Club History

The club was started in about 1962 by Bert Slaughter who had a tackle shop along the Lee High Road.
In the early years, before the advent of large commercial fisheries, they mainly fished on rivers especially the Thames.
Even during the 1980s' it was very common for matches to be won with a weight of 5 lb or less.

Membership seems to have been pretty healthy. Records for 1981/2 show that there were 39 senior members and 14 juniors which is pretty good by today's standards.
The Club Champion that year was T Fearon with a total weight for the season of 23-11 caught over 17 matches.
The total club catch for the season was 200-15.

Unfortunately the club folded in February 1995 with no venues booked for that year and £41.06 in the bank.

The club was restarted in June 1995 by Gary Smith and John Noonan with nothing in the bank.
During that first season of the new club the total weight caught was 1133-12 over 16 matches and an average of about 20 anglers per match.

In 1996 the club season was changed, from the traditional June to March, to run from March to December, as we still do.
The policy of mostly fishing commercial lakes, which had started when the club was reformed, was continued and proved successful by the gradually increasing catches.

2000 proved to be a golden year with a total catch over 18 matches of 5161-12 but the following year only produced 2384-3 over 20 matches.

By 2005 the total catch had increased to 6558-1 and in 2006 we went stellar with 9908-15.
The match weights continued to increase in 2007 with a total catch of 10,214-15.

As with many clubs the membership has fluctuated over the years and in 2005 we started to take proactive steps to remedy the situation firstly by advertising in local tackle shops and on the internet via this website.
In 2006 we advertised in "Southern Angler". In 2007 we attracted several new members, who immediately tested everybodys mettle, and had quite a few more enquiries.

In 2008 we raised our total catch for the season to 11,748-11 beating the previous 2007 record by over 1,500 lbs, and in 2009 it increased yet again to 13,765-12.

2013 produced another club record with a total weight of 21,157-12 caught. In 2014 it was raised to 23,955-10 caught and in 2015 to 27,948-14.

2016 was still a good year but the catch was a bit lower at 24,507-11

Past Champions