lets face it ,it couldnt get any more **** could it?
the last twice ive been out theres been nets or lines out.
ill find out if kosher or not.

or to answer my own question ,would it be any worse paying£20 quid to catch what youre catching now.
i dont think so.twenty quid even to the average doley is sod all.
nout in nout out.

Maximo.

I Will nail my coulors to the post.I personaly have no grave objections to paying for a licence if and only if .the money raised would be churnend back into the sport and a body be set up to govern expenditure so that funds are targeted to areas that need it but I fear that the whole issue will get bogged down with burocracy and little if any of the funds would filter back down to the poeple who represent the sport us! But you never know it may make a differance. We all tend not to like change espaicaly if it costs us a few bob.

Tite lines five bellies

I am all for sea licences.

I am also for a complete ban on commercial angling within a set perimeter of the coastline.

What I am not in favour of is a sea licence AND commercial angling continuing as it is. I am pretty sure that time after time it has been shown that recreational sea angling (if managed properly) would contribute more to our economy than the existing commercial fleet does (though I am no expert and appreciate the articles I read - mainly recreational - may well be biased!!).

There was once a time when all the freshwater waterboards were responsible for issuing rod licences.

Some did, some didn't.

Some charged a lot, some charged little. Some charged nothing at all.

As people got to move around a lot, some anglers objected to paying for licences from different boards.

Most anglers only fished their own waters.

Then it was proposed to introduce a national rod licence that would give the right to fish any water in England & Wales.

Well! that put the cat amongst the pigeons!

Of course a National Licence cost more than any regional licence (but gave you the right to fish the whole country).

Anglers objected that they only fished local waters, why did they have to pay extra?

Where anglers had previously fished for free, there was outrage!

But the government had decided.

Interestingly, not long ago the Tories proposed scrapping the rod licence, if elected.

They were taken aback by the number of letters they got protesting at the idea from anglers all over the country!

Listening to anglers airing their views on the possible imposition of a sea angling rod licence, most of the arguments resonate very much with those trotted out when a national fresh water rod licence was first proposed.

It's very interesting to hear them all again!



Tight Lines - leon

[ 25. June 2005, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[ 25. June 2005, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

Weird how all the arguments about the rod licence seem to revolve about the past and present? ; looking at the globalisation of seafood markets its the future that seems the best arguement for one.

Eels at £250 a kilo. Creelers now taking buckie whelks, green shore crabs, velvets, when all they used to land were lobsters and edibles (even then only if there was a handy merchant).

Its a big world out there and it likes seafood.

Anglers are so dumb sometimes

[ 25. June 2005, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: Jaffa ]

Couldn`t agree more Jaffa.
The Japs have stated they will go against the whaling comission and slaughter thousands of whales! All in the interests of science. :mad: Why do they have to study dead whales?
At the other extreme are the yanks. Who having learned a savage lesson on the Grand Banks, are now more into conservation. They`re still into global pollution sadly. cue Newt?
At the end of the day there`s only one truth. `You get what you pay for`.

Then there's globalisation of Recreational Sea Angling too.

(Either I know some rich anglers, or ordinary anglers are now prepared to spend a lot of money holidaying where there's some decent fishing.)

Everyone keeps showing me pictures of striper bass from the States, weird fish from Cuba, Salmon from North America etc

Even I, on a small pension, have been persuaded to visit the wife's relatives in Cape Cod soon

And countries one by one are beginning to wake up to just how much the Recreational Sea Angling business is worth to their economy, and how dependent that is on having plentiful decent fish to catch.

More and more, species are being managed for their recreational potential, as are huge areas.

And as overfishing damages the fishing industry, recreational angling and the econology, so countries worldwide are learning the lessons from each other, restricting the overharvesting of species and protecting more and more areas from forms of destructive fishery.

Each time I go along to one of these meetings there are more and more people with different accents and different shades of skin colour.

(On 3-9th July there is to be a workshop on 'Highly Protected Marine Reserves')

Slowly, the world is learning.

[ 26. June 2005, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

They don't. They want to eat them. It's just a loophole.