Guidance

Biosecurity guidance for angling waters

Updated 16 April 2025

Applies to England and Wales

There are many ways that diseases or invasive species can enter your fishery, but they can be controlled through the implementation of good fishery management and adequate biosecurity measures.

Biosecurity measures are the steps you can take to reduce diseases or undesired species entering your site. Fishery managers have a range of measures available to reduce these risks. These include:

• Source stock from approved and health checked sources.

• Where possible, limit access and egress for anglers.

• Provide angling equipment for sole use on the site wherever possible e.g. unhooking mats, landing and keep nets, weigh slings, in preference to personal equipment being brought on to site.  This is the most preferred measure as removes risk of any transference of disease or invasive species.

• Set up and maintain equipment disinfection stations in key locations for use on and off site.

• Where disinfection is not possible and a “dry net” policy is used, this should be based on that equipment is clean and dry before bringing onto site (if possible, confirmation of arrival at a site) and will be cleaned and dried by the individual after use.

• Ensure visitors to a site are aware of the measures that are employed onsite (even if minimal measures applied)

1. Why disinfect

As a fishery manager, it is important that you protect your business and comply with the conditions of fishery registration.

It’s proven that diseases and non-native species can be spread by angling equipment. These have a negative impact on your fishery and lead to reduced growth and condition, increased mortality, poor recruitment, and less productive fishing.  Many fisheries are connected to the wider environment and so impacts may not be limited to a specific water/fishery.

By implementing adequate biosecurity measures you will reduce the risk of introducing diseases through contaminated angling equipment. This is vital, as once a disease gets into your fishery it can be hard or even impossible to remove.

2. What to disinfect

It is not practical to disinfect every bit of angling equipment. Best practice is to thoroughly disinfect high risk equipment that comes into direct contact with fish or water and ensure items such as fishing reels have thoroughly dried. High-risk items include:

• landing nets
• unhooking mats
• boots/waders (and the bags they may be held in)
• weigh slings
• ‘stink bags’ or similar holdalls/bags

3. Locating disinfection stations

Location is extremely important as a net dip needs to be located in convenient locations to ensure usage and also ability to be policed if possible.  Areas where people may load/unload their equipment, best practice areas include car parks and entrances and exits to waters.

Each station should have a sign encouraging anglers to use them on and off the site, along with directions on how to use them correctly.

4. Creating your disinfectant stations

Any container can be used to as a net dip but ideally should be made of inert material such as plastic as many disinfectants are corrosive. They should have a lid or cover to prevent the disinfectant degrading through direct sunlight, dirt, rainfall, and evaporation. Use a lighter coloured container to reduce evaporation during warm periods.  Heat can also degrade disinfectant solutions and so, position in shaded areas but importantly is still in a prominent position.

The size of your disinfection containers depends on the type and size of your fishery:

• match and commercial waters – use containers large enough for numerous keep nets to be fully immersed during busy times and not lose too much solution when equipment is removed

• lightly fished waters – use a smaller container that is large enough to immerse equipment such as landing nets, unhooking mats, and weigh/retention slings

A common practice is to install rinse stations as well as disinfection.  Rinse stations should not be used as they only reduce contact time with the disinfectant.  The very small amount of residual disinfectant on a net, mat etc will not pose any risk to a water.

5. Maintaining disinfectant stations

Disinfectant dips need to be maintained in order to be effective, poorly maintained disinfectant solutions can be a source for transmission for disease, studies undertaken have demonstrated this.  Disinfectants deteriorate differently over time depending on their type, environmental factors, and how often they are used.

If there is a build-up of detritus within the dip, this will reduce the effectiveness of the disinfectant and how long it will last.

On well-fished waters it is recommended maintenance is done regularly, potentially every few days replacing all the solution for a fresh solution.  Also, usage should be considered, tailoring maintenance in favour of busy periods of use i.e., before a match or weekend.

6. Alternate facilities

Some fisheries may also have washdown facilities in place to prevent the spread of disease and primarily invasive species introduction.

These should be used whenever present.

There are several types of disinfectants available for a fishery owner to purchase and use, the key is using the right disinfectant for the circumstance - see guidance on Biosecurity - Measures.