The cost of your fishing.

[rayner]

Seen on another thread. I noticed a remark saying "you Northern anglers don't know how cheap your fishing is" or something like that.
Someones having a laugh.
A fiver day ticket and bait, top that off with transport then the cost shoots up. If I fish twice a week the cost is then doubled. It's disgraceful.
I mean I can spend twenty quid if I'm not careful. And you think our fishing is cheap.

 

[john step]

I know this is a "fishing post". I will have the first nibble.:wh
It can be as cheap or expensive as you like. Your £20 sounds extravagant.:wh
A club OAP ticket for £15 for 365 days a year and half a loaf and some free worms.........my god how the expense racks up.

 

[sam vimes]

It's not quite as simple as North V South. Fishing costs, particularly tickets and bait, vary from region to region. There's no club I know of local to me with a yearly ticket in the region of the £10-20 that I see some mention. A pint of maggots is £3 and the local match type commies are all around £8-10.

Based on what I see on the forums, the cheapest fishing appears to be around Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Nottingham, Manchester and Birmingham. A lot of water and a reasonably large population centre appears to be the key to cheap fishing.

 

[seth49]

The water I’ve fished most this year is just £20 pounds for the year for OAPs, and it’s only 9 miles away, a lot cheaper than the £160 a year I’ve been paying at another fishery for the last five years.

 

[steve2]

Regularly fishing commercial waters can make fishing expensive a few trips can easily cost more than club membership. But fishing is still cheap when compared to watching or taking part in other sports.

 

[S-Kippy]

It was me and I stand by my statement. A day ticket down here is typically a tenner...maybe 8 quid in some places but up to £12 in others. This is ordinary fishing not carping. To that you can add your petrol, bait, a few bit in the ts and lunch. I would not be remotely surprised to discover that an ordinary days fishing costs me, on average, around 30 nicker a pop.If I decide to have a go at the OBH zander it'll be nearly that just for a double rod ticket and before I've shelled out for some frozen deadbaits so nearer £40 I guess. Mrs S would have a fit if she knew but fortunately she doesnt.

My club books are anything from £110 to £130 a year....and that's fairly typical and not some restricted membership syndicate. Maggots are £3-80 a pint wherever you go. A day's trite fishing on farmoor is £25 as I recall...might be more. Its not a cheap hobby dahn sarf though a lot cheaper than gaulf.

Of course if you happen to be over 65 ( I'm not yet) the cost reduces significantly. The Big Feller is older than me and pays a lot less for the same club books AND day tickets. It really pi$$es me off and will do until I qualify for the senior rates which wont be for another couple of years.

But its what I do and I live where I live. If money was tight I couldn't do it....which is not to say I'm loaded because I most certainly am not but I dont smoke, I dont drink, I dont gamble and I dont mess about with other women so that unquestionnably helps.

 

[mikench]

My cards cost £130 and £80 respectively. The cheaper club includes 3 day ticket waters one of which is unlimited visits and the other two 10 visits. Those alone would cost £100 at £5 per day.

Maggots are £2.20 a pint at AD. I don’t consider the hobby as expensive.

 

[S-Kippy]

Well that sounds just a tad patronising to me. £2-20 a pint is a steal..but I still maintain,taking all things into account, that angling is considerably cheaper "oop North" than it is down here. My cousin who lives in Lincoln nearly fell off his chair when I told him how much maggots cost me.

One of those cards is ( I suspect) a Prince Albert membership which is astonishingly good value if you live close enough to the waters to make use of it. I dont...I'm still a member simply so that I have access to some sea trout fishing but its not good value any more and I may well have to give that one up next year.There is nothing like that down here,nothing.

 

[mikench]

I wasn’t being patronising just stating that I am happy with my two cards one of which is PAAS. I cannot do justice to all the waters available to me so haven’t bothered with other clubs which are reasonably numerous. I consider the facility offer very good value. Before AD took over my local tackle shop the maggots were 3ven cheaper. I may have got the figure wrong but don’t think so. If I have they are £2.70 a pint so still very reasonable .

I buy far too much tackle but am happy to do so.

 

[nottskev]

The Office for National Statistics tells us that median weekly earnings in the South East are about £50 a week up on the rest of the Uk. And the houses of its inhabitants generally worth about £100,000 more than elsewhere, should they decide to cash in and move to where maggots are a bit cheaper.

That aside, I've often thought that's it's a problem in angling that many expect to get their fishing very cheaply (not that I've ever had a lot of money myself). I've met plenty of anglers carrying loads of very expense tackle complaining bitterly that the price of club books or tickets has gone up; I've seen blokes with stuff worth a king's ransom embarrass themselves by trying to dodge a bailiff or shirk a ticket.

To paraphrase the old Furry Freak Brothers motto, cheap tackle will get you through times of good fishing better than dear tackle will get you through times of poor fishing. Maybe, despite everything we can all say to decry the authorities, the angling scene would look a bit better had we been, over time, as willing to invest in the waters as we have been to spend on gear?

I believe golfers pay a lot more for their sport. I wonder, just to take one example, what the status of cormorants would be had they a tendency to dig up golf greens rather than eat coarse fish.

I don't disagree that going fishing can cost a fair bit these days, but I can have a day fishing for about what it would cost me to park the car for a couple of hours in some hideous city centre and enjoy a drink and a plastic wrapped sandwich in some awful chain coffee shop.

