BAA fine for volunteer fatality.

[no-one in particular]

I see what you write. Reasoning is another matter.

I know, all the old clever stuff, I don't mind but it makes any debate with you a waste of time, you wont tackle anything head on, you have any other reasoning to offer why I don't see anyone fishing on club waters around me! However, what always surprises me is how much you and a few others who are club stalwarts or club officials in some way always defend and distort as much as I say, as much as you can; in defense of your club positions in angling, as often as not some personal put down or some form of mockery, the weakest of defenses. OK, I am not a prolific angler or a serious one, so what, I am what I think of myself as a casual pleasure angler, maybe the largest group of anglers. You don't want to listen and defend your declining memberships to the death. You wouldn't change anything or listen to anyone who has criticism, there is something wrong with them not your clubs. meanwhile anglers have drifted away from you, I will be one of them. You're your worst clubs enemies as as I said before. Anyway, good luck with your club and your fishing, I will stick to what I do.

 

[mikench]

Mark your description of the type of angler you are resonates with me and I regard myself similarly. 2 of the 3 clubs I am a member of and which I use the most have a closed membership and a waiting list. Hardly indicative of clubs struggling or failing in fact quite the opposite. I'm a hopeless angler but thoroughly enjoy doing it and I feel comfortable with all the clubs I am a member of. The other members I meet and know are friendly, pleasant and helpful. I suspect such qualities are a northern phenomenon and not restricted to angling. The fees charged are very reasonable in my opinion and well worth the cost. See my earlier post. One club is effectively free.

 

[no-one in particular]

Mark your description of the type of angler you are resonates with me and I regard myself similarly. 2 of the 3 clubs I am a member of and which I use the most have a closed membership and a waiting list. Hardly indicative of clubs struggling or failing in fact quite the opposite. I'm a hopeless angler but thoroughly enjoy doing it and I feel comfortable with all the clubs I am a member of. The other members I meet and know are friendly, pleasant and helpful. I suspect such qualities are a northern phenomenon and not restricted to angling. The fees charged are very reasonable in my opinion and well worth the cost. See my earlier post. One club is effectively free.

Mike, I have no doubt, many clubs are enjoyable, I cannot join all of them to find out. I just have not found one, True, my experience is limited although I have fished more than one, a few as guests over the years, I read enough to form an opinion on top of that, I have spoken to many club members and officials, one was my best buddy for a long time, I am just being honest, I just speak as I find, I have found them to be a joyless experience, no camaraderie worth talking about, I found more camaraderie on commercials when I fished them, a lot more, made many friends there and less silly rules as it happens and sea fishing the same. Many of the waters I enjoyed once I cannot, all taken over by clubs. I am just being honest, I couldn't even get a roll over membership of the one I joined in June this year and I am sure I wont get any refund if I left. I find them so out of tune with modern fishing and needs or at least my needs. A lot of them were established in the 1900's but they never have changed in all that time. They may have suited those times but not now and not for me. I am sorry, I know it is not a popular view but I cannot help that. Maybe I am the one out of tune, I have been fishing for 60 years and to me clubs have been a detriment to my enjoyment of the hobby. I know I get it in the neck every time I criticize but there you go. I know they have a lot of good waters, maybe the best but, I need more than that, maybe just me, I like fishing to be as much fun as possible, as free as possible as available as possible and as cheap as possible and I like other anglers and all sorts of fishing, any of it is grist to my mill, I may not be as prolific as I once was but that's age and health, I make up for it many other ways. It might be the the best lake in the world and I might have it all to myself with the biggest fish in the world but that's not what I seek or what I want to get out of my fishing. And I don't think people love them as much as they once did. They are the only way to access many waters so people join them, that's all there is to it. Past that they are no use in my opinion and even in that they have done a lot to spoil the enjoyment.
Anyway, that's my experiences and that's all I can go on and that's my views. But don't worry, I am a very happy chap really.

 

[nottskev]

I know, all the old clever stuff, I don't mind but it makes any debate with you a waste of time, you wont tackle anything head on, you have any other reasoning to offer why I don't see anyone fishing on club waters around me! However, what always surprises me is how much you and a few others who are club stalwarts or club officials in some way always defend and distort as much as I say, as much as you can; in defense of your club positions in angling, as often as not some personal put down or some form of mockery, the weakest of defenses. OK, I am not a prolific angler or a serious one, so what, I am what I think of myself as a casual pleasure angler, maybe the largest group of anglers. You don't want to listen and defend your declining memberships to the death. You wouldn't change anything or listen to anyone who has criticism, there is something wrong with them not your clubs. meanwhile anglers have drifted away from you, I will be one of them. You're your worst clubs enemies as as I said before. Anyway, good luck with your club and your fishing,

You put more twists, loops and unpickable knots into a discussion than a cheap multiplier in 20lb nylon. Why on earth does defending "clubs" (do you mean clubs that organise matches and outings to waters they don't own or lease? Little clubs with a single water or a couple of ponds run on goodwill and volunteers? Big clubs with extensive portfolio's, huge memberships and paid officials?) require me to explain what you "see" from the top of a bus? You began with lurid fantasies about cruel drunken BAA officials, indifferent to the accident, and proceeded to slag off clubs in general for such compelling reasons as your noisy mate being asked to shut up on a club water.

