After years of discussion within Committee, the Club have decided to sell Stanton Harcourt Lake to Embryo Angling and the legal process is now entering the final stages. Obviously, there will not be any Spring Tickets for this venue.
This has been an extremely difficult decision for the Club as we want to add to our water portfolio not decrease it. The decision was based on the following:
a) Most of our membership is based in Bedfordshire, we need local still waters.
b) Due to the distance, we cannot bailiff and maintain the lake as we would like. Traffic now means it takes twice as long to get to and from Stanton as it did a few years back, it can easily take 2.5 hours and longer from Bedfordshire to get there.
c) There has been a 70% drop in membership local to Stanton Harcourt. In fact, we currently have 25 members in Oxfordshire with around another 5 – 10 outside of the area that fish the lake, which is about 3.5% of our membership. This has been the situation now for several years and is just not sustainable for the Club.
The new owners will improve the fishery in ways that we are unable to. For instance, otter fencing, effective bailiffing and regular maintenance. The lake will be syndicated but membership is open to any angler and an interview process will be employed. In syndicate terms, the cost will be affordable as Embryo have no intent to try and maximise return.
The proceeds of the sale will be used to try and purchase a still water preferably in Bedfordshire for the benefit of our main membership. We are currently actively seeking another water and urge all of our members to get in touch if they know of anything.