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somerley estate

Tim Lennon said:
Hi Steve, who has said that Somerley is "not worth fishing"??
I said that the BARBEL fishing is hard, but the mere fact that I'm still fishing it for barbel must tell you something!

Tim
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Tim,

You wrote " The Hampshire Avon is now so hard for barbel that only a few locals and die hards are interested. "

Chris Thompson wrote "they'll want silly money to fish a stretch that is rapidly dying on its feet due to otter predation etc, "

Tony Carter wrote "I walked the whole stretch and didnt even see a Barbel ..so hard to fish i gave up and went on to the Stour instead,"

Its hardly a ringing endorsement is it?
 
Steve Stringer said:
Tim,

You wrote " The Hampshire Avon is now so hard for barbel that only a few locals and die hards are interested. "

Chris Thompson wrote "they'll want silly money to fish a stretch that is rapidly dying on its feet due to otter predation etc, "

Tony Carter wrote "I walked the whole stretch and didnt even see a Barbel ..so hard to fish i gave up and went on to the Stour instead,"

Its hardly a ringing endorsement is it?
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Hi Steve,
no it's not a ringing endorsement, but I stand by what I said.

For locals that have prior knowlege of the fishes haunts it is still worth fishing.
Personally, I would no longer bother if I didn't live so close, and day ticket sales on the middle Avon fisheries indicate that this is backed up by the majority.

In the 35 or so years that I've been fishing it, the middle Avon has never been a pushover. It has always been "swimmy", but back then it was possible to find occasional shoals of 20-30 barbel.

Now you are having to look hard for isolated pockets of fish. Finding a group of more than 2 or 3 barbel is unusual, and often it's just a solitary fish. The bonus, if you can call it that, is that the barbel are now of a much larger average size, but no bigger than can now be found on many other rivers.

Of course all this is only my opinion, and I'd be interested to hear if anyone disagrees with what I'm saying...

Tim
 
I think that is a fair summary Tim.
I have fished Somerley for 15 years,..[not as regularly as you I suspect ], and agree that the numbers of barbel have shrunk, as have the number of swims where they are present.
I tend to get substained results when feeding large quantities of caster or maggots over a period of days,.. and you still need to be in the right area!!
1 in 4 fish tend to be doubles, which is ok but not substainable.
Dave T.
 
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Below is a post I have made tonight on the Christchurch AC website on the section 'questions for committee'
I am totally ****ed off at the lack of response from a committee point of view especially chairman Ian May regarding the loss of fishing on the Somerley estate.
There are a lot of members being kept in the dark here so come on and tell all the real reasons why negotiations have failed.
Who on committee don't give a toss that the club have been given 12 months notice?
Who on committee don't want the Somerley estate lease renewed?
If any committee don't want to do the right thing by the general membership of 1532 anglers then step down and don't let personal issues get in the way.



I haven't got a great deal of confidence in the committee at the moment especially our chairman Ian May. It's been 9 days since the general meeting and still no official comment. Chairman, stand up and please enlighten your 1532 members as to where the present committee go from here. You have obviously been in contact with maybe 'an elite few' Do the rest of the membership not warrant a reply? Personally I am not too bothered about my membership to CAC in its present status so if you want to get rid of me then you try, you have done it before when I sat on committee of RDAA. Have the decency to speak up and do the right thing for the membership and not your massive ego that has got this club in this position!!!
 
Well said John. Although the financial position of the club may have left them no alternative, it would be nice of them to let us members know what's been going on.

I'd be interested to hear Mr. Reading's opinions. Can't you make a comeback Pete, before it's too late?!
 
I believe many would love to see Pete back at the helm Tim but as a CAC trustee he is in a very difficult position.
He has always acted in the best interest of the club and the members.
He is sorely missed though as an active committee member.
 
Could this be something else that Keith the female seal is being blamed for. Yes i know it's nowhere near the Severn but it really does seem in the last 18 months that perhaps anglers are using more and more excuses which tend to come from the angling press.





Pike, perch,chub Zander etc are predatory fish. How many people are protesting for there control?

Just a thought.
 
Nick Anderson said:
Are you denying that the barbel angler hasn't increased in popularity?
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I don't follow you. There are far fewer people fishing Somerley Estate than there were in the past. As I said previously, the day ticket sales on the middle Avon have also declined, along with the fish.

