Anger At Rising Cost Of Concessionary Rod Licences

[chesters1]

also a great number of disabled people exist solely on the meager benefits they get not all are using the mobility component to boost their earnings or partners income.

Edited August 21, 2007 by chesters1

[obe1]

i am sorry Jim, but you are clearly talking about something of which you know little.

 

Football in some sense may be cheap, but not as cheap as you say. after all you will need boots, anything from £30-£150. to play properly, as that is realistically what you have to compare, you will have to pay match fees, as a pitch around my way is minimum of £25 per game to hire, plus you will have to pay for a kit, match ball, practice balls, medi kit, drinks bottles etc. not looking so cheap now is it?

 

Likewise cricket. a decent bat will cost you from around £80- £400, pads £30, box £5, gloves £25, whites £50, boots £30 - £90. plus there are plenty of other bits that you will need. Then you have match fees and subscriptions, because cricket pitches cost a fortune to maintain, i know, i used to do it.

 

The reality is that any sport is as expensive or as cheap as you wish it to be. The difference is that for your £25 a year you get to go as often, or for as long as you like, and you can spend on top from that base as much, or as little as you want.

 

Personally i have huge issues as to how the rod license money is spent, but not that we have to pay it.

 

Finally Jim, myy apologies if you are the student exception, but how much do you **** up the wall in a week? i bet its more than £25.

 

I think your missing the point, football can be played for as little as a few pounds between mates in the park as can cricket, you do not have to spend vast amounts of money to play football, cricket or to go fishing. I myself have spent under £100 pound on coarse angling in the last two years and that includes any tackle I have bought, bait and 2 rod licences, just because some can afford to buy loads of tackle, fish most weekends, pay to fish commercials and can afford to pay more for a rod licence do not assume everyone can.

 

Joe

[Steve Burke]

Fair enough, I accept that fishing can be expensive. However, it needn't be.

 

Yes, you could spend £10 per day at a commercial. But many clubs offer excellent fishing for the equivalent of less than £1 per day. Yes, you could spend a small fortune on fishing tackle. But despite inflation, tackle has actually come down in price thanks to Chinese imports - in fact markedly so.

 

In my younger days I couldn't afford to drive and so I cycled everywhere on a second-hand bike. In London this meant fishing park lakes; later when I got married and moved to the country I cycled to local ponds and streams. My tackle was also largely second-hand. Bait was almost invariably bread because it was cheap, and worms and slugs because they were free. Yet I caught good fish and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

 

These days thanks to disability I'm able to work only a few hours a week. I’ve never mentioned it on here before as it’s not been relevant, but I have very little disposable income. In fact, mine is almost certainly less than most Forum members. What little I do have is spent on fishing. I don't smoke or drink. Apart from visiting friends our last holiday was in 2001. This just about allows me to run an old car, although I do only a few thousand miles a year. Car costs are my biggest fishing expense, but hopefully by moving house I'll cut these in half. Bait is still cheap, for the most part sweetcorn and worms. As for expensive baits like boilies, I've only ever used them once in my whole life.

 

Indeed, my total spending on fishing is probably less than many people's on the Forum. So I’m not so different to the average angler as some may think.

 

By the way, the only way in which I can be considered a ”semi-professional angler” is that Archie Braddock sends me flavourings to field test. I also get occasional items of tackle to review. The only payment I've ever received for TV and radio was £25 per day for Predators. The only articles I've done in the last few years have been for Angler's Net and I haven't asked for payment as Elton's a mate. True, I should get paid for the book I'm writing (if indeed my health allows me to finish it), and this time I won't be able to afford to donate the royalties to the ACA as we did for the Book of the Perch. However, the hourly rate works out at less than the National Minimum Wage!

 

And as for Wingham, well I'm nowhere near recouping the original outlay. On a year by year basis I just about break even. Yes, I could take on more members, but I couldn't then charge so much per member, and anyway that would hit the growth rate of the fish. Neither would it be compatible with running the site as a nature reserve. In other words, Wingham is very much a labour of love.

 

Going back to the original point, fishing is cheap though compared with quite a number of other hobbies. Most of my non-fishing friends spend a lot more on their leisure activities, be they golf, watching football, or simply going to the pub.

 

Having said all that I accept that for some people the licence fee is onerous. That's why I posted that I'd like to see it reduced for those who genuinely can't afford it.

