View Full Version : RMC Trout Water
Ian,
Is it a profitable idea to open a water dedicated to trout fishing, maybe as a day ticket water? If that is not a profitable option would it be any good say having any of the RMC waters where the practibility for casting a fly is better, maybe some clearer swims etc? What does everyone think?
I know there is only a minority of coarse anglers who fly fish but the lads who came on the recent trip did suggest this to me so I thought it would be nice to get your ideas on the matter. Any one who wants to learn the skills of flyfishing private me and I will let you know when my next trip is, obviously tackle is a problem but I am sure we could manage.
If it was a trout lake it would mean a lot of work with swim building, stocking and bailiffing as a lot of trout anglers I know of used to depart the waters with trout down their waders and also havs a maggot pouch around their neck.... cheating and greed I know but they still do it...
Tony
Tony, it is now no secret that Langford Fisheries, where I have fished for Trout since 1987 and with a season rod since '91, is on the market. I have got to know proprietor Paul Knight quite well and he assures me that Trout fisheries are at best marginal commercially right now.
The boom days of the '80s are long gone and frankly there are too many fisheries chasing too few anglers. Small Trout fisheries are relatively unfashionable these days plus they find it hard to compete with reservoirs with their cheaper tickets due to lower angler expectations, buying power for stock fish and the fishery operation being only a tiny part of a giant PLC.
Add to this the dodgy ethics you rightly mention that some trout anglers persist in practising, the dreaded cormorants and poachers. You have a requirement for a full time bailiff (and he'd need pay and rations, a 12 bore shotgun and a Rottweiler !) So you have to ask whether a Trout fishery would be a viable commercial possibility for RMC.
hi
just wondreing how much that you pays for a days trout fishing tony? some of the trout fisherys that we supply charge £200 a day for a 4 fish limit i think, do you think that this is excessive? when i was at collage one of my lectures charged £300 a day to fish on the river test would you pay that much. maybe you should give rooksbury mill a ring because they are closing down in august and try and get a very cheap days fishing its worth a go/images/forum/icons/smile.gif
andy
andy rooke
I used to fish Horton when it was a trout fishery and can remember a time when they stocked salmon in there too. I never caught any of the salmon but saw a few dead uns floating near the edge.
Is Rooksbury definitely closing down or just changing hands? I reckon it's the best value fishery around and will be sad to see it shut for good if that's what's going to happen.
I'll have to fit a visit in before August. It must be better than blanking on St Patrick's Stream
Barbel 4 Ed 0 at the moment.
Perhaps I should be trying a gold head hare's ear - I couldn't do any worse!!
yes its defintly shutting down! the farm on there is getting filled in, the word around the grapevine is that barlows is getting filled in aswell.apparntly its for property development! they have somit like 50,000 fish to get rid of in short time. they also have some big coarse fish in there i dont know whats going to happen to them its a shame as its a nice place.
andy
andy rooke
Rooksbury closing for good - Langford unlikely to continue as a Trout fishery - Croxley Hall closed as a Trout fishery at the end of last season. All signs of the times.
Ian, I never got round to fishing Croxley before I moved to Hampshire in 1985, so can't comment. I do know it had a good reputation as a well run and innovative Trout water in the '80s and early '90s.
With the Trout hat on, the demise of Langford and Croxley is particularly sad and worrying as both were long established, well respected fisheries with energetic owners who did time as chair or secretary of ASGFM. If fisheries of that calibre can't survive things are bad...there has always been a fair degree of turnover among the less well managed or marginal waters.
I will post this but don't all laugh..... I will never spend more that £15 - £20 and will go for catch & release after limit or a big reservoir from the bank because normally I will catch my limit before lunchtime and hate to spend money on a ticket for just a few hours fishing. I am interested more in the fly fishing aspect of the sport rather the trout...... Ian I know it's not a viable prospect to have a trout fishery but is there say one lake that is clear enough and has a reasonable stock of Rudd, Carp or chub in it just so some of us fluff flingers can meet up to introduce some of the others to flyfishing?
Tony
Far from laughter Tony - I think you have hit the nail on the head as to why smaller commercial trout fisheries are struggling.
£25 to £40 is a fair slice of money out of your fun budget for a days' fishing, same price as a full season on Burghfield Blue Pool for example. If a capable angler limits out in an hour or two, as is feasible on a good day, he'll feel its bad value for money if there is no catch and release on offer even if he caught 4 excellent fish. On a season rod it's not so bad as easy and hard days even out over a full year...on Saturday at Langford I started trout fishing at 8:20am and was happy to be off the water by 10:30 with 4 good fish, and that will be the way of it for another 4 to 6 weeks.
