It’s getting ‘Otter. Or fish keepers beware!

No I'm not talking about global warming, but just a response to something I read tonight. Reading an article on the Narrowboatworld site about “Otters back on the Soar” got me thinking about one of my other interests that most folk are not aware of and some may find of some interest, perhaps. The article read “For the first time in around 30 years, an otter has been seen on the River Soar near Leicester.” Adrian Lane, senior riverside officer, remarked “their return is excellent news for the waterway. This has been the most positive news we’ve had. It’s fantastic to have them back. They are beautiful creatures and it will be great when the population is such that people can regularly see them again. However Otters are veracious fish eating mammals, and are certainly not welcome by anglers.” My comment is that they are not liked by fish keepers either, so I say anyone living on the Soar valley with a garden pond or pool with any type of fish in it, beware for they will find them and eat them and keep returning until your pool is empty.

Ok. Enough said. From this you have probably guessed my other interest- it is that of keeping water! I have three pools in my garden all of which are filled with water. The smallest (1000gals) is only a wild life pool and as well as plants contains newts and frogs, the largest pool is an ornamental pool (14,000 gals) contains a mixture of Goldfish Golden and Blue Orf, Grass Carp and Ghost Koi as well as a wide variety of lilies and aquatic plants,but in one of them (10,000gals), I ‘keep’ water in which there is a collection of Nishikigoi or as most people incorrectly call them Koi Carp (being as the Japanese word Koi means ‘Carp and so what people are saying is Carp Carp!) Over the years I have found that the fish tend to ‘keep’ themselves. Last year we had an Otter visit the pools several times over a period of several weeks taking about six of my largest Koi (all over 24” in length) and several of the smaller ones (12”-16” fish) and I don’t even know how many goldfish etc. he took.

To give you some idea of scale and size, the ‘brown’ fish in the centre of this picture is about 28” long and weighs about 18-20lbs. (it is not actually a Koi but a Ghost Koi which is a cross between a Koi and a common type carp)

This was some of the smaller fish that the otter ate, when they were purchased as 4” fish

My Koi are what keeps me sane, when I cant go boating, I just sit by the pool watching the Koi for ten minutes and all the stresses of the day disappear, they are so peaceful and restful.

Blossom.