 

But not for those who choose to spend their disposable income on other things.

 

Our fisheries have to be paid for somehow, otherwise they simply wouldn’t exist. Part of the cost is covered by day or season tickets; part is covered by the rod licence. The rod license covers a lot of central costs and provides benefits to the entire angling community.

 

Unfortunately, this Government has much reduced the subsidy that used to be paid to us anglers via the EA and that came out of general taxation. The result is a Catch 22 for the EA that has had to reduce services substantially and has had to make a lot of staff redundant.

 

The EA is now trying to balance the books by increasing its income. However, as I’ve posted earlier on this topic, I don’t think that their current proposals are the best option.

 

Let me finish this long post then by asking members how they think this shortfall in government funding to angling should be made up?

[Anderoo]

Good post Steve.

 

A local club book for me is £30. That's 0.082p per day over a year, or if you go once a month £2.50 a day. This covers you for untold miles of the Thames, a couple of stretches of the Evenlode and a couple of gravel pits. Just up the road at Linear a 24hr ticket will cost about the same.

 

Best baits on the Thames are bread and worms. There are good tench, very big carp, big pike, very big perch, big roach, lots of bream, and potentially record-breaking chub. If stillwater carp are your thing, the pits are there for you. Want to stalk chub? Get down to the Evenlode.

 

I would also like to see rod licence fees rise for those who can afford it. Fishing is a privilege, not a right, and those who can afford to should pay accordingly. I do go out for a drink occasionally (my debauched youth is well and truely behind me now!) and spend about the same in one evening as an annual rod licence costs.

 

Fishing is as expensive as you make it, unless you are on a low income. My greatest expense is club books and a syndicate ticket (I think I have all the tackle I need now...I think) because I like to fish a variety of waters. But I could fish quite happily all year with one local club book if I had to. Ditto with bait - vitalin, crumb, corn, bread, hemp, luncheon meat and worms would cover me for pretty much anything.

[Steve Walker]

Fishing is a privilege, not a right

 

<Sucks teeth>

 

Careful now.

[Mat Hillman]

Disabled anglers get a reduced rate because a lot of them can't access alot of places that able bodied anglers can and can't fish as often therefore why should they pay as much, would you feel the same if you had to say pay the same TV licence fee as everyone else but were only ever able to watch half the programmes and infact some days not be able to watch any at all.

Wether angling is a luxury or not depends on your point of view, is it a luxury for the angler who fishes for the pot or for the angler who fishes for health reasons.

 

Joe

 

The same arguement could be made for most anglers - A working anlger only gets the oppertunity to use his licence at the weekends, maybe he should get a discount ? A single parent can only fish places safe to take his/her kids along too, so they deserve a discount!

 

I'm overweight and anemic, I can't carry my gear very far without getting seriously out of breath, Do I get a discount as all the swims more than a hundred yards or so from the carpark are pretty much inaccesable to me?

 

Seems to me that once you make a specal case for one part of society to get a discount, you could make special cases for just about everyone to get a discount!

 

And I'd love to know more about the health reasons that would require someone to go fishing Sounds like a good line I could try on my wife when she moans that I'm out fishing to much !

 

Mat

Edited August 22, 2007 by Mat Hillman

[Guest tigger]

And I'd love to know more about the health reasons that would require someone to go fishing Sounds like a good line I could try on my wife when she moans that I'm out fishing to much !

 

Mat

 

 

Maybe they are SAD

[Janet]

And I'd love to know more about the health reasons that would require someone to go fishing

 

That's not quite so daft as it sounds. I know of someone who contributes to another angling forum who suffers from manic depression, and he says that taking up angling has changed his life for the better. I've also heard it reported (although I can't remember where) that at least one doctor advised his patient to take up angling to aid his blood pressure/stress levels.

 

For myself, I find it very calming and therapeutic, as I'm sure do most of you.

 

Janet

[Steve Walker]

For myself, I find it very calming and therapeutic, as I'm sure do most of you.

 

Have you done any floater fishing for carp yet, Janet? Awful for the blood pressure!

[Mat Hillman]

For myself, I find it very calming and therapeutic, as I'm sure do most of you.

 

Janet

 

 

I did till I started taking my seven year old along with me

 

Mat