It says a lot that we explain the (long word alert) ubiquity of carp with reference to the commodities in a business plan (the ideal commercial fish) and we wonder if some enterprising businessman will spot a tench (insert other fish) -shaped gap in the market and undertake a non-carp venture to test its financial viability. Both points testify to how thoroughly we have become used to seeing fishermen and fishing lakes as customers in private, fenced off zones, stocked from fish farms. I've spent most of my fishing life fishing for whatever happened to be in rivers, canals, ponds, reservoirs, estate lakes, drains, streams, mill dams etc etc via history, happenstance and all kinds of deliberate or accidental stockings. I persist in thinking there should be fish, all kinds of fish, out there in the world we live in, and I think it unhealthy in a number of ways to settle for essentially plastic replicas of fisheries, no matter how big the catches or how time softens the new-built outlines of these over-loaded swimming pools.
I've sampled all the commercials of note within 20 miles or so. I'm not to be convinced they are oases of biodiversity or places of beauty. They are all of the multi-pool model, some with shops and cafes, mostly closely pegged and well-worn, with soupy water and minimal features, and offer you the chance to fish for carp - bigger carp, smaller carp, lads and dads starter carp - on different shaped pools, with closing times as early, in summer, of 4pm. If people have some more interesting ones in their area, good luck to them. I like places where you can catch a few, but I'm about as attracted to fishing these as I am to eating in the food court of a retail park.
It would be nice to think the pendulum might start to swing back from the model where fishing is packaged as easy, accessible, instant and bland. I've noticed, since a fb group set up locally around a small and quite challenging river where fish aren't easy to come by, that the number of contributors, and particularly younger ones, is growing apace. There's a well-known commercial complex up the road, but more than you might expect think it's cool to get out looking for wild fish and new swims.