Breaking news from the government!!

[Guest jay_con]

probably 3 knowing them lot

 

anyway i though fishing from between the low and high tide marks was free? given to the people in the magna carta?

[manxfisher]

A tricky topic which invariably raises more questions than answers. At heart I am against licences, but am more and more persuaded by the arguement in favour of licencing. Looking at it from a slightly different perspective...

 

Until sea anglers pay a licence fee, they will not have a true 'voice' - that's not to say that the efforts of NFSA/BASS etc are without merit/success, but if a licence fee was paid then we get an automatic invite to the party instead of having to bang on the door.

 

True, cash raised from licence fees would not be ring fenced for conserving fish stocks. True, licence money would not guarantee any noticable improvements for us recreational sea anglers, and true, the cost would increase year on year (as do all forms of indirect taxation), but what is the alternative ?

 

Time to face up to the way the world works. Money talks. See the cost of a licence for what it is : our enterance fee for being involved at the heart of future decision making processes.

 

As I say, personally in my heart I am against the idea, but I do think it is a necessary evil, and I have to admit that £22 a year seems an acceptable price to pay to be in with a chance of being able to enjoy my sea fishing when I am old and grey.

 

Must come clean ... chances are I won't have to pay in the Isle of Man unless our own govt introduce something similar or come to some mutual agreement with UK govt - which raises a whole host of other questions... fish don't recognise national boundries...

[Jim Roper]

What chance is there of stopping the EU boats, no matter how much the license is?

[Guest jay_con]

how about torpedo's?

[Salar]

Front page of the Daily Telegraph today, AND an editorial comment. This could be real progress, as up to now sea angling has been pushed right off the public agenda. They point out that sea anglers generate £500m business yet commercial fishermen only £600m, so go figure that one. Suddenly we are a significant body! The good thing about a license is that a government will be obliged to demonstrate that they are doing something positive (like coarse fishing/Environment Agency does) - if there is no license, no revenue, then no positive govenment action would be expected. I think we will see more on this, particularly if right wing papers see it as a way of beating up a Labour government.

[Yakity - Yak - u.k.]

Anyone got the address and phone number for the Tooting Popular Front.

£22 liecence my ar**e.

Shant pay it,.....wont.......aint going too,....... no way.

Wonder what will come next,...water tax discs ??

Makes you wanna spit !!!

 

Yakity

[Satchmo]

I'm with Salar,

 

Don't just rubbish the proposal and presume the worst! Run with it, let the government say what they're going to do with the revenue, let them say how fish protection measures will be enforced. It's all too easy to say that all governments are a bunch of crooks that won't take any action. But that fact is that £1.3 billion is a lot of money and we can't be ignored for ever plus with an extra £3 million revenue coming in they HAVE to say what they're going to do with it. Wait and see.

[Satchmo]

Yak

Would you spend £22 on some good bait to catch a few extra fish?

Would you spend £22 on some measures to make sure our children can catch fish?

Don't be so negative

Paul

[Yakity - Yak - u.k.]

Hi Satchmo,

 

I was actualy takeing the P.

But .....yes I would spend £22 on fresh bait, and have been doing so for many years.

My children never took to fishing, sadly.

Spending the £22 on bait would be my choice,

the liecence is dictated, Im not a negative person realy, just fed up with our money grabbing government.

Do you realy believe they will make any difference,??

I see your flying the Pegasus.....ex Para are you.??

 

 

Cheers

 

Yakity.

[Norm B]

bryan:

Just seen it on the beeb website that the government are planning to introduce a £22 licence fee to sea anglers... I understand about having a licence for man made lakes and the like where fish are stcoked but surely a licence to fish in the most natural place in the world is taking the pee,

 

any other thoughts on this

:cool: I am in favour of a licence for boat anglers, providing that anglers get equal quotas with commercial boats and that commercial boats pay a licence fee, they don't yet. Magna Carta gives the people the right to fish from the shore for free, so that could be a problem. I would also expect the revenue raised to be like the freshwater licence fee, used to improve fishing, stocking and policing. I would like to see charter

boats be able to purchase a "general license" so as anglers would not need a licence to fish from that boat. All boats to have quotas so as when the commercials had caught all their quota, we could carry on until each boat had caught it's quota. Confusing? I don't think so.