WHERE HAVE ALL THE MATCHMEN GONE?

TONY MARTIN, NORFOLK

Many years ago I used to dabble on the club match circuit with one or two local open matches. An average club match could be 3050 anglers with some of the opens regularly attracting 40-80 anglers. After living in Scotland for a number of years I've returned back to where I now live in Norwich. My decision was that after a couple of years fishing in Essex with my Dad, I wanted more competition and looked at joining a couple of local clubs. Sadly though, it looks like a lot of matches nowadays have lost their numbers, even the open matches with some appearing not to make double figures of entrants. The same appeared true looking through a number of results from the Essex club matches. I'm aware the numbers are different for the big open matches and qualifiers like Fish O' Mania, Riverfest through the Angling Trust and so on, however, has the UK match fishing scene gone into demise? This seems more visible on the 'noncommercial' waters. It appears that if a venue isn't going to require 100lb to win, there is a reduced level of interest in anglers competing. I'd love to get back into match fishing and really hope I can rekindle that passion, but I am worried that it's losing its competitiveness at club level and being dominated by commercial bag-up matches. I'm happy to fish this way and on my Essex jaunts do fish commercials and set a base marker of 100lb plus as being successful, but also aware that with the likes of the Broads and the numerous club waters seem to have a much lower turnout than maybe 10-20 years ago. Do you feel that match fishing on noncommercial waters is in serious decline?