The Confederation of English Fly Fishers, the England Ladies Fly Fishers Association and the England Youth Fly Fishers Association have all disbanded and have merged into the Angling Trust. This merger marks the latest step in the unification of angling which started with the formation of the Trust in January 2009.
The Angling Trust is recognised by Sport England as the national governing body for all competition angling, and its development arm the Angling Development Board receives government funding to develop the sport from grass roots participation through to the pinnacle of fishing for England. By becoming part of the Angling Trust, competitive fly fishing will now be a part of the national competition and development plan.
The Trust will provide professional help with the marketing, administration and management of competitions and Team England Fly Fishing and will support member fly fishing federations with advice, campaigns and legal action to protect their fishing.
Everyone taking part in national competitions organised by the Angling Trust’s Fly Fishing Division will now be required to be a member of the Trust. These new members will grow the influence and resources of the Angling Trust, which is already the largest angling or fisheries organisation in the UK, with 13,000 individual members and some 1,400 club and fishery members (comprising more than 350,000 anglers).
Members also benefit from automatic comprehensive public liability insurance for all their angling activities worldwide (excluding USA & Canada) and a wide range of discounts on fishing tackle, books and clothing which make it easy to recoup the cost of the £25 subscription.
CEFF Chairman Clive Collier said: “We are delighted to be part of the Angling Trust, which has demonstrated over the past two years that it is an exciting new organisation that really delivers for angling through its support for competitions and the excellent work it does campaigning and taking legal action to fight for the future of fish and fishing. We will be encouraging all our members to join the organisation and contribute to its work.”
Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Angling Trust said: “We are delighted that these organisations have decided to become part of the Angling Trust and we will do all that we can to develop and support competition fly fishing so that our national teams are better funded and that there is a wide range of well-organised matches available to anglers who fish competitively. This merger also increases our membership, which will help us do more for the benefit of all branches of angling: game, coarse and sea.”
