Members had a variety of places to fish. The Society had the fishing rights on the River Wey at Peper Harow for an annual fee of £2, courtesy of the Earl of Midleton, who was also president of the society. The earl’s title was of Irish origins and spelt with a single ‘d’ and his country seat was Peper Harow Park.  The Society also gained permission to fish various other lengths of the river locally. Competitions were regularly held at ‘Addiscotts’ according to the minutes. This was the Milton Wood stretch of the river, owned by Mrs Addiscott, where the society has been barred from fishing in more recent years. Sometimes they also fished from ‘the Butts to Friars Bridge’. Butts Weir is upstream of Tilthams Bridge and, within a generation of anglers, ‘Friars Bridge’ has corrupted to ‘Firs Bridge’.  

Members gained permission to fish at a number of other locations apart from the river during the inter-war period. Competitions took place at Broadwater, Shillinglee, Busbridge, Thorncombe, Forked Pond near Thursley, Hall Place near Cranleigh, Hall Place at Shackleford, Mytchett Lake and Frensham Great Pond. Competitions were also regularly organized against other clubs, both home and away, which included Guildford, Woking, Kingston, Twickenham, Henfield and Crystal Palace in addition to Farnham.

In 1926, competitions were held at Broadwater, Shillinglee and on the River Arun at Loxwood, as well as Peper Harow. They were usually pegged but sometimes it was decided to make them a roving affair. A charabanc trip to Brighton to take part in a sea fishing competition seems to have been an annual event for several years. Members were more successful fishing off a pier than the banks of a river or lake and at the 1925 event won six prizes.

Competitions were often lengthy affairs. A Boxing Day event in 1928 was fished from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., which probably just about accounted for maximum daylight. Summer competitions were usually longer and in June 1931 one staged on the river above Westbrook Mill started at 7 a.m. and finished at 9 p.m. In 1931 it was agreed to make the monthly competition start ‘early in the morning … making a half day instead all day’.  In summer ‘early’ meant 5 a.m. By 1938 these lengthy efforts were interrupted by a break of half an hour at lunchtime, when often a second draw for ‘spots’ was made for the afternoon into evening session.

Not every competition went as smoothly as it should and there were occasional hints that not all the anglers taking part were entirely honest. In 1930 it was decided that the monthly club competition would from now on be held on a Sunday but ‘on a stretch of water where everyone can be seen and every match pegged out’. It is also clear that by this time the sanctity of the Sabbath was no longer considered to be a problem. At an EGM in August 1936 a complaint was lodged against Mr A.H. Wolfe, who had been the Society’s secretary earlier in the decade, that he had weighed in ‘a fish not caught by himself at Shillinglee’. A proposal to expel the culprit from the society and for him to forfeit his prize money was carried by 22 votes to 6. B. Edwards was also expelled at the same time, suggesting that it was he who had actually caught the offending fish.  Their punishment was short-lived as both were allowed to re-join the following year.

It is interesting to note that membership of the Society was not exclusively an adult male preserve by this time. A competition was held every July at Broadwater and in July 1925 the second prize was awarded to Mrs Ballard, ‘the oldest member of the society’, who caught the best specimen fish, a carp weighing 2lb ½oz. The winner of the competition caught 2lb 5½oz. Improvements in fishery management, tackle and methods has meant that July catches at Broadwater today would be expected to be considerably heavier! There is another mark of how the hard working officials of the society have improved the fishing available to members in recent years. In 1930 a ‘list of the size of specimen fish [which would qualify] for the Challenge Cup’ was drawn up. Included in this list were roach and rudd at 1lb, perch 1lb, bream 2lb, chub 2lb and, most conclusive of all, tench at 1lb and carp 2lb!

Competitions were fished to size limits, although there is no positive evidence in the surviving records for this until July 1931, when it was recorded that ‘no sizable fish [were] weighed in at [the] Broadwater competition’. Matters were no better for competitors in September when entrance fees at Broadwater were returned when ‘only small undersize perch were caught’.

At the AGM in May 1931 it was decided to alter the size limit of gudgeon from 4 inches to 3 inches and in December 1933 it was agreed that ‘the size for perch should be 8 inches’. However, at the AGM in April 1935 the committee voted that ‘all live coarse fish would count in competitions and that they were to be returned alive’. This latter measure illustrated members’ growing awareness of the importance of the conservation of fish stocks. In previous decades most anglers retained their catch and specimens were stuffed, whilst lesser fish were eaten, given to the cat or simply pitched into the bin or compost heap. Size limits seem to have been quickly restored and were firmly back on the agenda by August 1938, when the committee voted to purchase a rule ‘to measure fish carefully’.

