Let me lay my cards on the table. I rarely fish opens on commercials. Most of my match fishing is team based, my team browning northants have a full calender of team matches.Five different leagues over the course of a season. All the matches are 50 plus.As for the low attenances is it bad weather, low wieghts,the cost of bait, food and petrol or is it because your only fishing for yourself and it’s all to easy not to go. A lot of guys i know who used be in team fishing anf left it to go it alone hardly ever fish now.Who knows what we can do to stop this trend.When i started matching in 1978 there were loads of macthes and lots of anglers under thirty.

@geepster wrote:

What are the fishery owners making of it?

well my local has had very low attendances throughout winter going into march, well down on last year. Its got to be down to the price of fuel,bait etc
to try to remedy the situation they have done what everyone else seems to do…
PUT PRICES UP! 😮

😡 😡 😡

Not sure money is the only factor.

I fish a lot but at the moment the fishing is crap, the weather is worse and im staying off the bank as a result !

People will spend money but they wont waste it !

Normqally in April all the fair weather anglers come back out and the fishing is good, I fished sunday in full winter gear and was shivering it was so cold !

Migration from the club scene to opens is harder than ever due to the “venue expert”.
Most commercials have them, they tend not to work or are in the trade, so they can fish all week. This gives them a big advantage against anyone who turns up at weekends having been at work all week. I dont blame them for this, I am envious I cant do it as well.
Just check out the match results and week in week out the same names appear. In my area I have the option to fish Hallcroft, Lyndolme, Messingham and Hayfield. Each one has a regular turnout of internationals or Division 1 national team winners. These guys are no mugs and can be a daunting prospect for would be ambitious clubbies.
I think years ago it was easier on rivers like the Witham and Trent as the experts had a smaller advantage.
Sadly I can only see things getting harder as these experts just keep getting harder to beat.

the oaks,sessay have come up with a club angler only competition where anyone who fishes the opens is banned…..could this be the answer

Adam, by in the trade I meant the “names”. Anglers who you read about doing mid week features for example for the monthlies/weeklies. Its their job to develop tackle and publicise sponsors so its working for them. I did not mean everyone in the trade!! Tackle shop owners for exmple find it very hard to free up time to fish.

What about fisheries that have regular opens and take the full peg fees out of the kitty….these greedy people are not helping at all…Take this fishery not a million miles from where I live…they charge 21 quid to fish an open and then take 8 quid peg fees that’s a disgrace..If there was no match on that day, they would probably only get one or two anglers there pleasure fishing (max)….Why don’t they just take a fiver peg fees for matches and leave more in the kitty?..maybe that may make it a tad more cost effective for anyone thinking of going?

Bad weather underpinning low turnouts, when the weather picks up so will the number of entrants.

I would agree with the gents saying about being up against venue experts. I am a club angler, but don’t fish opens as I don’t really and can’t afford to pay out £25 per week in pools.
I would like to see a fishery run a “silver” match, where people may only pay 12 quid to enter alongside the regulars paying their normal pools, and those in the silver pool only compete for that money.
This way people aren’t paying out loads and have a chance to get to know the venue before possibly taking the dip into the main pools. And the fishery are putting bums in pegs

There is a percecption that to start fishing opens that there has to be a corresponding jump up in the quality/quantity of gear and some club anglers could be rightly or wrongly put off by this.

I dont think its gear judging by what I see around our club. In real terms gear is cheaper now than for many years. The gold and silver is something Whiteacres adopted years ago and it works well.However they generally have 100 or so anglers fishing so splitting this into 40 gold 60 silver still gives some cracking matches.
When only 20 turn up and say 10 go gold 10 silver its a different proposition.
The venue owner of course just wants higher numbers to fish to boost his pegging fees. I think this is the reason entry fees are kept down. On venues I fish entry fees have hardly moved in 15 years. Therefore even if you are sucessfull your winnings barely cover your expenses. The UK chapionships started up to try to address this as payouts are substantial but so are the entry fees, that said I am not too sure if the entry fees here have gone up much over time.
The sport needs injection of funds from sponsors or TV to make it into the big money and aside from the odd event such as fisho its unlikely to happen. Attendances in the meantime will continue to slide away IMO.

I agree that sponsorship would be great in angling but why would anyone want to sponsor it ?

In bygone years the likes of Ruddles, John Smiths, Benson & Hedges, Woodbine etc had a reason, anglers drank beer and smoked fags.

Who would sponsor angling now with a realistic chance of decent promotion or return on their association with the sport ?

@AdzT wrote:

I would agree with the gents saying about being up against venue experts. I am a club angler, but don’t fish opens as I don’t really and can’t afford to pay out £25 per week in pools.
I would like to see a fishery run a “silver” match, where people may only pay 12 quid to enter alongside the regulars paying their normal pools, and those in the silver pool only compete for that money.
This way people aren’t paying out loads and have a chance to get to know the venue before possibly taking the dip into the main pools. And the fishery are putting bums in pegs

A quicker way to get to know a venue would be to give the fishing a miss all together and walk around watching people – venue experts and all – on a match or two.

As long as you’re quite, keep a low profile, and keep well back from the bank you should be able to pick up loads of info. You’ll probably find that people are more than willing to tell you stuff aswell.

theres only two ways to beat a venue expert,1: get your arse on the bank and practise and no 2 is illegal so aint saying.