I can remember turning up at Lifelands on weekends and being met by (literally) coach loads of anglers. It's a long time since that was the case.
 
Well said John, having understood only a small amount of what has gone on with CAC and the Estate, this news has come as no surprise.
The club have been haemorrhaging committee members in recent years, and good people too.
 
Just to stimulate the debate, as one of the former Committee members of CAC (I resigned last year, just a month after being re-elected as Secretary, because of the way the Club was being run and its attitude [indifference] towards the rank and file membership), I will add some background information.

I originally joined the Committee in March 2012, because I could see that the Club was struggling and wanted to try to help to get the Club back on its feet again. At that time the membership had been in decline for some time and the Club was haemorrhaging cash because, with a membership of around 1750, the Club still had much the same waters as when it had 2500 members. Admittedly, some waters had been lost and others were given up but the books still didn't balance and the only solution seemed to be that one of the freeholds would have to be sold to clear the sizeable bank overdraft and release funds for much needed works on some of the other waters.

Negotiations for the new Somerley lease had been ongoing for some time and the Vice Chairman (there was no Chairman in place then) was taking a relatively aggressive stance with the Estate - indeed, the lease was almost lost in mid 2012 when Lord Somerton took offence at a particularly forceful letter sent by the Committee, but that was smoothed over and the negotiations continued.

In June 2012, the Vice Chairman stood down from the Committee at the AGM because of pressure of work. By the end of 2012, the lease negotiations were progressing towards a conclusion but one of the stumbling blocks was that the Estate wanted the Club to surrender the long lease of the Ibsley complex that had been granted in the late 1970s. They offered concessions for this and these were eventually agreed by the Committee.

In the meantime, the Club was operating with only one Trustee (Pete), which was an issue, but we received an offer from a former Committee Member to act as the second Trustee and this was duly agreed, the rub being that new trustees could only be appointed by the Chairman, and the Club didn't have one! One of the existing Committee members volunteered to take the position on a trial basis but before the next Committee meeting was held to ratify the appointment, Ian May, the former Vice Chairman suddenly offered his services as Chairman.

The Committee was divided on this issue with half (myself included) wanting to appoint the existing member but the other half supporting Ian May. Eventually, Ian's faction got the upper hand and he was voted in as the new Chairman. Ian was aghast at the fact that the new lease had been virtually agreed, as he believed that the lease of the Ibsley complex was worth far more than had been assumed. Negotiations were therefore resumed on the basis that the Club wanted more concessions for the surrender of the long lease while the rent for the river was deemed too high (because of the declining quality of the fishing). Needless to say, the Estate were not best pleased.

When I resigned in July last year, following a major disgreement with the Chairman about the way the Club was handling its interactions with the membership (as well as my increasing dismay at the way that the Somerley negotiations appeared to be headed), the Committee were attempting to renegotiate the terms of the new lease while also trying to establish the potential value of the remaining term on the Ibsley lease.

Subsequent to that, I was informed that the lease negotiations had broken down, with the Estate adopting a take it or leave it approach to the deal that had previously been on the table. For whatever reason, it appears that the Club were not prepared to accept that deal and that has resulted in the Notice to Quit being served. As a matter of interest, the reason why the Club thought that the Ibsley lease was worth so much was because they thought that it included fishing rights on the main river, whereas I am now informed that this was not the case, the lease only covering the 3 pools (Crowe, Tomkins & Edwards) as well as the west bank of the trout stream.

The attitude at the time that I resigned was that Somerley cost too much and that the financial position would be improved by dropping it. This was despite protestations from some Committee members (myself included) that Somerley was the heart and soul of the Club, as well as figures produced by the Treasurer (who had resigned at the AGM and has yet to be replaced) indicating that the Club broke even on the cost of the lease. What the current Committee appear to fail to recognise is that although Somerley may have represented around 50% of the Club's total outlay on rents etc, without it a significant number of members might not renew their memberships, leaving the Club in the same parlous financial position, if not worse.

I seriously fear for the future of the Club now and, as noted in another post, am just glad that I never took up the offer of life memberships.


Dave
 
Thanks for that David.
I'd like to think that if the clubs present chairman were to somehow be 'evicted' a few former committee would return to try and turn CAC around.

Regards John
 
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