It still is for a lot of (probably most) people, just go to some club matches instead of opens on commercials.

Depends what your motives are i guess?I am not a good angler but i always try and do the best i can and i take getting any kind of result as a bonus to what should be just a day out doing something i enjoy.

I do not think so on the open circuit. Money is more tight and it seems a bit more serious know.
I had some right laughs but the days that great man Frank Barlow used to write about are gone .

Whatever happened to match fishing?

It got too serious and is no longer the working mans sport that’s what!

When I first started my local W/L had 12 teams of 12 (144 anglers fishing, with runners too!) and a waiting list of other teams trying to get in, including Trevs!

My team took it very serious and to start with never won the league, we would spend hours in meetings and practicing mid week etc, eventually we won the league and were very hard to beat, along the way we as individuals learned how to fish every method properly, we could go anywhere on any venue and compete with anyone, the collective view on a venue made sure we were doing it right, the “learning curve” was more of a vertical line into the stratosphere !

After a while other teams and anglers got fed up with the intense competition, and drifted away, in short, we were the cause of our local league/leagues folding, the very same thing happened all over the Country to just about every league ( bar the Dorking league) and one or two others.

The net result is thus;

For an angler to be successful now he has to learn on his own, competing against the top boys on unfamiliar venues, this takes a lot of money, time and effort with a great deal of talent, VERY FEW MAKE IT.

With a strong team of competent but ambitious anglers pulling together ANY venue can be sorted out in a week, sometimes less, on your own, it could take many months or even YEARS.

So now ,largely, anglers stay local and fish one or maybe two venues that “suit them”, they do not and cannot become good ,competent all round anglers that can go anywhere and win, the majority of anglers are one trick pony’s now, and most matches have become small,incestuous and sad affairs, with little appeal to the older generation, and non existent appeal to new blood coming into the sport.
Most new blood anglers go the specimen carp angler route for instant success and gratification, lets face it, if a bloke sits with a decent rig in a decent location on a decent lake for long enough ,sooner or later he will catch a large fish with very little skill or grounding required.

Whats happened to match angling?

We, me included, have screwed it up mate!

well said Bob – I couldn’t agree more.

I have to say that after club fishing for the past 5 years i have now turned my hand to open matches at a local commercial ( Candy Corner ) nr Wroot, Doncaster.

The atmosphere is very friendly, eceryone has the craic and the outcome is very relaxed, if you do well then great, if you dont you have still enjoyed the day!

I think it also depends on the venue / company imo.

IMO there are 2 variations to this: –

1. Open match fishing
2. Club match fishing

I have to say I agree with much written about open match fishing in many, albeit not all cases. Its got very serious, very specialist in terms of method and a damn sight more expensive to compete. Amazingly you also risk being deliberately fed bum info if your are not a regular at some places I’ve fished.(Have to say the better match anglers, once you suss who they are, tend to be spot on with their advice though, they know even if your on the right bait and tactics they are good enough to wupp you most of the time anyway)

Club fishing on the other hand, I believe has benefitted from what used to be open anglers looking for decent matches on decent venues with good craic!

I fish with 3 different clubs now to make sure I have a choice most weekends and not have to revert to opens. The club angler standards overall are better and the variety of venues mean you have a chance to, and need to be able to, fish pole, feeder and float…….and to be honest with 20-25 regular turnouts its more than fish a fair few opens these days and you still have a laugh and a beer after.

(tongue in cheek) So….match fishing generally has nothing wrong with it, you have more choice than ever and more venues than ever with more fish than ever, its each to his own….enjoy, as long as you like commercials!

