Just to offer an alternative - Farmoor is a pumped storage res which abstracts water from the Thames which runs alongside. Theoretically, the only way in for pike is to be sucked in from the river as and egg, fry or small fish. As such you would expect this to occur reletively infrequently?? So the total population of pike would be expected to be quite low in what is quite a big lake. This holds true if you assume that recruitment from spawning in the lake is going to be low due to the absence of any extensive suitably shallow area's, although there is plenty of weed. So what would you expect of the pike population of Farmoor? To be generally low and also to be composed of a variety of ages and, therefore, sizes assuming accidental abstraction of fish occurs at a roughly constant rate. So, you might expect a few fish, and a few of them will have been in there for a long time and will have grown big. As for markings, I would not expect a Farmoor fish to look much like a Chew or a Rutland or Grafham fish mainly because as a concrete bowl is not subject to as much suspension of silt/solids as a more natural banked lake would be. As a result, the water being generally clearer and the darker/more pronounced the markings.
Lastly, if the theory that this fish had been produced for the cameras etc in response to poor catches in the trials - how many lakes do you know where you can just turn up and net a thirty out at will, then drive round to the res to have its picture taken. Thirty pound pike are rare.
It could just be an old fish with wear and tear that got sucked into Farmoor a good few years back. Just a thought, don't shoot me down in flames please.
|
Linear Mode
