Angling Trust improves accessibility of Fish'O'Mania event for 2019
Back in 1994, the Angling Trust broke new ground with Fish’O’Mania, the first large scale televised match. Now they are looking to pave the way again in 2019 and make the event more accessible to more women anglers and disabled anglers.
The Angling Trust is the new, single organisation to represent all game, coarse and sea anglers and angling in England and Wales. As the governing body, they seek government funding to develop the sport from grass roots participation through to elite performance.
Fish'O'Mania is one of the great summertine sporting occasions across the angling community. Known as the 'FA Cup of Fishing' the competition involves 24 anglers who have qualified through heats over over 3,000 original entrants to fish off for the title of Fish'O'Mania Champion. The event gains much of its excitement from regular weigh-ins (every 30 minutes) which means there is an ever changing leaderboard and makes the action easy to follow.
The Angling Trust consulted with Activity Alliance to make the event as accessible as possible to more disabled anglers, whilst maintaining parity to all competitors. Assessments have been performed with a select set of geographically diverse fisheries to establish the following list of venues suitable for weelchair accessible fisheries for qualifier events:
- Gold Valley Lakes Qualifier
- Lindholme Lakes Qualifiers 1 + 2
- The Oaks Fishery Qualifier
- Partridge Lakes Qualifier 1 + 2
- Woodland View Fishery
At each accessible qualifier there will be dedicated drawing procedures to ensure that an angler fishing from a wheelchair can access as many pegs as possible. The Angling Trust sees this as a big step forward and will look to rollout the scheme to other competitions which have similarly accessible venues. They also hope that this is something that their members support and utilise for 2019.
A wheelchair accessible peg has a flat base and good access to the peg without steep slopes or potholes. However, the Angling Trust does insist that all competitors who use a wheelchair are required to have an assistant to accompany the angler whilst moving to and from their peg, and fishing is undertaken at the angler’s own risk. In addition, the Angling Trust would advise all anglers looking to purchase tickets at wheelchair accessible venues to visit the fishery prior to the match, to see the pegs that are available to them.
The Angling Trust has also created a ‘How to book Fish’O’Mania tickets’ guide and a short step by step video to navigate members through the booking process.
To purchase a wheelchair accessible ticket please navigate to the qualifier you wish to fish and choose "wheelchair accessible ticket" at the bottom of the page.
Anglers are advised to go onto to the online booking system prior to tickets going on sale to check their log in details. Forgotten passwords can be changed through the booking site very quickly, however at peak periods there can be delays, so plan ahead to make sure you can book your tickets. Any issues surrounding the online system can call us on 0115 822 4519/ 0115 822 4532.
