Prize money dispersal.

As a member of a small angling club which is taking on new members who seem to be winning most of the prize money,I am asking if anyone has any ideas/suggestions which will prevent any bitterness from developing between the new and old members.Obviously the new members are better anglers who can develop their skills fishing several times a week.However,for the rest of us mortals who have to work for a living and have families these frequent trips are not an option.Some sort of handicap system has been suggested but how do you go about deciding how this works.Are there any clubs experiencing similar problems? and how are you addressing it?Any help would be gratefully recieved.

make it a rule that the winner has to buy every one a bag of chips and a pint down the pub after wards.

The best method is for the pools payout to be changed to share the money around. This stops those with only one intention. If this fails then reduce the pools so that those in it for the money will go elsewhere. Those that are there for the social and enjoyment element should still turn out.
In one of my series of matches, we decided on no pools whatsoever. It didn't stop us enjoying our matches either, and it encouraged the youngsters and novice match anglers to partake.

Tough one Pete.
I have allways said that where money is involved regardless of the amount. Their is no such thing as a friendly match. The new anglers have smelled easy pickings.

sounds like you should re-structure the pools/payouts a bit.


may be put more emphasis on section winners? so on a match of say 30, pay out the bulk of the pools to the winers of 6x 5-peg sections. Then have an optional winner takes all pool to keep the new guys happy as well.


I think any type of handicapping system is a total non starter

Hi Pete,

I'm no matchman but one of my local clubs runs both sweepstake club matches and opens which are quite popular.

Sure they wouldn't mind if you tapped them up for some advice.

Mike Grief organises most of them, try e-mailing KLAA(at)btinternet(dot)com

Well i reckon you should watch how they sre fishing one day instead of fishing the match yourself and see how they go about it. presumably these blokes came to the club without any experience of the waters of the club.And now they are winning the matches . Sounds to me they haven't taken long to work out the best way to fish it.So how come with the older members none of them have worked it out?

How many people are fishing your matches? What sort of money are we talking about here?
I ask these questions because there seems to be an implication that these "new members with "unfair advantage"" are taking the old stagers to the cleaners. As a match sec for a club with small turnouts, typically 12-15, and a charge of ?3 pools plus ?1 for the golden peg I'm delighted if new members turn up.The only problem we encounter is when a series of matches gets to its finale with a hefty golden peg fund, say ?100+. In those circumstances I do insist that people have paid in to it at least twice before the final match and if it is not won then it is divided proportionally between all those who catch in that final match. I definitely would not advise a general handicapping system. This is fishing not golf.