Coarse Fish Removal - New Byelaws To Protect Fisheries

[Anglers' Net]

Environment Agency News Release

 

Click here to view the full article

[Worms]

[gozzer]

 

I'll join you Nick.

 

 

 

John.

[Elton]

Guys - care to expand on your posts?

 

Please note that there is a deadline for responses and, also, a button below the article to email it to your friends, post it to any social networking site you belong to, etc. It may help spread the word.

[Worms]

Guys - care to expand on your posts?

 

Please note that there is a deadline for responses and, also, a button below the article to email it to your friends, post it to any social networking site you belong to, etc. It may help spread the word.

Morning Elton.

 

As you know I take the occasional grayling for the pot, no problem there and, a bag limit has been set of two fish. Again, not too bad but the size limits? 30-38cm roughly equates to fish of about 14oz-18oz. When I go grayling fishing, I very rarely go to take a fish for the pot but, If I catch say, a fish of 1 1/2lb I'll seriously consider taking it for the table. A nice size fish that will make a good meal for two. I will take a fish within the proposed size limit if I'm the only person eating but obviously that fish isn't big enough for two.

 

The proposed legislation aimed at conserving fish stocks now means that if I wish to feed myself and my wife on a bit of fresh grayling every now and again I have to take two fish for a decent meal. Hardly conserving fish stocks is it? What if I catch one decent (legal) fish? Do I stay fishing in the hope that I may catch another of the right size? Do I take the one fish home and put it in my freezer to wait for the next fish in the right size bracket?.............I know that the grayling bag/size limit is just a concession but bloody hell, what a stupid way of doing it.

 

The pike limit is a little on the small size but I can go along with that.

 

No perch? Has anyone on this forum ever eaten perch? They are one of the finest fish to eat in fresh or salt water and judging from some of the posts on here not exactly scarce either!

 

Personally my hackles have been well and truly raised by the angling gutter press, specifically the Angling Times who spread so much uneducated rubbish and downright lies to sell their purile copy with shock horror banner headlines.

 

The other AT, the Angling Trust, sat on the fence and said nothing until it was all over bar the shouting then came out in agreement with the results of the consultation that to me (based on the majority of the comments I saw) were led by the former AT's "journalistic" hype.

 

This, Elton, is why I'm being so persistent on the conservation and politics thread regarding RSAs and MCZs etc. If we the anglers don't stand up and say something then similar things could happen in some areas to sea fishing. It's no use moaning that previous/current/future representatives/clubs or whatever aren't any good therefore there's nothing we can do. We are the people it affects, therefore we are the people that need to make representation. Do it democratically and use the internet angling sites to spread the word via petitions etc. If we get 25% of all anglers to tick a few boxes that might only be 25% but it's still hundreds of thousands! Cake? pah! Let them eat fish!

Edited December 10, 2009 by Worms

[Brian Carragher]

I too think this whole charade has been a pointless PR exercise

 

What I'd really like to know is what is the total cost of all of this, the advertising, the admin, the wages of staff, the legal costs for the draufting by barristers and civil servants, the costs of travell subsistence and overnight stays for those staff on the EA roadshows in other wirds the whole shooting match costs of getting this to the parliamentary stage where it is to be enshrined in law and how those costs would equate to employing full time baliffs to deal with any alleged problems on the ground.

 

The really sad thing about all of this is that no matter how good their intententions where or how good any new laws would actually be, they mean nothing without troops on the ground and the EA has no plans to employ more baliffs

[Worms]

The really sad thing about all of this is that no matter how good their intententions where or how good any new laws would actually be, they mean nothing without troops on the ground and the EA has no plans to employ more baliffs

Just imagine this scenario Brian.

 

All of the illegal anglers who are taking fish for food immediately buy fishing licences and stop their unlawful activities. They then decide that they want to eat fish for tea. They all nip down to the local grayling rich river and proceed to take out two fish each between 30-38cm. After about six months of this they find that they aren't catching enough to eat so they all resume their nefarious activities and dine royally on carp, barbel gudgeon and roach.

 

Limiting the taking of fish to one cohort size and at the same time expecting it to prevent anglers taking fish illegally won't work and before you know it grayling will have to be protected because come their time to spaw, all of that cohort will be future Time Team midden material

[Worms]

And whilst I'm on the subject!

 

What about wild Brown Trout? With minimum size limits of between 6-9 inches (150-230mm) and no bag limits on the majority of waters I fish surely they should have disappeared years ago.

 

Or is it that anglers don't need restrictions to know how many or what size fish to take?

 

Rant over for the moment I'm off to Aldi!

[gozzer]

Guys - care to expand on your posts?

 

Nick and Brian have said most of it for me.

This piece of legislation has little, if anything, to do with conservation of stocks. It's designed to appease those who succumb to the sensational headlines of the angling press. The 'consultation' was a joke. With less than 1% of licence holders responding, and around 80% of those in favour of the legislation, it was announced as an overwhelming majority of coarse anglers! Most of those that responded in favour spouted the same reasons as printed in the papers, exaggerations with more than a touch of xenophobia thrown in.

I've been pretty vocal on this in the past, but now I'm askin why bother? Angling is slowly strangling itself, and more legislation will be asked for (and given) soon, and those that want it banned outright just have to sit back and wait for us to do it ourselves.

 

John.

[Steve Walker]

The future is fluff chucking - they don't seem quite so inclined to hara-kiri, though they are even better than coarse anglers at bitching about each other's methods, and some of them are now starting to consider eating a trout tantamount to cannibalism.