Even your post quoted above is full of your assumptions and imaginations. I'm neither a club official nor an uncritical member, and my posts containing many criticisms are on several FM threads. One of the clubs I'm in has a year long waiting list, another sold all the books in the shops by the season's halfway point, a third's membership grows annually. Another small local club has transformed a post-industrial landscape with a derelict canal into into a fishery with three well-stocked lakes plus canal offering parking, disabled pegs and a warm welcome to new members, A larger local club has taken on and renovated, with professional fishery management input, several neglected park lakes, in addition to offering, top class river fishing. The first costs £25 pa (£20 concessionary); the second, £48 pa (£33 to the likes of you and I). So much for their drift and decline. How many days out on your precious commercials would a member of both get for their £53? Or should they roam the countryside with a pack of beer hoping to barter with an obliging landowner? Your take on how to access fishing reflects an angler who doesn't fish much.

Perhaps, since you say yourself you're not that much of an angler and don't like clubs and have little experience of them, you might recognise that you're less than qualified to pontificate to the rest of us what clubs are like and what's wrong with them. As for "the old clever stuff", it doesn't take much to recognise massive generalisations based on flimsy anecdotes. Why not review your posts in this thread and ask yourself if your take on clubs, entirely negative, stacks up?

 

[mikench]

I wish you would say what you mean Kev???

 

[no-one in particular]

You put more twists, loops and unpickable knots into a discussion than a cheap multiplier in 20lb nylon. Why on earth does defending "clubs" (do you mean clubs that organise matches and outings to waters they don't own or lease? Little clubs with a single water or a couple of ponds run on goodwill and volunteers? Big clubs with extensive portfolio's, huge memberships and paid officials?) require me to explain what you "see" from the top of a bus? You began with lurid fantasies about cruel drunken BAA officials, indifferent to the accident, and proceeded to slag off clubs in general for such compelling reasons as your noisy mate being asked to shut up on a club water.

Even your post quoted above is full of your assumptions and imaginations. I'm neither a club official nor an uncritical member, and my posts containing many criticisms are on several FM threads. One of the clubs I'm in has a year long waiting list, another sold all the books in the shops by the season's halfway point, a third's membership grows annually. Another small local club has transformed a post-industrial landscape with a derelict canal into into a fishery with three well-stocked lakes plus canal offering parking, disabled pegs and a warm welcome to new members, A larger local club has taken on and renovated, with professional fishery management input, several neglected park lakes, in addition to offering, top class river fishing. The first costs £25 pa (£20 concessionary); the second, £48 pa (£33 to the likes of you and I). So much for their drift and decline. How many days out on your precious commercials would a member of both get for their £53? Or should they roam the countryside with a pack of beer hoping to barter with an obliging landowner? Your take on how to access fishing reflects an angler who doesn't fish much.

Perhaps, since you say yourself you're not that much of an angler and don't like clubs and have little experience of them, you might recognise that you're less than qualified to pontificate to the rest of us what clubs are like and what's wrong with them. As for "the old clever stuff", it doesn't take much to recognise massive generalisations based on flimsy anecdotes. Why not review your posts in this thread and ask yourself if your take on clubs, entirely negative, stacks up?

I don't think their is much point going over what was said, who said what, what was meant, arguing the toss over this or that detail; its not going to go anywhere is it. The plain fact is you have had good positive experiences and that has formed your view and I have not had good positive experiences on more or less the same things and that has formed my view . That's just the way it goes sometimes in life. I doubt neither of us will change anything or change each others mind so, I will leave it at that.

 

[nottskev]

I don't think their is much point going over what was said, who said what, what was meant, arguing the toss over this or that detail; its not going to go anywhere is it. The plain fact is you have had good positive experiences and that has formed your view and I have not had good positive experiences on more or less the same things and that has formed my view . That's just the way it goes sometimes in life. I doubt neither of us will change anything or change each others mind so, I will leave it at that.

More accurately, I have had both good and bad experiences of clubs, and will speak about both, but find no problem in acknowledging the positive and enabling roles clubs can play in providing us with good fishing, and will do so when anyone insists they're all bad. That said, I'm happy to end the conversation on a conciliatory note.

 

[Philip]

You put more twists, loops and unpickable knots into a discussion than a cheap multiplier in 20lb nylon

Wise choice to avoid using a centerpin as the anaology ....that really would have got a few peoples backs up ... .