had a club booking today for carron valley and unfortunately one of the men had to cancel at the last minute as we had 5 boats booked and only 9 anglers ,one of the men said he would go out by himself ,so we signed a form to say we had life jackets of our own then some of the men went and paid as the single went to pay £47 they said you cant go out in a boat by yourself as the forecast for this afternoon is to be 13mph winds you will have to go out with another 2 anglers as most will know 3 in a boat is a squeeze so he wasnt to pleased , when we tried to convince them saying the man,s not an idiot and he,s wearing a lifejacket the reply was ... do you think i,m an idiot there is nobody going out there on there own its our policy

Now this is where we feel unhappy.. being charged £47 for a boat to be left on the bank (which they said they would refund £23.50 if someone took it out which nobody did) and being charged £67.50 for a three man boat so the three man single boat really cost us £94 so just beware if your going to carron valley phone first to see if its going to be to windy for a single angler

I fully appreciate where you are coming from as a club and individuals, but not having enough anglers to fill the boats is surely not the fisheries fault. I have been on Carron before when single anglers have not been allowed out and most people are understandable. The wind can get up quite quickly and if you are up carron bay, lone tree bay area, you could be in trouble. Take it on the chin and hopefully you had a good days fishing. I have been allowed out on waters in worse conditions than you would ever be allowed out at Carron and it was scarey with 2 in the boat. God knows what it would have been like on my todd.

Hope you dont take this the wrong way,but Carron has had to bow to angler pressure by putting rainbows in , but safety is one thing they wont be swayed on.

Wullie

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If its' no tied at hame, its no hametied

www.sunburstinternational.com

I was there at Carron valley and i have to take my hat off to them for thinking safety first. We were told that there were no one man boats that day as the wind was to get up in the afternoon and it would not be safe.
however, in the afternoon, who went out in a one man boat?
The donkey who sold us the permits.
One rule for us and another rule for them

jim the chef

A bit off topic but what type of angling pressure are you talking about? Too many wild fish killed or the fact people want to catch at least a 3lb fish everytime they are out?

I agree with the issue of cost, totally out of order to penalise the odd angler. Since no other angler took the boat, and by the sound of it there wasn't another angler deprived of a boat, it surely wouldn't have taken much to say forget about the cost of the unused boat and simply warn you about the rules for the future.

We don’t normally make comment on any threads other than our regular fishing report however in this case where blatant lies are being told we will make an exception.

Ayr Travellers booked 5 boats for 10 anglers some time ago. When they arrived in the morning they didn’t advise one of their group had failed to turn up. Only when we were issuing life jackets were we made aware of a single angler going out on his own. We had already made a decision due to the wind forecast that we were not allowing single anglers out on their own.

At no time did anyone quote 13 mph winds.

The Health & Safety of our anglers is of prime concern and as such we do whatever we feel correct to ensure the safety of people fishing here, on some occasions we will either cancel boats, or restrict single anglers.

Had two members failed to turn up we would have charged for the boat as it had been booked by the club and was too short notice to re-let. As with most weekend dates Saturday had been fully booked for some time. We offered the single angler a choice to either join another boat with his club-mates or fish the bank, with an increased catch limit.

A few minutes later an irate Mr Riddicks (neither the club secretary or the angler who wanted to go out on his own) came into the office demanding…..

“Here what’s this you’re not letting him out on his own”.

While trying to explain our position it was clear Mr Riddicks wasn’t interested in listening to our viewpoint and made certain references to our decision. His irate attitude was clearly uncalled for, as commented on by two other anglers present in the office at the time.

It was also clearly explained that a FULL refund (£47) of the boat would be given if the boat was re-let, not £23.50 as claimed.

The reference made “do you think i,m an idiot there is nobody going out there on there own its our policy” is completely inaccurate.

While we allow single anglers it is subject to restrictions on advance bookings and weather conditions.

No one was charged £67.50 or £94 for a three man boat. The club were charged for the five boats that they booked. Boats which we could have re-let many times had we had more notice. In total the club was charged for the boats they had booked and which we had reserved for them in good faith, had the number of anglers shown up which they booked for. All in all the club paid £23.50 for the angler who failed to appear.

When booking the club were advised of our policy in respect of cancellations, including reductions in anglers on the day.

The childish comments in the catch return book were also completely uncalled for.

With reference to Jim the chefs comments the only reason I went out on a boat was because Two of Ayr travellers club members decided to fish well past the end of the session and we needed the boat for the evening session.

Fraser McGowan

Well, those facts put quite a different slant to the story. Based on Carron's version of the story I'd say they've acted fairly and honourably.

Blatant lies being told is correct .....By you

13 mph winds were quoted by you ...it was the forecast! we were told by you or your staff

£23.50 would be returned not a FULL £47 ..if the boat was taken out....! again by you or your staff

do you think i,m an idiot there,s nobody going out on there own its our policy..... again by you or your staff

if my fellow angler was irate .. why didnt you ask him to leave !

The 2 anglers Fishing well past finishing time were not in our club our members past you in the harbour mouth !

the only lies i have told is we were charged £67.50 for the three man boat it was £70.50 !

would totally agree with you if Carrons story were true

I have fished carron on a regular basis for the last few years both with my club and by myself and i have to say that fraser and his staff run a first class fishery , Our club turned up one man short for our outting in march this year same as you lads and we knew the rules and were paying for all places booked but frazer put me on to a lad that was looking for a boat and we had a space so it was sorted , my point is that fraser did what was fair to all so i can,t belleve this story that you have put out on the forum , dont be put off by this story boy,s carron is a top water ,, tight lines , colin