Huge
risks for managers
There was a time several years ago when several water companies ran the
trout fishing on their own reservoirs, and very attractive for fly fishing
customers they proved.
Money seemed to be no object, and staff were very numerous, and stocks
of fish very high. Then all that changed.
It became fashionable to get rid of surplus staff and to concentrate on
saving expenditure so that shareholders were accommodated.
Several big reservoirs were privatised so far as the fishing was concerned.
Managers were found to run the fishing as a private business, and more
often than not this proved to be disastrous for both managers and customers
alike.
Many of the fisheries have gone bust in recent years and either closed
altogether or gone over to coarse fishing or changed hands a number of
times.
I am nearly always sympathetic to the managers who run a great risk and
who can so easily not just fail to make money but lose a lot of money.
I believe that whether you are trying to run a big expanse of water, or
a smaller area, your chances of making money from the enterprise are very
poor.
If you manage one of the few fisheries that have their own trout farm
on site you have a fair chance because you can breed and rear trout to
takeable size so much more cheaply than if you have to buy the fish at
great expense from commercial trout farms.
If you have other sources of income on site such as coarse fishing as
well as trout fishing, and if you can sell drinks and food and tackle
to customers this all helps a lot to offset losses.
However, to run a fishery where you have to buy in the trout at your expense,
you are running a big risk.
If you have, in addition, to pay rent for the water as well as the costs
of boats and engines and maintenance then you will perhaps join the long
list of failed fishery managers.
To make matters worse I am ashamed to have to admit that there are some
disgusting cheats among our angling fraternity. Almost every fishery is
vulnerable to those who exceed limit bags, use illegal methods such as
bait, and think they have been clever if they have cheated the management
in these ways.
And paying staff to stop cheats is expensive too.