The Real Battle

[steve good]

Hello Ha

 

Bin there, done that , total waste of time.

 

 

I’ve been watching the threads on here with interest , it’s amazing how closely anglers plight and the way it’s being opposed mirrors the inshore commercial fisherman’s fight to stay in business .

So for once some hind sight might be of some use to you , as it’s said that an once of fore sight is worth 10 ton of hind sight and hind sight from commercial fishermen might just be fore sight for anglers.

 

Defra take their time it’s been nearly ten years of skirmishes before they finally admitted they want to cut the under tens from over 3,000 boats to just 900 and are now in the final throws of doing so, all the meetings and trying to compromise with them were a total waste of time. With hind sight I can now see that the agenda is set out in such a way as to create as much activity as possible for the civil service (DEFRA).The EU commission also works in the same way .

Angling reps have already helped increased the work load of DEFRA considerably with as yet no results.

 

Writing letters and meetings with MP’s even more of a waste of time.

This is how it goes; You meet with your local MP individually or as a group he will agree with every thing you say telling you he will do what ever he can for you , if the MP in question happens to be of the party in power at the time he’ll ask a few awkward questions and sort of put your case to parliament and will get the normal set answer from his boss , usually going something like “ On our way to obtaining sustainable fisheries we have to make tough decisions and find a balance bla bla bla waffle waffle”

( sound familiar) and as you have HA receive a posh letter out lining the question and the answer and that is as far as it will go, as one MP told me when I pushed him further “ I can not be seen to oppose government policy “ he was more worried about his career than your case . So you meet with a MP of the other persuasion , now he really gets up on his soap box and swears his commitment to fight for justice against all that is bad with the party that is in power and to fight your case to the bitter end. Sadly he can do nothing worth while as he being in opposition has no power, Some times a MP will arrange for a meeting with the minister in our and your case the fisheries minister, this you may feel at the time as a good thing , but I can tell you that after several meetings with the minister I can not think of one good thing to come from them.

A change in government won’t help either as with fisheries management all parties claim to be striving for sustainable fisheries and are influenced be the quangos within DEFRA , the greens and ultimately the EU commission who at the end of the day run the show .

 

Going on telly is also a waste of time and if not very careful likely to do more damage than good, most reports start the clip with the lines “ the governments continued battle with dwindling fish stocks” as the media propaganda machine always leans towards the greens, straight away you start to defend your selves and by blaming lack of fish on commercial fishermen is counter productive as you are instantly confirming there is a problem and no matter how small you are part of that problem. Inshore fishermen tried the same line with foreign super trawlers fishing with in 6 miles of our coast catching more in one trip than we do in one year why should we be forced out and they left to continue , do you see the similarities ? And the out come will be the same.

Judging from your MP’s reply HA over fishing by commercials was mentioned in your letter to him no doubt in your usual robust manner . Waste of time, you probably don’t agree and that’s fine but in reality the UK commercial fleet is now being squeezed as hard as it can be with out being wiped out all together, the over ten fleet, what’s left of it, is self managed by the PO’s and quota traders and 900 under tens won’t take a lot of management the management industry know this, have done for a while and why they are keen to move on to anglers .

Statements like this from Leon in his fist post on this thread.

Quote

As fishery stocks decline, and quota becomes harder to find, fishing activities which were once far below the radar of concern find themselves dragged unwillingly into the limelight.

 

Are wrong fishery stocks are not in decline quota is not hard to find in most cases it’s been increased, it’s just to damn expensive the only reason angling activities are showing up on the radar is because there is nothing much else to look for.

In fact as an angling rep he should be pointing out that as the quotas have been increased the need to cap angler effort is unfounded. Mind you that didn’t work for us either.

 

 

 

With hind sight my advice to the angling reps is to cut the crap and save time meet with the boss of DEFRA who ever that might be and get him to tell what the end result is going to be, believe me he will know , you might need to pull his finger nails out before he tells you though .

At least that way you will know what’s coming .

 

I don’t see how any body will change the out come unlike Steve I can see into the future and I can see anglers will be embroiled into the monstrous CFP and the parasitic fisheries management industry and I can fore tell that there will come a time when a highly paid delegation of experts from the Angling Trust will return from Brussels and claim they have got the best deal possible for UK’s anglers and I doubt very much you will agree with them.

 

Best of luck.

 

HERE!! HERE!! HERE!! HERE!!

 

ORDER!!!! ORDER!!!! ORDER!!!!

 

Hi Peter

Nice to see your back

 

Could not have put it better myself

 

Regards steve

[Sharkbyte]

Hi Peter

 

Do you fancy being top dog at the SACN?

 

We need you!

[steve good]

Everytime they open their mouths they drop us deeper and deeper in the 5hit, Peter. The whole RSA campaign that they've been driving has been based on silly statements like that one. But you try telling them to shut up! You see, they know best and there's no one that can tell them different. Their arrogance defies belief.

 

And even now, they still won't shut up. Leon is supposed to have retired, yet he is still attending meetings and talking about the future of sea angling. I'd like to know under what capacity. Who knows what rubbish he is coming out with now.

 

Hi Steve

 

QUOTE/ Everytime they open their mouths they drop us deeper and deeper in the 5hit

 

No, they just put there heads under the chopping block, next to all the dead commercials whom were only guilty of trying to protect there livilhoods and the once proud heritage of this god forsaken Isle.

 

They say that when your heads chopped off your mouth stays wide open, much same as normal for these guys then HA HA HA

 

As Wurzel says hindsight is a wonderful thing which angling reps should have leant from.

 

Regards steve

Edited January 23, 2009 by steve good

[H.A.]

I guess the difference is that angling is my hobby.

 

To Steve and Wurzel it's their 'living' (important).

 

I don't mind the possible licence nor the bag limit (mine's small, anyway).

 

I'll be candid and say that IF the situation was that I was classed a commercial (quotas?; NTZ on my doorstep?), then I'd go back to my 'rife' where I dangled aged 5.

 

The silly battles on here (more so on WSF) are not won nor lost.

 

They're irrelevant.

Just glad I'm an organic (wohay!) chemist by trade and a dabbler by inclination.

 

I, like many sea anglers, would have failed in the Stevenson way of things because I would have returned most of the fish.

 

That's my choice AND yet, I'll never starve.

 

I wonder if Papua New Guinea have the same problems as the EU?