Like many people, anglers are worried about the cost of travelling to distant venues because fuel for cars is at a prohibitive level now and yet this has not reduced to any great extent the level of traffic on the roads that have made motoring something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
There was for many years a tradition for anglers from our area to visit distant venues a lot, especially the fen district and coach trips were commonplace.
I marvel when I look back and remember that I regularly drove myself to distant places like Graffam Water and Rutland Water and even Scotland because so many of the best places for quality fishing were far from Derbyshire.
Now anglers must think about visiting fisheries nearer to home and this is not much of a problem because Derbyshire has its share of top class venues now.
Where rivers for coarse fishing are concerned we surely wil appreciate the opportunity to fish the river Trent and this big river offers big fish that were not to be had at one time, barbel for example.
Perhaps even more reachable is the Derwent in its lower reaches, plus a few smaller tributaries, with sport to please every angler.
On the game fishing front though, we do not have the migratory species of salmon and sea trout, we do have some pretty good trout reservoirs including Ladybower, Foremark and Carsington for both bank and boat, and plenty of smaller waters too.
Best of all though, we have the glorious Derbyshire trout streams that are the envy of anglers in distand places including the Americans.
Thank our lucky stars for the nearness to superb beats on the Derwent, Wye, Lathkil, Dove and Manifold.
Expensive for fishing on a season ticket or club membership I know, but if you fish regularly it works out cheaper than top class day tickets over the course of a season and in many cases, waiting lists for memberships are much shorter or even non-existent in some cases now and there's our grayling fishing too.