No Cornwall venues then if think that’s terrible whenour nearest venue is
Well over 100 miles away

All I can say is thank god I now live back in the midlands
Once again very little southern venues
so feel for the anglers who are going to have to travel some right miles to take part and compete

I fancied having a go this year but when the nearest qualifier is 300 mile round trip, with no guarantee of a ticket, I dont think I will bother. Personally I will stick with the Maver Match This, more money to the winner and possibly £30K for second and £20K for third. I know where I will be having a punt!

Think the Maver Match This will steal the show !!!

@gloves007uk wrote:

All I can say is thank god I now live back in the midlands
Once again very little southern venues
so feel for the anglers who are going to have to travel some right miles to take part and compete

viaduct Fishery, Somerton, Somerset – Saturday 14th April 2012

Gold Valley Lakes, Aldershot, Hampshire – Wednesday 18th April 2012

Makins Fishery, Nuneaton, Warwickshire – Saturday 21st April 2012

Woodlands View, Droitwich, Worcs – Wednesday 25th April 2012

Lakeview Fishery, Holwell, Leicestershire – Saturday 28th April 2012

Peatling Pools, Peatling Parva, Leicestershire – Wednesday 2nd May 2012

Maver Larford, Stourport on Severn, Worcester – Saturday 5th May 2012

Monk Lakes, Marden, Kent – Wednesday 9th May 2012

The Oaks, Thirsk, North Yorkshire – Saturday 12th May 2012

Barford Lakes,Barford, Norwich – Saturday 19th May 2012

Tunnel Barn Farm, Shrewley, Warwick – Saturday 26th May 2012

Messington Sands, Susworth, North Lincs – Wednesday 30th May 2012

Partridge Lakes, Culcheth, Warrington – Saturday 2nd June 2012

Preston Innovations Boldings, Bridgnorth, Shropshire – Saturday 9th June 2012

Woodlands Lakes, Thirsk, North Yorkshire – Saturday 16th June 2012

Garbolino Lindholme Lakes, Epworth, Doncaster – Wednesday 27th June 2012

more in the south than north west we have 1

heronbrook not there think i will save my £25 angling trust and put it in the maver match this bank lol 😀

No Heronbrook next year, thats a shock.

what shite this fisho is becoming. i have done them for the last 5 years, viaduct stafford moor and whiteacres but like stewart said this years fisho is a very long drive for us. come on fiho organsiers get it sorted and make it alot fairer for everyone and spread the venues out abit. i agree that in my opinion the maver one is going to be the only one going soon. and the best which is the parkdean final of course.

messington sands? Do u mean messingham sands?

It seems they don’t give a shit about the southwest region now
That they have got our money.
For us to Go to the viaduct to practice it’s close on 300 mile round trip
And with the cost of fuel now its down right ridiculous and a pisstake
Some 1 at angling trust should look into this

So, you live in Cornwall 150 miles away from viaduct which is too far for you to travel.
Does that mean, last year you could have applied for the stafford moor qualifier and are upset that it’s not in this year?

Unless we all stand up to them they will just keep taking the piss

Stafford moor is only 60 mile for us Cornish lads so yes we would
Of applied for stafford moor

@tonywilliams wrote:

Unless we all stand up to them they will just keep taking the piss

Sorry, I just don’t get this. Stand up to them? Are you going to form a picket line somewhere, or just not apply for tickets, which by the sound of it, you weren’t going to anyway?

I’ve no idea how they decide the venues, and I know fuel is expensive, but if you wanted to fish it that badly, you’d travel as far as it took to get to a round.

ive fished the fishos in the past but if you think about it by the time i re new my angling trust membership and apply for the viaduct qualifier and to find out that i didnt get a ticket like i didnt last year.so why hasnt stafford moor or whiteacres get on the list.

come on angling trust give us some answers please

Why only one match it the northwest ???? heronbrook last two years sell out 150+ on res list ??? come on angling trust give us some answers please

surely venues should be put forward and voted on this is one thing the angling trust has got wrong THEY NEED TO TALK TO THE ANGLERS simple dialog between organisers and anglers .ask the anglers what they want, who has made the decision on these venues or perhaps this is the way they have done it ,which ever way dailog is the way forward and everyone would be happy

“BRING IT BACK ON CANALS AND RIVERS”
And wait for it 😎 😎 😎 😎

not fish the fish’o for a a few years now do miss the crack and that’s about it,and i do think Sandra drew is a wonderful lady 😉 very good at her job .

