Why Onsite Fishing?

I guess many will ask why I have startup a website and blog to list a load of camsites that already exist elsewhere on the internet, either having their own website, Facebook or similar.

Well in many cases the campsites focus on the key elements to do with living arrangements and facilities:

• Shower blocks
• Pitches (type, hardstanding/grass, with electricity, etc)
• Children's activities
• Dog walking facilities
• Things to do in the area
• Onsite activities/facilities

Generally the fishing is listed under the last item as "Fishing on Lake/River/Canal" and that is it! One line of information. Site owners/managers are often not Anglers themselves and therefore don't realise how complex a sport it is, especially if like me you have ventured into every type of fishing that exists (with the exception of Ice Fishing...hopefully one day!).

At home I have a shed filled to the brim with fishing tackle, our motorhome has a huge garage but that has to have chairs, tables, 2 bikes (other 3 are on the back) as well as other essential camping stuff like hook up cable, hose pipe, waste pipe…you get the general idea.

So it is essential to know:

What the fishing will be like?

Do I need my carp rods? float rod? feeder rod? fly rod? Pole? Spinning tackle?

Do the rules say I need an unhooking mat? or that I can only use certain types of bait? It is essential to know as much information so that the correct tackle and bait can be prepared prior to leaving home so that the volume of tackle can be kept to a minimum – more so if your camping or caravanning – I’m lucky to have the garage to stow my kit!

Loads of campsites have onsite fishing but what I have found is that many of these places have very little information about the fishing online, I spend hours looking through online forums, going through hundreds of campsite reviews looking for nuggets of information – often turning up to the campsite just knowing a very small amount about the fishing and in many cases ill prepared due to taking a selection of tackle that doesn’t cover the angle needed to make the most of the very limited time that I go fishing on holiday.

Quite often the site managers do not know much either – the last place I stayed I was told that the Carp are huge because he had seen pictures of them – now huge to a fisherman can vary deeply from person to person and to a none fisherman a carp of 3lb is huge and therefore a telephone call to the site to find out about the onsite fishing can be very misleading.

Obviously I am generalising, many places have very accurate information online and information can be easily obtained from online presence in the form of forums/reviews/blogs.

Usually I aim for 1-2 days fishing per week, this keeps me happy, gives the kids the opportunity to fish if they want and gives us lots of time during the rest of the week to enjoy family activities together.

So planning the holiday has become quite complicated from the fishing point of view, it occurred to me that I needed to keep all of my information in one place and that perhaps this information could be shared with others and that others would also like to contribute to the cause, this was when I decided to create www.onsitefishing.co.uk

Hope you enjoy the blog