 

[hague01]

Like most things this question produces another variable answer depending on where we are.Here is Essex £2.75/3 is normal for maggots.I know a neighbor, who I take fishing,I think he buys them singly and they become friends over time, it is said it answers to its name too, but then he is from N Yorks. On that subject, when I lived there in the 50's the Don and the Dearne were so polluted immersion meant a hospital stay!
Back on the subject most day ticket waters here are 10-15 per day, less for concessions at most places.I would pay that just to get out of the house and get some peace and quiet and until they teach fish to talk, long may that remain.Its not dear looked at in context. Clubs are typically £80 a year with unlimited access. How far I travel and what type of fish I go after is my choice alone so the cost is part of the decision.For larger carp fishing though they go from circa 200 to over 4k pa. I can and do blank everywhere so it makes no difference to me where I go.
Its a great sport where I can indulge myself or be frugal. Cant think of anything else which can really compare for the cost, save maybe hiking/rambling, but at my advanced age I would forget to turn back..Sorry about the crack about Gods own county but a little levity is sadly missing today.

 

[stevejay]

I have recently moved to the North having lived down South for almost all my life. I think it is just down to certain choices. Some clubs up here, including PAAS and Ribchester are in excess of £100 a year (more than i have personally encountered down South) but do offer good waters depending on where you live. I have not joined yet but have, what I feel, is an absolute bargain, a permit to fish the 30 odd miles of the Lancaster Canal for the princely sum of £20 a year.

Have fished it a couple times this week and reckon I used about £1 of bait each day, which consisted of some bread, for punch and liquidised, a few casters (the main outlay) and some worms.

Managed about 12lb one day and about 5lb on the second visit. Can't complain at that relative to the cost.

I also join Birmingham each year for a few trips to the Severn, including a week there each September. At £40 I reckon that book is amazing value given the vast range of waters available.

 

[john step]

I find that the internet is the most expensive item causing excess cost of fishing for me. It makes it far too easy to find items of tackle that I just cannot live without.

 

[d.owens]

I find angling very inexpensive for the pleasure I get from it. I don't belong to any clubs and never buy day tickets or fish commercials, this keeps the cost down considerably. My only inescapable cost is obviously the yearly rod license, maggots cost me about £2.20 a pint if memory serves me correctly, I don't buy them often.
Coming from the Liverpool area, I can fish numerous park lakes for free once registered with the council. I have the canal just up the road, and fortunately have access to a couple of small lakes that are free to fish.
I source the vast majority of my bait very cheaply from the supermarket; bread, sweetcorn, bacon grill etc. I make ground bait from old biscuits, frozen old bread, bird feed etc. Costs next to nothing. I will occasionally buy a big bag of crushed hemp for about £4.
My main rod can be used as a 10ft float rod or 8 / 10ft quiver tip, cost me £49, and I have a second hand Shakespeare reel.
I have an inexpensive drop shot set up, and have spent a good few quid on lures but they will be seeing plenty of use over the colder months.

I lived down south for years and don't think your location is THE major factor in how expensive your fishing is. I know plenty of people here in Liverpool that have grands worth of tackle and happily spend a fortune on bait and day tickets. I'm sure there are plenty of people down south that are happy to dig up a few worms to fish on the local cut, without a barrow creaking under the weight of their expensive tackle collection.

 

[Specihunter]

In cumbria if fluff chucking country with some coarse fishing cheapest is £5 the closest too me to £7.50 just past Carlislethe lake I now go too is £6 a day and the club is 50 a year. Another club is 100 a year for one lake so it's really up too you I know for a day I can do it for around 10 inc food and fuel

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

[103841]

In my part of the world I can fish as cheaply or as expensively as I wish. Mid Kent Fisheries want £350 (no concessions) for a season ticket and the Stour Valley complex want £20 for a day ticket.

Fortunately I have the free to everyone sea on my doorstep and a lovely section of river through Canterbury that’s totally free. My estate ticket is £60 per annum and my CDAA ticket is the same price.

At £3 per pint I guess maggots are on the dearer side but I most probably don’t use more than 20 pints per season, if that. Summer fishing is meat, corn and bread, chip as chips..........no a lot cheaper than chips!

 

[peter crabtree]

I can fish as cheaply or as expensively as I wish.

That sums it up really. It's only as cheap or expensive as the individual makes it.

 

[bennygesserit]

7 quid for a day ticket
3 quids worth of on site pellets
Big bag of Method mix 7 quid (lasts 4 visits)
4 tins sweetcorn 2 quid ?
maggots ( dunno 2 quid a pint ? )
Cosy of additional floats , drennan quick stops , Stotts , hooks to nylon etc when I go and pick up said maggots £15

 

[Aknib]

Very variable for me.

If I'm doing a forty mile round trip with a kilo of worms, a bag of groundbait and a couple of pints of reds then it really does rack up but it still represents good value compared to, say, going to watch ninety minutes of league football.

On the other hand, if I take into account all of the costs associated with a session I have planned for tomorrow then all in I reckon i'll come in under a fiver and that includes bait (a farmhouse loaf), fuel @14 miles divided by 60mpg and the price of the ticket divided by the amount of times I anticipate using it.

Sometimes though I can count the cost of not going fishing by what I might go out and otherwise spend out of pure boredom or projects which I wish I had never started in the first place lol.

 

[xenon]

fish either the Colne or Thames at Staines (both free) bait is either breadflake or cheesepaste. Any cheaper and they would be paying me.