Team, river and canal fishing now there’s a different thread!!!

isn’t that why this site is so popular with us over 50’s (old gits) lol.

on here we can talk about our great love – fishing, but still rib each other about our choice of tackle/methods, football even our choice of drink and music.

on here we can relive our selves as we use to be on matches.

still miss the coach taking us to the rivers and canals.~sick ~sick ~sick ~sick

Sorry Gareth you must be fishing the wrong matches!! All the matches I fish are just as you describe, banter at the draw, bit of mickey taking etc. Even if you win you can barely cover your costs.
I think it was watching some of the John Wilson stuff that I realised that it was all about enjoying yourself. I only fish matches as it forces me out the house to go fishing as its too easy to find reasons not to pleasure fish, weather bad etc.
Everyone wants to improve so in one club I run the match winners have to write about how they caught, holding nothing back. The result is that more and more anglers win as they practice what has been printed in the club news letter.
The worst cenario in my view is when the same winners keep winning and are very sectretive about what they are doing. Others start to question that they must be cheating etc and then drop out themselves.
As has already been said the top anglers have no secrets they will tell you everything because if you copy them they will still beat you soundly.

I mainly fish one or two venues that are local, but we do not have any natural coarse rivers down here so its all commercials. Most of us are in our 30’s-60’s and we are a good bunch who just like having a laugh, there is a healthy element of competition but nobody takes it too seriously. as the recession bites everybody is taking work more seriously and a lot are having to travel, so attendances come and go. Pretty much all of us have experience on rivers and canals so were certainly not one trick ponies.

from my own point of veiw as a relative newcomer of approximately 3 years i’d say there is’nt a great deal wrong with match fishing that can be fixed.
having gone what other people would regard as the wrong way round i,e carp fishing for 20 years and then to match fishing i’d say there is a lot more wrong with that side than match fishing.
i,e 3 rods apiece on a puddle,bait boats,drug abuse alcohol abuse etc etc.
i got sick of argueing with people every time out.
the main thing wrong with match fishing which cannot be corrected is the draw.
as mentioned earlier i’e been going in matches now for probably 2 of my 3 years and i’ve never drawn a good peg yet in fact i’ve not even been close to someone who has won.
now every week i spend a lot of time and money
getting my gear and bait sorted and then when i draw i finish up sat somewhere hopeless with no chance of winning.
yes i’am competitive no i’m not a duffer am i getting fed up? mmm with matches yes with match style fishing no.
i love the finesse and the quality of angling on display, so what if it is’nt 200 peggers on the trent i think you slightly older guys are lucky to have memories like that to look back on.

im only 18 so i wont remember the older matches but my grandad speeks highly of them although he did fish at a high level of angling in them days. i think that how you described it peaple taking the micky and having a laugh that still does happen i have a great time when im out fishing open matches evry where i seem to go they are all realy good atmosphires and we have a great laugh

Match fishing still has a massive appeal and i believe its better than ever I used to fish opens on the river Wear years ago and the craic was good but not a patch on what it is now, I was up Lindholme last Sun and I bet he had 400 anglers on matches thats 400 people with the same common goal all enjoying themselves on a great venue not only is that a credit to match fishing its a niche in industry that must be appreciated.

Geeps I agree with whoever it was who said you are fishing the wrong matches. Great fishing and banter on the R. Yare through the summer months. Not all the pegs have the potential to win, an end peg always is a distinct advantage but name me a river where that isn’t the case. Also, because of the way it is pegged(near the access points), there are often 6 or 8 ‘end’ pegs anyway.

My local commercial, Suffolk Water Park, does have one or two who must win at all costs but they are in a real minority and the majority of us are there to enjoy it, and we do whether we catch loads or not.

The little matches i run i charge £10 all in and pay top 3 depending on if there are 10 or more of us fishing that way i know people are not there for the money.The guys that turn up 4 are retired and one is 82 years old and the rest of us cane them relentlessly with the verbals yet they always come back for more.These guys will tell you no such thing as a bad match now weight wise with most Carp being at least 1lb they only have to fluke one and it weights 3 or 4 times what they sometimes caught from a river back in the day.Most people these days want good facilities as well as good fishing and if you havent got them the majority of Anglers wont come.