I decided to sack club matches and have decided to concentrate on opens and Fish O matches.

To find decent opens I am regularly doing a 200 mile round trip to Tunnel Barn and back

Some of the Fisho’s I have been on have been a 300 mile round trip

Some journeys have been worth it, some haven’t but thats fishing

Average travling time for the venues I fish around Yorkshire is around 40mins. I’m happy doing upto 1hr any longer than say 1hr 15m than I’d sack it off, mainly due to cost of fuel though!

Some fo the fisho’s have been a 500 mile round trip for me,one of which i was on the reserve list, but you have to be in it to win it.

I regularly do in axcess of 100 miles each way to find a match bigger than a knock up, it seems that small matches are all the rage nowdays

For me it’s been 5,720 miles to fish last years Wye Festival flying back from Korea.

I have three fisho qualifiers left when I return to the UK next month, (I was supposed to have been back in early April), Willinghurst 2hrs/127 miles, Woodlands Thirsk 5hrs/286 miles and Lindholme 4 hrs/232 miles, (all distances each way, fortunately I visit my family in the North East for Thirsk).

In the winter I tend to fish the Wye more than any other venues and that is a 230 mile round trip. In the summer Viaduct is 50 mile round trip and Stafford Moor is 136 mile round trip.

I’ve got a national on the Trent this year so with bait bills, ticket fees, diesel, accomodation and everything else it’s going to be an expensive year so I’ll have to draw well to make sure I’m not out of pocket ~think

Next year I will be cutting my travelling down~sick

Dedication or obsession???

When I fished for my local top team in the 90s and early 00s, I would quite literally, travel anywhere, I remember one year we won our W/L and our semi final was on the Gloucester Canal, I live just outside Gt Yarmouth, so I had to travel from one side of the country to the other, for six consecutive weeks in the winter, I reckon I was eating the most expensive breakfast in Britain! Me and my Son would get up when it was dark, meet up with our team mates and go hell for leather across country, I would pay for 2 breakfasts, collect my bloodworm etc x 2 , drop Dan off on his peg, then go to my peg and then usually blank along with the majority, or in some cases the whole of my section!!! then drive home in the dark and collapse into bed……ah! those were the days!!!
We used to fish the Cambridgeshire W/L against Essex, Hot Rods, ABC etc, to even get near to competing with them we used to practice mid week as well as fish all the opens at weekends, I have always had to travel huge distances, when I look back, I wonder how the hell I managed to afford it! great memories…..but I would never go through it again, the cost of petrol is reason enough not to.

30-40 minutes each way is my closest option for a decent venue/match but i would say my average time in a season would be more like 80 minutes each way with some matches a lot further than this

Years ago i’d travel anywhere chasing matches but I just can’t be bothered anymore, maybe I’m just getting old.

I travel to Blthe and Makins which are about 45 miles from me,but I would never go any further. If there were any decent matches close to Derby I’d fish there instead.( i’d probably still go to Makins.

size of matches is irrelevant to me, 20 pegs or 100, whatever, I just want to go fishing.

Anyway, with the price of fuel going the way it is, I might have to cut down on some of the travelling I do now.

Regularly spend over an hour getting to venues, thats without getting lost ~think

It is expensive and the ride home is boring, need metal at full blast to keep awake.

The alternative is fish one or two local venues that I hate ~naughty ~naughty ~naughty

Average drive for most venues I fish is 1hour and 45 minutes, but this depends on where you live compared to the venues you want to fish

Your right there Tafty

You are getting old ~shh

you should all move to the midlands rivers canals commies all within easy travelling