For a full and interesting days' sport then I totally agree that a reservoir has a lot to offer and is cheaper at £12-£16 a day plus £8 for a boat if you feel one is needed.
No Ian you cant on most comercial waters.... I had a debate on this subject at the Fishing Show at Birmingham with some top names John Wilson and many others.... the debate was catch and release after the limit. Of course the fishery owners are totally against it as a lot of trout anglers do not know how to handle the fish and they are a lot more fragile than carp.
The rule of thumb is... once you have caught your limit you buy another ticket or go home. The places I fish allow catch and release after your limit and I personally have tried to educate some of the "Green Welly Brigade" who are pretty well off and can just go and buy another ticket.... they are a totally different type of angler than say you and I who care for their fish and as a whole do not know how to treat fish.
With trout I do not remove them from the water at all but unhook them in the water and rlease them which is a lot better. In this debate I mentioned unhooking mats, barbless flies but the fishery owners still were against it.
In my opinion it is their own fault that the trout fishing world has gone this way, coupled with the now almost non existant close season and the attitude of the fishery owners.
I had my limit once by 8am on a well known trout water. I went up to the owner and said is there any chance of catch and release, he said no... another £24 for a ticket or home. I didn''t fish there anymore. I went with 2 mates once and caught my limit early, I carried on fishing as they were quite new to the sport and said to the owner I will catch their fish too, he escorted me off of the premises.... this is what the trout fishing world is like Ian unfortunately except for a few waters that allow catch and release...... This is why I fish for coarse fish on the fly now adays more so than trout.
Tony
Tony's right as ever.
There is an increasing demand for catch and release on stocked day ticket trout waters for the reasons Tony has explained. But it is slow in coming because of the need for angler education about fish handling and releasing, and to be fair some quite legitimate concerns about the implications of C'n'R for fish that are not as tough as (say) carp and tench, on waters where even now there is a fair degree of fishing pressure.
C'n'R is more prevalent on wild waters containing self supporting populations of game fish.
Ian, there are some stocked commercial fisheries where catch and release is allowed. The demand is there from real anglers - not fishmongers of whom there remain a few in trouting - for just the reason you stated. As long as folks follow the guidelines well known to coarse fishers like barbless or microbarb hooks, play them hard and get them back in the water fast, little harm seems to result. Couple of "buts"...there is anecdotal evidence that the fish get very much harder to tempt with a fly once they have been caught and released a few times - to the extent of being not just hard but uncatchable. Also, as I said earlier, I am not sure that stockie rainbows are anything like as robust as carp or tench so mortality rates might be higher even when they are sensitively handled. Sadly as well some of the fish handling "skills" you see on trout waters are poor.
I'd also repeat something Tony Scorpio hinted at - all of this occurs on the smaller, daily stocked and hard fished stillwaters. Can I suggest that you carry on with your plan to try trouting but go straight to reservoir fishing. In terms of quality fish, the challenge and interest of the fishing and the scenery a lot of folks - me included - find reservoirs greatly preferable to little 1 acre pools. When you work hard all day and catch a reservoir limit at somewhere like Chew, Eyebrook, Rutland or Farmoor you have really done something. 10-40 acre gravel pit fisheries trout can also be good and offer something of a halfway house.
Catch and release is indeed becoming more popular, especially on relatively new waters, for example my local Rib Valley fishery. The rules are fairly strict, with micromesh nets, barbless hooks and unhooking/releasing fish in the water, but even some of the "old timers" seem to be getting the hang of it ! I can also add to the anecdotal evidence and say that they are certainly harder to catch on this fishery, but this makes it all a more worthwhile challenge anyway. At Rib Valley you can get a catch and release day ticket for a reasonable £ 12 which allows you to catch about 8 to 10 or so, which takes all day usually anyway.
DOC
Doc, do they allow limited catch and kill or is it C'n'R only at Rib Valley ?
I did see an article by Charles Jardine in last years' ACA review magazine where he described the effects of C'n'R-only rules on some of the very hard fished American chalk streams and limestone creeks and it did not make a pleasant read - spooked fish, with damaged mouths, that would only look at a size 26 fly on a 1lb point. I don't think we want to go down that road for a number of reasons.
I have heard from UK trout fishery managers that steady turnover of fish is needed to make C'n'R work and ultimately I would think a good old British compromise is in order, with a mix of C'n'R and limited catch and kill being the optimum. I have even heard of one syndicate water where they practice C'n'R up to the last month of their season and then it's catch and kill only. After all Rainbows only have a maximum 2-3 year life span in British lakes, unlike Browns or coarse fish, and true overwintered fish are much rarer than fishery hype would have us believe.
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