First of all, I do not, have never and have never had a desire to hunt. I do not have a pro hunting agenda. I do however shoot and fish and accept shooting and fishing are fieldsports along with hunting.
With regard to your class Peter I neither know nor care, but using words like "Tally Ho" toodlepip and "Harry Snifters" in the context you did certainly sounds like you assume all hunters are some kind of upperclass twits. Been reading too much propoganda from the antis!!
If antis do indeed monitor this site I don't think that they will be particularly pleased by the differing views, what will please them is the head in sand attitude of all those who think that angling is not a fieldsport and that it is forever safe.
If all of the contributors who say they abhor killing were really serious they would all be non-fishing vegans. By fishing for and catching fish, whether you release them or not, you are using and abusing sentient creatures for fun, and that is a fact.
Finally Peter, imagine a world where there were no pike anglers, just match fisherman and game fishers, all of whom hated Pike and saw them as vermin to be eradicated. This is exactly the situation with the fox once hunts are removed from the picture. Farmers and keepers will have no reason to have foxes on their land and so will shoot, poison, trap and snare until they are all gone. Maybe all we will have soon will be disease ridden urban foxes living off Big mac papers. Then the so called "animal lovers" can catch them all up so that they can be released into the wild, to be shot, snared etc by the farmers and keepers. Did someone not think something through?
