Simple Match Fishing Forum

On this site we have quite a very good cross section of match anglers from different parts of the country.

I am carrying out a little personal excercise here and asking you all a simple question.

How much would you be prepared to pay to fish an open (team or league match) today. I am only talking of what you pay on the day, pools and entry added toether. Forget all about bait costs petrol food and all other things that comes with it as that is very variable. Just what you would pay to fish a match?

My own answer would £20 top whack; I could afford much more but choose not too, that is my choice.

Don't be shy, let us know; you can all put your opinion over on this one.

£50 QUID

Joff, do us a favour.

crappity smack off

my honest answer bill is i would not pay anymore than £25 quid i go once a week and love my fishing the only reason i still organise matches is the fact i can still get 60 anglers out on the banks of natural venues most weeks at present the pools are £20 and the money is well spread out £40 every 5 pegs is a good incentive for the average anglers that do make the numbers up and it makes my day when one of theses anglers does well
if i increased the pools to £25 i would loose at least 20 percent and i'm sure if i went even further to £50 i would loose the lot
you only have to look at the big festivals its the same anglers and a lot of the time theses anglers can fish 2 to 3 days a week fare play if i could i would and perhaps I'd fish more of these festivals
i don't see many new anglers having ago anymore and i'm sure there is becoming a divided line as you only have to look at the club scene often 40 pegs now-er days and probably only £10 pools .but you try and get in on of these matches straight away the the moans start can you amagin the moans at 30 to £50 quid pools
ok in the old days big matches carried big prizes and Ivan won his fare share but that was in the times where every other person went fishing and the pegs were 20 yards apart its not like that today give everyone room they will catch more ok that great so why do commercials both to 30 pegs around a pond when they should put 15 what that has done on natural venues is its now a fact we pay £700 pound for a stretch of river that we used to get 30 pegs and now only get 10 its not rocket science where this will end up before long. fishing has changed you will see a high percentage of the same anglers in the fish-mania final as were in last years same with most of the festivals the split is getting bigger in individual and team fishing

£20 quid is tops for me Bill but in all honestly I would prefer £10 pools plus the peg fee.

Must admit Woodglue, I'm with you on that one.

i wonder how many anglers actually know how much they are paying for a peg fee
as you know i ran a summer league and used barston as a venue top class fishing !! but one major problem i let a few outsides in and of course they picked the majority of the money up .but the fact was the winner could not believe how much he had won as i averaged all the pegging fees together so the payout were the same whether it was a commercial or canal
but to be fare i took some proper stick for this

yet i won a match there a few weeks later and i got £50

bill do you think its the money side or do you think its a lot of anglers don't want to compete against these top anglers

It's my guess that most haven't a scooby doo and couldn't even care what they pay for a peg fee.

Every big match I did I produced a proper balance sheet, telling everyone where there money went, peg fees etcetra. Even so, some of the arseole minority complained about it afterwards, yet it was plain for all to see.

I even had one complete dick head, complain to me that he should have won his section of five and I should have personally put my money into the two vacant pegs that were in his bit. When I checked with the booking in list it was the very same guy that booked these two guys in from his own team that didn't turn up.
Realising he was on a loser he then said it was pegged all wrong. The next match on the same venue I rang him to say all the pegs were ready, they only needed picking up and he could peg it out. His reply "We don't do pegging."
These guys are the bane of match fishing; they do crappity smack all to help yet think they are that good.

Personally Joff I couldn't give two crappity smack who I draw next to in a match but they have to be prepared for a bit of banter. I have drawn next to Ivan once but we were too far apart to share any banter. I have been next to Baz Smith and Kevin Ashurst on numerous occasions; it was great fun and hardly a coincidence we ended up in the same bar or a restaurant the same evening.

! also couldn't give two crappity smack if anyone is prepared to pay to pay £50 or £5000 to fish a match, it is not for me.

I have run some massive entry matches in the past and loads of sponsored events with big money at the end of them.

