agree ant.would be far better to educate people on fish care than to ban keepnets and think thats the answer.neither would i have a fishery of my own.owners spend hundreds of thousands on fish and charge a fiver a day to fish for them by people who have zero respect.

“I was sat opposite a set of 10 blokes yesterday who I would only describe as a set of absolute W£$%ers, They had rubbish tackle and inappropriate sea rods for coarse fishing”

Unfortunately, when commercial enterprises make their product easily available to just about anybody capable of walking upright these are amongst the customers that they inevitably attract.

Im a massive fan of using keepnets maybe im old fashioned but i just like to see what ive caught at the end of the day.
Now im all up for looking after the fish and handling them properly its common sense in my eyes but at the end of the day we are the fishermen/hunter/gatherer…whatever you want to call it is a keepnet really that bad?

Had a great day on the pellet wag at Gold yesterday fish up to 18lb and not a keepnet in sight, you should all try it once and a while a good way of healthy fisheries i would like to see fisheries come up with a more comfortable way of retaining fish for matches

I am of the opinion that if handled correctly keep nets are fine , even for bags of unto 70lb

I have even stopped going pleasure fishing now as part of my enjoyment is seeing my bag of fish at the end lf the day and knowing my weight .

With pleasure anglers spending up to 12 hours on a commercial fishery, overfilling a keepnet and then tipping the whole lot into a plastic bag to take home or elsewhere at the end of the day hell will freeze over before any sensible owner allows keepnets.

OK an extreme situation perhaps but I bet it has happened many times and at least one of those things happens loads of times every weekend throughout the summer on club waters.

Here at Barston, as nearly all fisheries, i ban keepnets.(exept matches)
The main reason is theft, fish are rather easy to steal if there all in a net!
Pleasure anglers will often fish till dark, and to put your catch in the boot of your car and take it to your local pond is easy, that’s why we all ban keepnets!
In a match, the fish are weighed, often by the owner, and with any match, the fish allways go back!
They do get stressed in nets too, and at least in a match they are only in there for a short time, maximum 5 hours.

Only option really in matches. If pleasure fishing quite happy to not use one, I just use a fish counter to ‘tot up’ what I’ve caught.

I am up for ‘educating anglers’ and sadly it’s not always the “set of absolute W£$%ers, with rubbish tackle and inappropriate sea rods for coarse fishing” that need the education. I fish a very popular commercial match complex in the Midlands and I don’t think I have ever caught a fish there that has not had it’s mouth damaged by, in the main, ‘match anglers’. Maybe sometimes the need to try to win a match overrides everything else !!

Keepnets should only be used for matches, and if there were a better way of recording anglers weights in matches without using nets, then that option should be used.

This thread reminded me of a tale Jimmy Randel related to me.

Years ago when Jimmy used to fish the river Lea he was fishing a match and having a ding dong battle with the bloke next door, the match finished and as Jimmy was packing up the bloke next door was visited by several friends, he kept pulling his keepnet out and showing them his catch, then chucking it back in, this happened several times, eventually the scalesmen arrived, so he pulled his net out to weigh his fish ………but to his horror, the bottom had been ripped out and all the fish had escaped…….Jimmy won the match and the bloke went home potless ~clap ……Jimmy swears this is a true account……. the moral of the story?

DON’T ABUSE FISH IN KEEPNETS.~naughty

Keepnets for matches only. Pleasure anglers fish too long and fish are retained unnecessarily for such long periods. What do folks think of carp sacks? Ban them?

Got to agree with the controlled use of keepnets.
The Oaks is a very successful fishery and allows nets – but sensibly insists on them being emptied at 4pm. Surely that’s the way forward.
In fact I’d be happy to pay a premium, well, an extra quid, to use a net.
It seems to me that not using a landing net is the cause of far more fish damage.

me and a few guys used to go to cudmore every week and have a knock up, since the ban we dont go near the place,we were sensible and did’nt keep em in nets longer than 4 hours,todays nets are very fish friendly,and fisheries would benefit with custom,if marshalled with their staff,at copthorne in lancs you have to take nets out at 4pm and its works well.

I don’t go pleasure fishing,but if I did I wouldn’t use a keepnet. They should be used only as a means of holding your catch until it’s time to weigh them.

nothing wrong with keepnets either in matches or pleasure..its education thats needed ~think

unfortunately squeaks fishcare comes into that equation aswell ????im sure theres a principle to be learned from this thread fish first on all counts theres got to be a better way of retaining fish for the weigh in and maybe this should be the way forward any scalesman worth his weight in gold should be able to tell a tale of the muppets putting there fish into the weigh net eventually minus a few hundered rolling on the floor ???????

@Anthonywaters wrote:

If I had a fishery I would be like that chap who used to have Angel of the North he used to hide in the trees and pounce if he saw anyone so much as swinging a 1 oz roach lol

Ann and Arty run one of the countrys best fisheries with a heavy emphasis on fish welfare. I regularly fish the open matches there and while I agree that some of the rules are at times laborious (yes doing a weight of smaller fish and netting everyone single fish is testing) the condition and health of the fish in all of the lakes is excellent. While I may not agree with everything they do I know they are taking the course of action they see best for the fishery. I take my hat off to the pair of them for putting their stock first before commercial enterprise and proftis. Woe betide anybody who Ann catches breaking fishery rules of mis-treating her fish, they won’t be going back.

On the subjects of using keepnets for pleasure sessions it gives me far more pleasure returning a fish to its natural environment as quickly as possible. If I want to know the approximate weight I will use a clicker and if I catch a fish I want a photograph of I will do so, but in a manor which will not harm or distress the fish. I don’t like to see fish such as 3-5lb bream covered in spawning tubicles or big roach ready to spawn being kept in nets at this time of the year. While I don’t like using them outside of matches I do however agree they are important tool for juniors and new anglers to gain an understanding and appreciation of their catch. As long as the education is there and the fish are treated with respect they are ok in my views.