Should Fisheries be licensed?

[Jock]

Should Fisheries be licensed or under a governing body, there seems to be more and more fisheries opening at the moment and the rules and regulations change from one venue to the next so why is there no stead fast rules for these establishments. Over the last few years I have seen numerous new fisheries open, and then attend only to find you can’t fish this you can’t fish that and you have to return certain species or fish over a certain weight or type. Diseased fish swimming about the water, areas covered in algae or weeded over and false promises of the best fishing you will ever experience.
How many of these types of establishments have you attended lately? And put it down to another bad experience and you won’t be back.
Am now inclined to stick to the tried and tested, and not go by the glossy magazine write ups and web site details as you are well disappointing, and the guy in charge only wants to get your cash and get on with something else and if you complain it’s because you never got a fish, a bit rich considering nobody else has caught as well including him. Some even give you the impression they don’t want you there or then the fishery manager who can’t wait to get back on the water, but is a jobsworth with free fishing, who finds it inconvenient that you have arrived after they had just started to fish.
How many new establishments are in your area? Are they better than what you have on offer before? fishing wise? Or do you prefer the £1 or £1.50 mug of coffee instead of a flask, or are you back to the original choices after your first impression of a new establishment?
Fisheries are one of the biggest expanding businesses yet no governing body is in place to monitor or protect the consumer, anybody like to hazard a guess how much is made alone in the UK out of this industry and are spot checked by the fishery board or SEPA

[neilson]

i think fisheries should be licensed,there are to many fisheries that just want your money and dont care obout you the fisherman or the care of the fish.there is one place i have been to(just the once)that has 4 ponds,and to me they just want as many folk in as poss.
one pond was so over grown with weed you couldnt fish.there was also a few that had drunk one to many cans o beer.
all fishery owners should go on a fishery management course(if there is one).
if other fisheries were like swanswater i would be happy,he seems to care about the fish,the fishery and the fisherman(woman).

[Jock]

Some also use a fishery to get round planning permission laws in green belt areas.
There are fisher management degrees but am not so sure about how many of these places employ or are owned by people in possession of the degree. Never seen many on any fisheries walls a have attended.

Yip Swanswater is well run along with the Lake of Menteith, and the guy in charge of Burnhouse, John has been involved in fishery management for a right few years.

Places that raise stocking fish and breed their own fish would have a fishery manager as that would be licensed.