Your maximum you would pay for fishing

[salmonscotty16lb]

hi all im a new member just voted £10-30 im not a tight fist can afford more but indulge in season permits betweem £160-250 a year. unfortunatly its september and not touched a salmon.and only fished the annan once due to near 200miles round trip for nothing puts me off! (where is the sea trout?) but i try work my holidays round end of sep oct and start of november (and a few days with the salmon flu) and have some good fishing. if reports r right one day i might be on the earn the next on the annan but point is spread oppertunies for more of a chance?

[hadrian]

Beats are definitely bought as a longish term investment,not as business's that are going to quickly turn around the cash outlayed.Property is exactly the same at the moment,investors have been buying property and letting it at a loss for years now knowing that the long term rewards(the sale of a property)is where the money is made,if it can pay for itself on the way great,if not,a smallish loss during the letting is neither here nor there.

But it still boils down to money,supply and demand.

[Fruin]

williegunn said:

fruin said:

Most estates or fishings are not purchased to run as a business, but are an investment that, at the moment, have better returns than other less secure investments.

Please explain the above you lost me.

They are often bought as a long term investment, rather than a profitable business. Sporting estates are currently offering returns on invetsments of slightly more than stock market investments or high interest bank accounts. That is a well documented fact.

[turrifftackle]

The sale value of a Salmon beat on a Scottish river is derived by the same people who value your house.
It was decided somewhere that £5000 a fish would be about right and there it is------( it has risen to around £8000 per fish due to demand at present.) If land and hoses are included they are valued as normal and added to the fishings cost.

The profitability and rental income may be a factor in whether someone wants to buy but has no bearing on the price/valuation.

Those people/companies looking to buy fishings have enough money not to worry about costs.
However if they decide to keep the water and not do anything with it- ie let it go wild and do no maintenance and allow no angling then its value will fall as the catches will be nil.

If they do decide to rent then bank maintenance, Gillie costs and hut expenses are an individual choice and the costs will vary on the quality offered.

Standing costs will be the rates to the local council and the rates/levy to the District Fishery Board.

Neither of these are a drop in the ocean. The local council has a valuation on your beat and this is based on the number of fish you catch and the money you make. Every five years you are required to fill in a rather large form and give them your inside leg measurement including details of numbers and weight of fish caught over the five years.
They also put a valuation on any fishing huts you provide for the fishers. Even if it is a garden shed it has a value and has to be paid for.

The the DSFB part.
Not all are run on the same basis but they are made up of beat proprietors and co-opted members usually anglers and netsmen.
They basically look at their costs- ie river bailiffs, traveling, clerk costs and legal work they undertake and base a pence in the pound levy on the total rateable value of the river to cover their operating costs.

It is a bit like a committee from a club who set the fees but in this instance if the board say x then x it is. There is no wider vote on the rate.

Again this varies from board to board and you have to bear in mind that for instance the Spey Board has a patrol boat to check on illegal netting off the coast and does a lot of research work , Hatchery work and habitat improvement so all this has to be paid for and is for YOUR benefit in helping to have as many fish in the system so as you can catch a few as a by product of their work.

The Deveron has far lower costs than other rivers but the costs are still heavy. As an Angling club, not for profit and run by members for the members our local club pays no rates to the council but have the Fishery board rates to pay. If we were having to pay the council rates our yearly fees would nearly double. I suspect we would be in trouble as members are unwilling to pay £10 per year more but will pay £20 per day to fish on the local trout ponds- and some of them more than once a week.
How many of you are aware of the new Water framework directive??
This "little " piece of EU regulation has some serious implications for all rivers and has some very serious cost implications for beat maintenance.
I suggest that only the richest owners will be able to afford to carry out flood repairs let alone river enhancement work in the near future.
Indeed our club has spent over £15 000 in the last five years and in future we will have to stump up over twice that just for the permission before we start any work similar to that we have carried out. In effect- no chance.


All the above factors and many more will go into the fee you have to pay for the hidden costs you do not see.
We as a local club own our own water - but it still takes a lot of money to run and maintain.

If you turn up somewhere and the grass is like a bowling green, the hut is immaculate and the fishing superb and a one fisher one Gillie ratio then you should expect to pay more than parking two miles away and fighting through a jungle to reach the river.

As for taking all fishings into public ownership- if no one is paying to have the place maintained then you are back at the jungle scenario with the banks washed away and a beat that yielded hundreds of fish producing very few. Just look at the state of the road network- its really a none starter- the money you pay if any through a licence or tax will go into general taxation and nothing will be put back. If however it was: then I shudder to think of the cost if a Govt dept is implementing it.
There has already been a study into an alternative method of running Rivers by replacing DSFB with a state body made up of SEPA , SNH and others and the set up cost made even the politicians wince- before they looked at the running costs.

The system may not be perfect at the moment but we can all get some fishing somewhere and only the price stops us from getting on the best water- but then again doesn't the best seat in the house cost more?

Frank

[storlaks]

This is all fair and well but the simple fact still remains that certain rivers charge more than others because there is a perception / reputation that the fishing is better or you are fishing a "famous" river. You can pay 70 pounds a day for a crap beat on the Tweed in Oct/Nov. What's the cost based on here....certainly not the catches. It based on the fact that it's the river Tweed in Autumn and this has an attraction to many people who don't know better! It's nonsense! £35 would be more realistic....especially for coloured fish!

The other thing I don't particuarly like is the letting of fishing with huge houses or lodges. The fishing is sold as a package so you don't actually know what the cost of a days fishing is. This is an great way of securing large rents for average beats with average catches on famous rivers.

We all know it won't change, so we just have to accept it and look for value fishing in the hope that these value beats don't go the same way!

[severnfisher]

Yesterday Willie Gunn wrote;

And exactly what did the clearances have to do with salmon fishing?

A bit like asking 'what has the structure of land ownership got to do with landowners' income?'

The plain and simple fact is that the process of clearing a large part of the rural population from the land laid the basis for the present day absurdities of the scottsh salmon fishing 'market'.

Contrast with wales where the local rural community managed to maintain and extend an important degree of open access to fishing.

Let that well known dream world politician Moc Morgan explain:

icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/farming/farming/tm_objectid=15320100%26method=full%26siteid=50082-name_page.html#story_continue

Tom

[williegunn]

severnfisher said:

Yesterday Willie Gunn wrote;

And exactly what did the clearances have to do with salmon fishing?

A bit like asking 'what has the structure of land ownership got to do with landowners' income?'

The plain and simple fact is that the process of clearing a large part of the rural population from the land laid the basis for the present day absurdities of the scottsh salmon fishing 'market'.

I'm sorry I still cannot see what the Highland Clearances have to do with fishing on the Spey, Dee, Tay or Tweed, the big four. None of them lie in the Highland region.

It is great to carry on about the Highlasnd Clearances and how the rich landlord threw out the poor tennant but history suggests otherwise.

[turrifftackle]

The perception of rich landlords and expensive fishing is a nonsense if you dig around.
The fish ? .co.uk websites and others show availability and prices which do not seem out of it.

Leave aside the big four and The DEVERON has the fifth highest rod catch for Salmon.

The best beats are producing between 20 and 40 fish per week at the moment and the river level is/has been 8 inches below summer level.
This fishing will cost you on the best beats at most £440 per week per rod.
No Wonder it is nearly fully booked until the end of the season.
Daily tickets are still available on Association waters and cost around £30 per day.

Frank