I don’t have a problem with travelling 300 miles round trip to Viaduct, I have done it on Fisho’s a couple times and also not received a ticket when I have applied for them in the past. I am a realist and would like to fish a few of them to give myself a chance. There is no guarantee I can get a ticket for Viaduct, after that round the others are well in excess of 200 miles each way. Each to your own, if you want to travel over 400 miles on several occassions for the chance of one final. My question is why is each region not fairly represented? It doesn’t have to be equally represented but surely more than one in the South West or North West is not too much to ask. This is not a dig at the Angling Trust as I believe in that organisation; I have been a member for years and will be a member for years to come. Previously NFA and ACA member.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it will be the Maver for me as I hope there will be at least three qualifiers within a 300 mile round trip.

Has anyone considered other possibilities, such as the venues may not be available on the required dates, or that the venue simply doesn’t want the event? Stranger things have happened. Rather than bitch on here, has anyone contacted the Competitions Department at Angling Trust to find out why certain areas are ‘left out’.

I would guess that the first demand is to get as many people fishing the event as possible and, unfortunately, the population, especially the match fishing population, of Cornwall and even west Devon, is miniscule compared to, say, Doncaster alone. That doesn’t make it right but Maver Match This had 33 competitors at White Acres and 44 at Stafford Moor. I know that none of the matches sold out but they were two of the worst. I believe that should White Acres be included in the 2012 Maver Match This they will be looking for fit the match in a weekend between two big festivals so they sell some tickets.

You may be correct Keith, just cannot believe Stafford Moor wouldn’t want a 130 peg match plus all the extra attendances for pre Fisho practice. Would also have thought White Acres wouldn’t have a problem as it has no matches at weekends. When Fishos were held at WA they were sold out with the normal waiting lists. Like you say Maver Match this only had small attendances in SW, but it was practically the same everywhere with the exception of a couple. Now that anglers have seen Andy Powers pick up £50k for winning I wouldn’t mind betting that more will enter.

Perhaps, and I don’t have any idea, there was some negative feedback regarding some of the events. As for White Acres ‘wanting’ matches at weekends, is the fishery not run by staff on wages, some of whom would lose a day off to organise a Fisho? It’s not like they’d get a drink out of it, it’s all ‘guvnor money’ I suspect.

I have not the first idea on how the Angling Trust competitions committee select venues for matches; perhaps it’s to do with availability of Angling Trust staff/committee members to steward/run the matches. The less travelling expenses the more money remains in the coffers because so few anglers bother joining.

It’s only speculation on my (and everyone else’s) part though. As I suggested, a polite enquiry, preferably in writing (e-mail would do) that could be copied and pasted on to a web forum such as this would give the answers.

I would also like to see a couple on natural waters but it ain’t going to happen. When they tried they didn’t sell out. I was talking to Ken Wade the other day about whether there were any matches on Ferry Meadows. Someone tried, and it bombed. Someone also tried to get a series going on the Nene. Five turned up. There wasn’t a second one. As for Maver Match This i’m really delighted that Phil Briscoe is looking at running this again, and potentially putting up a bigger prize. I would imagine he’s thinking about a second and third prize due to ear ache from competitors (especially those who came second and third). If I were brave enough to run it, I would stick with the winner takes all format. It’s that massive first prize that gets the competition the required publicity – having the biggest prize in Match Fishing is also most likely to help get a sponsor. I know the Mirror are the official media partner. But I doubt if they are putting much if any cash in (i’m only guessing here but I do know some of the guys on sport on the Mirror). Sounds to me like there’s room for both competitions and if there are Maver Match This qualifiers in the SW and not Fish O Mania qualifiers in the SW, if I lived there I would fish the Maver one too. I wonder if someone ran a one of individual competition on a natural water with a big cash prize put up (as oppose to a National), what the response would be….

