Asfordby & Melton Society of Anglers

Club News

• Melton Community Lottery - Christmas 17

  Get your tickets now for the Christmas draws. At just £1 per week your money goes to good causes in the local area. AMSOA have received over £200 this year because of the tickets bought, please help us increase this. Click here to buy yours.

  

   

• Newsletter Spring 2017

  Hello and welcome to another years angling with our society.

  Overall the club lake fished well this last year. Club matches were well supported with good weights recorded, there were a couple of difficult matches but if it was easy all the time it wouldn’t be as interesting. The Thursday evening series fished well with at least 20lb needed to win every match, even the day after the lake had overflowed its banks saw four 20lb+ weights. Congratulations to Bob Dyer who set a new evening match record of 42lb 5oz. The Sunday matches saw a best weight of 52lb 12oz and some of the winter matches saw 30lb+ winning weights. Much better than the previous year. The Fur and Feather match was won by Paul Turner with Danny Tarret taking the Boxing Day cup. Pleasure anglers were also reporting excellent sport with weights in excess of 80lb. Whilst on the subject of big weights please don’t forget that a minimum of two keep nets are required whilst fishing the lake. Silvers and small carp (up to a pound) in one net, carp over a pound in a separate net with a maximum of 50lb net limit. We have stocked some Perch into the lake to add some variety and help control the small fry.

  The Annual General Meeting this year was relatively quiet. All club officials and committee members were re-elected for another year. The one notice of motion regarding an increase in subscriptions did arouse some heated discussion but the amended proposal was passed by a unanimous vote. There has been comments regarding the increase but as I explained in your renewal reminder we have held off raising subscriptions for probably too long. Even at the new rate its less than a pound a week, still great value for money. Don’t forget that your club card also gets you a discount at Melton Angling on Mill St, Melton Mowbray. Ask in store for details. The shop has added some new lines recently and its well worth a visit.

  The club website and Facebook page seem to be working well now. Social media looks to be the way to go nowadays and it certainly helps in raising our club profile. Adding photos to the match reports made a big difference, we now have up to 700 people reading the results. I have said before though, it is the club website so if you have any notable catch reports or photos from club waters, send them in and we will do our best to publish them.

  The club coaching team had a quieter year than previously. As we feared there was a severe cutback in funding available so we were unable to run the academy through the summer. However we still managed to run a coaching course for Asfordby Hill Primary School. We also worked with the Angling Trust on their “Back to Angling” programme and took part in the Melton Borough council “Alive at 65” campaign. This coming year we will be working with Asfordby Hill School again, also running two sessions for the “This Girl Can” campaign organised by Sport England. We have already had two Saturday morning junior sessions, with more planned for juniors in July/August. At present there is no funding to run these sessions, participants are charged a fee to cover expenses but they only happen because club coaches give up their time to promote our club and try to attract more members.

  This leads me on to the Melton Community Lottery launched by Melton Borough Council to help local clubs with the funding shortfall. Full details can be found at; www.MeltonLottery.co.uk and search for ‘anglers’. Tickets cost £1 and please register as a club supporter, the club will then get 50p for each ticket you buy and you could win up to £25,000! Club members have already had four minor wins this year.

  The working parties have been busy trimming back overhanging trees and bushes, repairing and refitting platforms where required. There are still a few bits to attend to but we will be sorting these asap. We are also putting in a new footpath from Car park One to the back of peg 19 to make the access easier at that end of the lake. Last year there were a few new weed beds that appeared around the lake. The fishery has invested in some new weed cutting equipment and we will be trying this out soon to see if it helps with the problem.

  A few reminders for the coming year. All meat products are banned as bait on the club lake, this includes dog and cat food. All feeders and leads must be free running, NO fixed rigs. Towels are for drying your hands, please do NOT use them to hold fish whilst unhooking!   The fishery now closes at 7.30pm, please make sure you are not locked in! If you think you may be cutting it fine, at least put your car outside the barrier. Otherwise there is a release call-out fee.

  Hope to see many of you around the lake this year

  Mike Smith