The management of fisheries and restocking had been on the Society’s agenda from the very early days and these matters were regularly under discussion during the inter-war period. On Saturday, 17^th May 1924 at least a dozen members set off by lorry to Littleton Brickworks near Peasmarsh. They had been given permission to net the flooded brickpit and came optimistically armed with two punts, several nets, ten large dustbins and, as the local newspaper reported, ‘other things necessary on such an excursion – netting a pond is thirsty work!’ Unfortunately, the large carp said to inhabit the pond managed to outsmart the anglers and the total catch amounted to three small perch and a gudgeon. During the proceedings, although it is not clear if this was before or after the partaking of ‘things necessary’, one of the members managed to fall in head first from one of the punts. He survived the event as did the tiny fish, which were returned to their home.

At the Society’s annual dinner in May 1924 it was reported that a hundred trout had that very day been put into the stretch of the river owned by the architect, Hugh Thackeray Turner, presumably above Westbrook Mill.  Thackeray Turner, who attended the dinner, commented to members that ‘he had supreme pity for the Society, for, as far as he knew, there was nothing to be caught in the waters but crayfish, which, he was sure, ate all the spawn of other fish’. He was speaking, of course, about the small indigenous crayfish not its much larger cousin, the American signal crayfish, which is the plague of our waters today. For the first sixty years of the Society’s existence crayfish competitions were a regular event. So numerous were the little black crustaceans that upstream the Farnham Cray-Fishers Club was formed in 1926.

Crayfish and pollution were not the only threats to the quality of the fishing. Otters were regularly spotted on the river and viewed by most as vermin to be hunted for sport. There were regular meets of the local otter hounds which, even as late as 1938, reported an annual catch of 17½ brace (35) otters. Despite all these threats there were signs that the quality of members’ catches was improving. At a competition at Thorncombe Street held in August 1938 thirty-eight members achieved a total weight of 278lbs 14oz. During a pike competition for the Stedman Shield held at Shillinglee in November 1938 Mr E.Lucas landed a pike of 21lb 8oz. The society paid to have the fish stuffed and it was then displayed at their headquarters at the Railway Hotel.

Society membership as a whole was restricted to the local area, although surviving records do not identify its extent until the AGM in April 1932, when it was decided that the ‘radius of the society should be 7 miles’.  ‘Tickets for visitors should be 1 shilling (5p)’ and in 1933 the cost of membership rose to 5 shillings (25p) each season. There was a traditional spring close season in operation although its exact dates varied. Every application to join the Society had to be passed by the committee and, as an example, the minutes record that in January 1929 the committee agreed ‘that the Rev. Richards and Miss Marriage [sic] should be accepted as members … next season.’ In July 1929 the committee welcomed Mr Rudd as a member.

It is probable that there were junior anglers amongst the membership during the 1920s and 1930s. The importance of a thriving junior membership had been emphasized at the AGM in April 1908, when members ‘resolved to form a boys’ branch of the society, the details of which were left to the committee’. Although we know that there had been female adult members right from the early days, the committee obviously thought that angling was no place for girls. Without surviving society minutes it is impossible to know whether the committee acted upon this resolution. However, any junior section founded in 1908 must have become defunct before April 1935. At the AGM that year it was decided to establish a ‘juvenile section’ for ‘ages 12 to 16 years’ at an annual subscription of two shillings and sixpence (12½p). Other references to young anglers at this time are sparse. At a crayfish competition organised in July 1937 the committee offered a prize of 5 shillings (25p) to the juvenile catching the heaviest weight. In September 1938 the committee voted to give juveniles free entry to club competitions.

The result of a Broadwater competition held in September 1938 has more than a passing interest. The winner, H. Hinson, weighed in a 4lb 11oz fish which was described in the committee minutes as a carp. There is an interesting sequel to this capture when the following was noted in the minutes for 1^st January 1942: ‘Considerable discussion was centred around the species of carp caught at Broadwater in Sept 1938, and which Mr Hinson (the captor) entered as the record Crucian Carp in the ‘News of the World’. As no evidence was offered to definitely prove the species, it was agreed that the Society would not be in the position to verify it as a record fish.’ Despite this statement this fish stood as the British record for many years. It was only removed from the official list when the British Record (Rod Caught) Fish Committee decided to expunge all records established before the committee came into existence in the early 1950s. However, the present record for the crucian carp is held jointly for fish weighing 4lb 10oz, both caught in the Society’s Johnsons Lake in 2015.

It is not possible to record all the names of those who worked hard for the society during the inter-war period, but the names of certain significant individuals begin to emerge from surviving records of the late-1930s. These were people who put the society first and played a major role in its development in the post-World War II period. For example, Alf Johnson is first recorded in the minutes at the AGM in March 1937. Alf was a very skilled angler who had great success in the Society’s competitions. He involved himself enthusiastically in all aspects of the Society whatever the task. During the committee’s preparations for the annual dinner in 1938 it was noted that ‘A. Johnson agreed to act as doorkeeper’. Alf was first elected to the committee at the AGM in March 1938, when the minutes also record that a ‘compliment was paid to Mr A. Johnson on his success during the season’. W. ‘Billy’ Mills was elected treasurer in March 1937 and John Lee became secretary in March 1938.  As the dark days of war loomed once more upon the horizon, the society already had in place those people who would carry it forward when better days returned.