Great in theory but where’s the cash going to come from? Virtually every tackle manufacturer has a vested interest in carp and I’d be really surprised to see another big-money competition aimed at match anglers. I hear comments all the time about match fishing as a dying sport and attendances on big events seem to confirm that. Fish’O’Mania sells out – although it came close to not selling out last year – and the current financial situation makes me worried about the potential to get enough anglers to spend >£50 + travel and bait on a match.

I don’t go into many tackle shops these days but when I do, in shops that are primarily club or match orientated I see contemporaries; people I’ve fished with for 30-40 years. When I go into carp fishing-based shops I see an average age around 30-35, with MANY 20-25-y-o. That, like it or not, is the future of coarse angling in England, possibly Wales and increasingly Scotland and Ireland too.

If you look at the number of anglers that enter Fish’O’Mania rather than the tickets sold, it’s around 600 I think. I know some anglers enter and miss out so it could go as high as 1,000.

A big-prize-money match is easy to organise and doesn’t need a sponsor. Book Ten Mile Bank, somewhere that anglers can park readily and have short walks, making it as commercial-fishery-angler friendly as possible, make it £50 a ticket, about the same as Fisho, £20 less than Match This. If 500 anglers turned up (and there used to be 1200 on the Gt Ouse Champs on the Relief Channel) that’s a prize fund of £23,500 allowing £3 pegging fee and £4,000 admin costs/wages. 50 sections of 10 @ £100 then £6k for the winner, £4k for 2nd, £2.5k for 3rd, £1,250 for 4th and £750 for 5th. Or you could have a w-t-a £10k and 50 sections of £170.

Now, the worrying things is, for that to work almost everyone that currently gets to fish Fish’O’Mania would have to turn up. It has to be accepted that some of the angkers that enter Fisho and, probably to a great extent, Match This are venue experts “one-water-wonders”. The stats for Match This bear that out as far-and-away the biggest selling matches were at Larford, where the final was, possibly because the Larford regulars believed they’d be in with a good chance at home.

On that basis, I don’t think with all the publicity and goodwill you’d sell 200 tickets. If someone stuck an extra £20k in, I don’t think that would make a jot of difference.

“I don’t go into many tackle shops these days but when I do, in shops that are primarily club or match orientated I see contemporaries; people I’ve fished with for 30-40 years. When I go into carp fishing-based shops I see an average age around 30-35, with MANY 20-25-y-o. That, like it or not, is the future of coarse angling in England, possibly Wales and increasingly Scotland and Ireland too.”

Agree 100% – match fishing is hoist by its own petard. Carp fishing much easier to get into.

“On that basis, I don’t think with all the publicity and goodwill you’d sell 200 tickets. If someone stuck an extra £20k in, I don’t think that would make a jot of difference.”

Don’t really agree. I agree that there aren’t anywhere near as many open match anglers as some people think. But I do think if there was a £20k winner-takes-all natural water event, people would come. And it might well attract the club anglers who have realised they have absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning either Fish ‘O’ Mania or Match This.

Possibly geepster, but that would have to be a one-off match and there is LOTS of income to create the prize fund for Fish and Match This thanks to over 2300 tickets being sold for one and up to 1500 for the other. That’s your prize money sorted.

So, if you had qualifiers, you’d need less anglers because they’d fish multiple events to get through. If you had a one-off there wouldn’t be the numbers. And don’t you think that a reasonable proportion of Fish’O’Mania qualifiers and winners have been good-class club anglers rather than superstars? There weren’t many ‘club anglers’ winning the Gt Ouse, Severn, Thames, Trent, Witham, Welland etc Champs back in the day yet the entry proportion must have been far greater as they were usually on the ‘club outing’ rota, like Nationals. I remember the LONG line of coaches at the events.

I love Stafford Moor and White Acres and happily choose to travel up to 365 miles each way to fish a qualifyer there and put them as some of my 6 guaranteed tickets in preference to venues 30 to 60 miles away from my home!

But, the fact is, Stafford Moor and White Acres rarely sell out and always have a lot of no shows because they are so far for the majority of anglers wishing to fish the event!