Articles

Franke Gianoncelli argues that commercial fisheries hold the furture for match fishing.
I have had a lot of friends that have started fishing, only to stop after a few weeks and completely forget about it. Does fishing have enough appeal about it to compete with technology like game consoles or the internet for example?

I fear this is happening right now to thousands of young potential match anglers and with the distractions like Facebook, x-box and playsations - match fishing will suffer as a result. The only thing that I can think of that will save match fishing in the future is commercial fisheries, and in particular big money events like Fishomania and the Maver 'Match This'. I think that these events attract a lot of publicity and increase the interest and attraction of match fishing no end. Personally I would like to see more of these events as there are a lot of young anglers who might see the appeal of these big cash prizes and take up match fishing.

Im not trying to say that natural venues don’t have their attraction, as I truly love all types of fishing whether it be catching a twenty pound carp down the edge, or a net full of tiny roach on the canal. This undoubtedly stems from my history and love for team fishing, but I think the generation of match fishing has and will change.

I struggle to see the appeal to a young angler of going on to a canal or a river bank, wading through mud and battling through untreated pegs to only catch a handful of fish? Sometimes the fishing on natural venues is impeccable and unbeatable in my opinion, but more often than not the fishing is far from brilliant.

On the other hand, a commercial fishery with a café, good parking facilities, toilets and even tackle shops surely offer much more attraction to potential match anglers? I don’t think I have ever been to a commercial fishery and have been let down by the facilities or the fishing for that matter.

Where can the line be drawn to say that one type of fishing is better than another. It can only be personal opinion!

For example, I went into my local tackle shop, and the local anglers in their at the time asked, where are you going?' I replied with, a 'commercial'. A local river angler turned his nose up at me and said, 'its puddle fishing, that’s not fishing, its easy'. I replied to him, if it is easy why don’t you do it? He said, 'it doesn’t interest me, id rather stay in bed'. It must be a generation thing I guess?

I can see why the older generation of match anglers could feel bitter towards commercial fisheries, as they had to fish on a natural venue as there wasn’t any commercial fisheries back then, and they had no choice to go fishing because there wasn’t the technology that’s available now. Maybe its the fear to adapt their skills to something new that makes the divide between commercial and natural anglers, and vice versa?

A lot of natural anglers blame commercials for the current decline in numbers on the natural match scene. However I disagree with this, mainly on the grounds that commercial fisheries bring much more excitement and enjoyment to young and potential match anglers. It might have an impact on natural match numbers now, but surely commercials will ultimately save match fishing?