The CEMEX lakes

[Julian]

I pay almost £650 per annum for an all year round river syndicate - trout/salmon/sea-trout & carp/bream/chub/barbel/roach etc

A Gold Permit for all CEMEX water cost around £1500 before most waters were sold. Many carpers were collectors of named fish - TH caught it so I want it as well. Hence the number of anglers willing to pay! 50+lb carp + 100 lb catfish + loads of other big fish!

Personally I enjoy peace & quiet when fishing and would prefer to pay for that - whatever the cost - preferably as cheap as possible!

Your career over those 17 years must have been really interesting - and to be a consevation manager for all those CEMEX waters - a great job being paid to spend a lot of time at places you want to be ( yes I realise there was probably a great deal of hard work as well). I can't think of a nicer job - other than Skeff's (Conservation Manager for National Trust waters).

There is so much angling history attached to those CEMEX waters and even though all ( or most ) on here are not interested in paying large amounts of money to try and catch named huge carp, the history of all of it is important and significant in angling terms.

For myself, I too enjoy and only want to fish in peace and quiet on picturesque old waters - and I am now lucky to belong to both clubs and small syndicate waters which fulfill those requirements.

[Shaun Harrison]

Interesting remarks on the price people pay for their angling. I have some wonderful fishing close by which is totally free of charge and I love angling there. I also have a ticket that costs me over £1,000.00 per year which hurts when I pay it but the peace and solitude and total security from people as well as security for the fish from Otters etc as well as the 80 odd acres of water surrounded by 1 3/4 mile of bank leaves me starting to divide the cost up as in how much is total car security worth, how much is it worth knowing I can leave my gear in situ' and visit a local pub or restaurant for a meal, and so on including the quality of the fish. I think it is an awful lot of money but every moment I spend there I feel totally relaxed and every moment is a prime one with the other members being just the sort of angler you enjoy spending time with. This ticket ends up incredibly expensive by the end of a season as it also costs me £35 to £40 in fuel each time I visit. I pay because I love the place and love being there.

I have another ticket which is very local to me and costs just over £200. There are 3 different pits which should have carp over 40lb now. It has big stretches of the river Trent with Barbel to upper doubles, chub to 7lb, 20lb plus pike, possibly double figure bream, large carp and so on. It also has stretches of the River Derwent with a similar stamp of fish. Now in comparison this ticket sounds like an absolute bargain but in reality I can never sit back and chill out on these waters like I can on my expensive ticket. The waters are busy (well, the rivers aren't in the winter) I can rarely get in a swim I really want to be in and I often find myself feeling quite irritable fishing there.

I guess at the end of the day we all have a choice as to where we join and how much we are willing to pay. Angling forms the main part of my life and if I can enjoy total prime angling then I am prepared to stretch the purse strings justifying to myself that I don't spend a lot of money on anything else and at the end of the day expensive fishing permits are still quite cheap in the grand scheme of things when compared to many other sports. Even simply going and watching other people enjoying their sport can cost much more per annum than any angling permit.

Money doesn't usually buy peace and happiness but the two most expensive syndicates I have belonged to actually have. But each to their own. I am fortunate that I don't have to find money for any other pastime as my other pleasures in life are very cheap.

[Shaun Harrison]

Crazy golf is so far removed from what a golfer would deem proper golf but there is a huge demand for it. Unfortunately those wanting to creep through unspoilt undergrowth to fish in totally natural and wild surroundings (myself included) are far greatly outnumbered by those who prefer to sit in a clinical dug-out or out on a wooden platform. So I guess it has to be us who has it wrong as the growing number of artificial waters only grow through sheer demand. At least we can continue to hide ourselves away in our tiny pieces of heaven and escape that maddening world, for a short while anyway.

[Julian]

Crazy golf is so far removed from what a golfer would deem proper golf but there is a huge demand for it. Unfortunately those wanting to creep through unspoilt undergrowth to fish in totally natural and wild surroundings (myself included) are far greatly outnumbered by those who prefer to sit in a clinical dug-out or out on a wooden platform. So I guess it has to be us who has it wrong as the growing number of artificial waters only grow through sheer demand. At least we can continue to hide ourselves away in our tiny pieces of heaven and escape that maddening world, for a short while anyway.

