyone catching fish,so a great day for all even though it was a very wet day but good for fishing.

____oOo____

LOST and FOUND

Landing net found at Craigendunton Reservoir
after Quasquicentennial Competitionon Sunday 10th August
Anybody who lost a net at that time can respond through the KAC Webmaster reply service giving your name and contact details with a description of the lost net
If the description matches the one found we will arrange to get bit back to its owner

____oOo____

Special General Meeting:
Proposed changes to constitution

To all Kilmarnock Angling Club members, a Special General meeting will take place on the 22nd of June at the Kay Park Bowling Club 7.00pm sharp.

____oOo____

TO ALL ANGLERS FISHING CRAIGENDUNTON RESEVOIR.
SCOTTISH WATER INSPECTORS HAVE CONDEMNED THE BRIDGE OVER THE OVERFLOW.
A REPLACEMENT BRIDGE WILL BE IN PLACE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Competition Winner Sunday13th April 2014

Winner: Jamie Muir with 16 fish for 17lb

2nd Craig Corrolla: 3 fish for 3lbs 8oz

3rd Jim Logan :3 fish for 2lbs 9oz.

No tagged fish were caught.

____oOo____

STOCKED AND TAGGED FISH
FOR THE ADULT & JUNIOR RIVER COMPETITION ON
SUNDAY 13TH APRIL 2014

Stocking

      Hatchery to be called Dean Castle Hatchery.

____oOo____

KILMARNOCK ANGLING CLUB Pre Season Meeting and Prize Night

The Clubs Annual Prize giving and pre season meeting will be held at the Kay Park Bowling Club on Friday 7th March at 7.00pm.

There will be many raffle prizes to be won, including some specials items and everyone attending will receive a free raffle draw.

Entrance fee will be £2.00 for adults and £1.00 for juniors, which covers the food and refreshments supplied on the night.

Every year all KAC anglers should as a matter of course send in their catch returns to the vice president John Budge. Based on these returns there will be a draw for a free 2014 season ticket awarded to the winner who is present on the night

This is our Clubs’ 125 year anniversary and a good turnout would be appreciated.

____oOo____

Salmon fry hatched out at the new hatchery in Dean Castle Country Park

____oOo____

Annual General Meeting

The Club’s AGM was held on Thursday 14th November which was attended by 19 members - our thanks to those who did attend. Overall a poor turn out when you consider the 2013 Adult membership is 198. The Club will be 125 years old in 2014 and the main points agreed at the AGM for our Quasquicentennial Year were:-

The AGM was attended by Stuart Brabbs of the Ayrshire Rivers Trust who will be assisting in collecting brood stock for the RIAIA Hatchery during the closed season. Stuart also covered in detail if the River in future needs stocked with additional fish as there may well be a healthy natural stock of trout already in the River. This valid point needs to be discussed at the 2014 AGM and will not affect River stocking for our 2014 Quasquicentennial year.

____oOo____

CATCH RETURNS
We would also remind Members that their annual catch returns must be with our Vice President by the 30th November 2013 so as the mandatory returns are made to the Marine Scotland before early December. It should be noted that failure by the Club to submits its returns on time will attract a £1000 penalty

Visitors fishing permits available from the CVO

1. All Club Officials and Committee members re- elected as status quo
   
   
2. No change to ticket prices for 2014
   
   
3. Free tickets for the first 125 Junior members, with priority given to the 56 Juniors who were members in 2013. These 56 Juniors will receive their 2014 tickets by post before Christmas
   
   
4. Cancellation of all current competitions which will be replaced with 1 River and 1 Reservoir competition held during the year - see the 2014 ticket for details. The River and Loch will be stocked prior to these competitions and will include tagged fish which will attract a prize voucher if caught on the day. All winners will be awarded their vouchers / prizes and Cups at the Club’s AGM and Film Night in November 2014
   
   
5. Closure of Craigendunton Reservoir for 1 week to allow a good spread of fish  prior to the competition in August
   
   
6. In addition to the AGM and Prize Giving night in November 2014, the Clubs Pre Season Meeting – held at Kay Park Bowling Club on 7th March 2014,   will also be a Prize Giving and Film Night with raffle prizes and presentation of cups to the 2013 competition winners. This additional film night is all part of our special Quasquicentennial Year activities and it is hoped for a good turn out on both nights.
   
   
7. Attempts to be made during 2014 to clean up the River and bankings and names were submitted from the AGM attendees of members who wished to be involved in the clean ups. Any other members who wish to be involved should send their names and contact no’s to the Club via the web site. When organised the Club will post details on the web site of when and where the clean ups will take place
    
8. The Clubs is trying to “tick” the right boxes for our special year but we need your help to fill the boxes

This evening I received a call from Sam Hudson informing me that fish had been killed on the Fenwick Water in the area where we stocked the fish rescued from Kilmarnock Water in March. SEPA were called but unfortunately the duty officer was in East Kilbride and by the time he would have got there it would have been dark but he called me back and we spoke at length about the situation and assured me that the Ayr office will be on the case in the morning.

I met up with Sam Hudson and Sandy Logan from Kilmarnock AC and they showed me a pool where a large number of fish lay dead in the water. It is essential that fish aren’t removed to allow SEPA to extract the evidence themselves however I had been asked to look at the fish to assess the time of death if possible so we pick those in easy reach of the bank for a closer look (they were returned to the water immediately afterwards).

A selection of the fish that were found dead in just one pool

As we often see in such incidents, all the fishes mouths were wide open indicating that they may have been gasping for oxygen when they died. Their gills were very pale also suggesting the same thing.

Very pale gills indicate a lack of oxygen. This was a salmon parr probably stocked (under licence) by ourselves in March during the fish rescue in the town centre. What a shame

At least 3 fish can be seen dead in this picture taken as darkness fell

From the limited time I was on site I’m certain that there are a lot of fish dead in the burn. I know that the Ford Pool at Dean Castle gates has quite a few fish dead in the water. Depending on how much pollution entered the burn and the concentration, it could feasibly have killed fish as far downstream as the River Irvine. That could mean 10′s of thousands of fish are lost. I’ll investigate this more thoroughly tomorrow.

This isn’t the first fish kill in this area. Sam and Brian attended a similar event at this location about 6 years ago. It is important that we find the source and at very least educate those responsible. I will contact the Kilmarnock Standard in the morning in the hope that they will run a feature and raise awareness of the issue. I also hope that SEPA can trace the culprit(s) and collect sufficient evidence to take legal action against them. I’ll update this article if I get any more information.

UPDATE

I visited the river this morning and met with SEPA. We traced the upper limit of dead fish to the same area that a Consented Storm Overflow entered the river. CSO’s aren’t supposed to run continiously but this one had been for some time by the look of it. SEPA will request immediate action by Scottish Water to put this right. They have taken samples and requested their ecologists attend. We found some invertebrates dead but not many. It is likely  that whatever killed the fish has long since been washed downstream and diluted.

The most likely source of the pollution that killed the fish

I walked downstream to Townhead but the last fish I saw dead was at the Ford. Hopefully the impact of the pollution was very localised. I did find trout and salmon dead and the salmon most likely were there as a result of being relocated to a place of ‘safety’ from the town centre during our fish rescues, either in 2012 or earlier this year.

A dead salmon parr found near the CSO

We saw a heron in the water and I noticed that quite a few of the dead fish we saw last night were missing. I hope there aren’t any bird or mammal casualties following predation of these poisoned fish.