Even I would learn some new expletives if I told any crappity smack that my match entry fees were £50.

i think we have been down this road before bill

i don't know how any of us are going to turn angling around i suppose thats why i'm catering more for the local area now
at the end of the day the better anglers will always win but one thing is for sure if they draw on a area with no fish around they ain't going to magic them out of thin air and every angler has a fare share of those pegs
i do think finals of any competition should be over two days whether its on commercials or natural venues even one on each
i remember the drennan final was always over two days one silver fish the other carp
we blobbed right out on day one and won the second day this put us 4th overal the mighty dorking still won it

personally my limit would be £20 which is more the norm the farther south and richer the people get but i would think twice about fishing 2 or 3 matches a week at that cost. i think £10 plus peg fee is about right. better to have a large number of entries paying less than a few paying alot. wigan matches are £7 out of which £0.60p is taken out as the peg fee, but you do have to have a wigan card to fish them. these matches are all about having the crack and wouldn'nt get the anglers if pools were put up. theres more £1 bets flying about than anything which have to be presented in the pub afterwards for a public shaming. hope i'm next to you one day bill!!£1 bet??

When I was very seriously into team fishing our side Izaak Walton (Stafford) AA had a magical spell of three years when we did win a lot of very prestigous , two FishAids (500+ entry including the England team), Upper Trent WLs, Bass Championships (300 on Trent), National Championships (prob the last proper Club side to ever do this) plus several other domestics.
At that time the biggest majority of us met up in a local pub on a Friday night and we naturally went through the previous weekends matches. The one that did the worst in the team was presented with the WAFU hat (what a crappity smack up) and hat to wear it in both matches during that weekend. This went on for years, great fun, he looked a proper dick, that's why I have so many crappity smack stupid hats!!!

C'mon TKs mob, imagine you were fishing an open, what would you pay up to?

Average i pay is £20 but some times it's £25 but if the other half found out i'd be banned.

My own series at Rolfs it works out that entry and pools to each match is just over £13 as they are for the banter and craick rather than money.

If i had the option i'd settle on around £15 all in for opens.

Bill i'm happy to pay what the WAA opens are set at between £12-£15 anymore i wouldn't be able to afford it being a poor self employed guy

Good replies and well within my thoughts, keep 'em coming.

Good question this

Things are really bad in our country at this present time and are about to get a lot worse, this is going to have a huge effect in all leisure expendature including match fishing ...... lots of anglers will be looking for cheaper matches rather than stopping going fishing imho. £15 is the limit i will pay on any canal match , team or individual commercials ...... i am sick to death of them , fished a match on one last sunday and totally hated it , thats me finished with them types of venues for good ...... they can charge £100 pools on commies for all i care

which side of the fence are on now dodge

give me a canal any day the crack and banter is brilliant the odd big match doe's me and if i'm going to fish a festival in the future i'l have a couple of weeks off fishing before hand

all the lads are off to Holland in a couple of weeks but i just can't see the point having a week off going all the way to Holland and fishing 4x 4hour matches where the country is in a far worse state than we are

i must be getting old

we charge £3 peg fee at cornerstone and still get told its to much......£15 tops i would like to pay......but gonna run some Wednesdays at £10 all in

C'mon TKs mob, imagine you were fishing an open, what would you pay up to?

Bill - good question, but a difficult one for me personally to answer as my open days were back in the 80s and early 90's before I ventured into the (Cashmores) club scene............so I'm way off the pace and the game.


Thinking back in the 80's I'm sure I paid a fiver for a cut match - similar for a river un................commies didnt exist so peg fees tended to be 'more reasonable' at the 50p or £1 mark


I wouldnt entertain fishing a commie open  - so spose I'd go with £10 pools and £2 for a cut match


On my gruellers I just do the £5, with no peg fee (although I do look for attendees to buy a season ticket that only costs a fiver) - aint been asked by the dozen or so anglers that turn up to raise that price.............lets just call it 'an affordable'