I don't think it means we are 'wrong' - just because demand for something is high it doesn't mean to say it is right or best or the direction to go.
The high demand for the clinical artificial waters is driven mainly by one thing - greed. Its the I want to catch the fish now, I want to catch lots of fish now, and I want to catch really big fish now. The 'must have instantly' attitude that has developed.
This has not been helped by most of a generation who have unfortunately grown up with no exposure to, no understanding of, or no desire to appreciate, the natural world around them. Wheras for most of us on here we do fully appreciate and like the natural world around us.

[Snape]

We've even recently had someone who has summer dates posting on the Redmire forum seeking reassurance that if there is a lot of weed this year someone will have ensured that the swims are raked in advanced by the management so he can turn up and cast out 4 rods! Not surprisingly he has received short shrift.

[Julian]

We've even recently had someone who has summer dates posting on the Redmire forum seeking reassurance that if there is a lot of weed this year someone will have ensured that the swims are raked in advanced by the management so he can turn up and cast out 4 rods! Not surprisingly he has received short shrift.

That is just sad. There must be a 100 proper anglers out there who would jump instantly at the chance to fish Redmire in the summer.

[Olly]

Agree with Julian - current generation want it NOW! And they are given it -- at cost! Most on here I think served an apprenticeship on fishing! Fishing is not the same as was 55 years ago when I started!

I also agree with Shaun - there must be loads of waters where there is little 'interference' to the banks - beautiful. But income talks I am afraid. Look how 'cheap' the CEMEX water were sold for!

Finally - weed dragging - swim clearance - again the younger generation accompanied by sheer numbers of anglers wanting to fish the same venue. No hiding place for the carp -- and no respite from bait & lines.

[PerchBasher]

Ah Cemex! Back in the late 1960’s I joined what was then called the Halls Angling Scheme as it offered fishing at the gravel pits at South Darenth and Sutton at Hone. Its benefits were threefold. First we were all below legal driving age and the waters were within a bus or push bike ride from our homes in Bexleyheath. Second it was cheap and third, there was no waiting list! (Remember when most coarse fishing clubs actually had waiting lists!)

It was our first taste of “proper” fishing and we caught roach, perch, rudd, bream, tench and pike, but modern carp fishing as we knew it was beginning to take off, and how we stared enviously at the carpers Mark 4’s and Abu fixed spool reels, tackle beyond our pocket money and paper round budgets.

40 years on, I’m back fishing there as my club (Dartford DDAPS) has acquired two of the CEMEX lakes at Sutton at Hone. The larger is very much for the “serious” carp fishers and at an extra £100 p.a to fish it, it’s not for me. But the smaller lake, now known as Presidents Lake is a delightful fishery, wooded, overgrown and with lily pads galore

I don’t know if CEMEX made much money out of their fisheries, but certainly in the early days, it offered impecunious youngsters the opportunity for some reasonably priced, (and very good) fishing, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

[Reedling]

Was Cemex once called Leisure sports PerchBasher, as I used to fish a little pond on a day ticket at the back of Leisure sports called the model boat pond in Roman Villa Road? ( Monster Tench & huge Eels) I also fished a lovely little stretch of the Darent that run around it. Bill Turrel was the baliff then..early Eighties. Reedling.

[PerchBasher]

That’s right Reedling, the old Halls Angling Scheme went through a number of name changes Leisure Sport, RMC and finally Cemex.

I recall the small lake you mentioned. I fished it back in the early/mid 70’s and I don’t think it was on a ticket then. It was gin clear, very weedy, and although I don’t recall ever catching a tench, thee were big eels and plenty of perch. As you mention Bill Turrell, I presume that by the early 1980’s the water was leased to Dartford DAPS? We also fished the adjacent river Darent a lot as well. This was before the drought in the very hot summer of 1976 when the river was fishing really well.

Do you still fish in the area now? I’m a member of Dartford DAPS and fish Horton Kirby and Sutton on a regular basis.