Coldingham Loch Fly Fishers

Offered a platform to manage memberships & bookings online, a new website to promote the fishery, a reliable management system to help transition from a day ticket fishery to a member-based fishery.

Coldingham Loch is a natural spring-fed, 22-acre loch uniquely positioned and in close proximity to the magnificent cliffs of the Berwickshire coast in the south-east of Scotland. As the only eutrophic (naturally nutrient-rich) loch in the Scottish Borders, it offers the discerning angler the opportunity to enjoy the fantastic top-of-the-water sport.

One of Scotland’s oldest established trout fisheries, Coldingham Loch has earned a reputation for providing excellent fly fishing from both boat and bank for its top-quality Brown, Blue and Rainbow Trout. We are becoming members-only this season with Angling Clubs still being able to fish the loch as well as members being able to bring guests, and our holiday guests can also fish the loch. We have six holiday cottages offering self-catering accommodation in a beautiful, peaceful setting.

Before Clubmate, we only offered day tickets at our waters. Since we had quite a high footfall, we had to be present at reception for a good deal of the time to take ticket monies. This took up a lot of our time, plus COVID-19 made things a little trickier because we had to make sure we were being safe while sorting tickets.

Our bookings were mainly arranged over the phone, which came with its own challenges! The mobile signal isn’t always great so we could miss calls and bouncing calls back and forth not always a good experience for customers when they just want to book a session. It was a system we were used to but we were looking at making things easier for both us and our customers. Having less calls to take frees up our time and online booking enables customers to book at their leisure.

The plan was to transition from being a day ticket venue to a members-only fishery. It was clear that trying to organise and allocate memberships without some form of a database was going to be a real headache. We needed to have a robust system in place that would give us the confidence to begin pushing ahead with selling memberships. Something that automated the joining process, provided a booking system and collected online payments would take the weight off our teams’ shoulders and allow the fishery to run smoothly. 

Not only were we on the lookout for a booking system to help us manage things behind the scenes, but we were also looking for a website to use in marketing our memberships and offering another way for prospects to find us at any time of day. 

Their management system is straightforward to use and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, so everyone on our team can see how the fishery is doing and monitor membership and bookings. 

We were also very impressed by the price point. It’s affordable for us and excellent value for money in comparison to some of the other booking systems out there, plus Clubmate is the only management software specifically designed with the angling community in mind.

Our new website looks fantastic and really showcases all of the great things about our fishery. It’s linked to our booking system so that members can log in and book online at any time of the day, meaning we no longer need to worry about manning the telephone late into the evening. Existing members can go directly from the website to their own online portal, in which they can manage their memberships, make additional purchases and keep up with our latest news.

Owen has been superb at answering our questions. He is very concise and is able to help us with everything that we throw at him. The product is backed by a very knowledgeable and supportive team that always go above and beyond to answer our queries. 

The system is packed full of useful tools that make running our fishery much more efficient and is regularly being updated with even more great features.