THE big thaw proved relief at last for Oxfordshire’s fishermen as ice on the water of the county’s fishing lakes finally melted.

At Linear Fisheries, in Stanton Harcourt, its 11 lakes were closed for more than six weeks over the normally busy Christmas period, and only reopened last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, at Orchid Lakes, in Dorchester-on-Thames, the site was unusable from between mid-November until January with ice up to eight inches thick.

Linear’s head bailiff Roy Parsons said: “It caused chaos for us.

“We lost a lot of business over the Christmas week, which is normally very busy for us as people have time off work until early January. We’ve had weather like this before, but not over the Christmas period, it’s usually into February when the lakes freeze.”

Marsh Pratley, owner of Orchid Lakes, said takings were down 15 per cent. He said: “I’ve never known the winter to come this early. You expect it in January and February but we’ve been closed since mid-November.”