The anglers at Castleshaw tried some of these scare"crows" a couple of years ago. They didn't work and, yes, I did actually see a Cormorant perched on top of one!
1) There is no longer a close season for course fish in still waters in England.
2) Cormorants were in fact present on Rumworth until early May.
3) Only a small number of the angling club members target large carp, most are quite happy to catch anything that comes along.
4) You are correct in believing that anglers (or birdwatchers for that matter) "yomping around" would be a better deterrant than the wooden version, unfortunately they are only present for a vey small percentage of the time.
5) Fish do produce many thousands of fry each year which does replenish stocks, however these tiny fish take at least 3 years before they are large enough to be of interest to anglers.
6) Any better suggestions to discourage cormorants would be gratefully received.,Remember anglers and birdwatchers are on the same side, we all love nature and the outdoors and want to preserve wild places such as Rumworth.
Can't see this working myself. The "Scarecormorant" is more of a "Scaremanshapedobjectpointingagunwearingayellowhelmet" The fishermen yomping about will create more disturbance than this thing. Won't be long before there's a Cormorant perched on it!! Surely the fish stocks have time to recover during the summer? I think the close fishing season is March to June. No Cormorants around then. Haven't seen a Cormorant since Feb. Think the Cormorant thing is a bit of a cop out. I know they eat a lot of fish but the fishermen are after 20lb Carp, can't see a cormorant taking one of those.
Checked with the Royal Ashton AS. They have been told by the powers that be, that they must try "non lethal" methods of scaring away cormorants, so "scarecormorant" may be a better description than "scarecrow". Will it work? Only time will tell. Other suggestions include noisy bird scarers, klaxons etc. none of the ideas will do much to improve the birdwatching!!! The Angling club are getting desperate, membership is at an all time low and rightly or wrongly the cormorants are getting the blame for the deterioration in the fishing. Remember the number of cormorants was over 20 on many days last Spring, which was a large increase over previous years. I will try to keep this forum updated on future developments.
