Griff Rhys Jones angers anglers with command to disturb fishermen

[andy_youngs]

Seems that the right to roam on Scottish waterways must exclude the Balmoral Estate for some reason. I'll have to see if I can get to the bottom of it without getting beaten up by the SAS

Please, wish me luck

 

Andy

Edited July 27, 2009 by andy_youngs

[JV44]

Used to do a fair bit of Canoeing myself but stuck mainly to the Thames where due to the size of the river its much easier to avoid conflict ,The local weir pool on the river has a Canoe club just downstream and have to say that the instructors are very good at keeping the kids/newbies away from the fishermen both those fishing on the bank and in boats with just a couple of exceptions in 20 odd years of boat fishing that section which is not bad at all.

On the smaller rivers if you can see the canoes coming then ask them to move to the side that suits you best as most will happily oblige and the 5% of any group that are a£$%s just wont help and that's life sadly steve.

[lutra]

Used to do a fair bit of Canoeing myself but stuck mainly to the Thames where due to the size of the river its much easier to avoid conflict ,The local weir pool on the river has a Canoe club just downstream and have to say that the instructors are very good at keeping the kids/newbies away from the fishermen both those fishing on the bank and in boats with just a couple of exceptions in 20 odd years of boat fishing that section which is not bad at all.

On the smaller rivers if you can see the canoes coming then ask them to move to the side that suits you best as most will happily oblige and the 5% of any group that are a£$%s just wont help and that's life sadly steve.

My local river is a good size and we don't get many canoeists, but the few Ive come across don't seem to belong in the 5% group and will move over when asked nicely.

 

Having said that i do tend to fish a lot on my own and I'm not sure if they could please a whole bank of anglers fishing different lines.

[James P]

On the smaller rivers if you can see the canoes coming then ask them to move to the side that suits you best as most will happily oblige and the 5% of any group that are a£$%s just wont help and that's life sadly steve.

 

True, and I think that applies to anglers too JV44. In fact i'm sure more than 5% would fit into this category and some of them post on here!

 

There seems to be a general consensus within angling that because we pay our license fees we have a divine right to dictate what others who don't pay a license fee should do. Whatever happened to getting along, and actually appreciating other aspects of life in general?

 

I've seen all sorts of boats, canoeists and kayaks paddle through my swim on the local canal which is only just over 3 feet at the deepest point. Almost all of them have been very obliging, friendly even, and usually pass with an acknowledging nod of respect. I can't say the same for some of the anglers (ahem) who have walked past my swim with a stream of foul-mouthed language, beer can in hand and oblivious to all around them.

 

Making, rod and back comes to mind when anglers start talking about who should be able to do what on 'their' waters.

[Steve Walker]

From a practical point of view Steve, it simply wouldn't work. As the law stands at the moment you are supposed to get the prior permission of every landowner on a river before you can canoe down it. Your suggestion extends this notion to 'getting prior permission and then negotiating a price'. This is of course just a thinly vieled way of telling people that they're not allowed to canoe down the river. Even if you managed to identify the hundreds of different landowners involved, most of them would not bother to reply to a letter let alone go the trouble of collecting a 10 pence toll. I think (hope) we've established that if you go down that road then people will simply ignore the law, and canoe down the river anyway.

 

What's wrong with paying an annual fee for access?

 

People steal all sorts of things without getting caught, I don't see that as a reason to repeal the law prohibiting theft.

 

 

It's true that angling clubs often pay substantial fees to landowners, but this is very rarely for 'exclusive' access to the river. It's purely to lease the fishing rights.

 

Fishing rights which are worth less if the quality of the fishing is made worse by having to share with paddlers - why should the landowners not be compensated for that? Why, simply, should paddlers get something free of charge at someone else's expense? Where does this sense of entitlement come from?

[andy_youngs]

What's wrong with paying an annual fee for access?

 

Nothing at all Steve, my objections are based purely on the practicality of collecting it, not on the principle.

 

Fishing rights which are worth less if the quality of the fishing is made worse by having to share with paddlers - why should the landowners not be compensated for that? Why, simply, should paddlers get something free of charge at someone else's expense? Where does this sense of entitlement come from?

 

I don't disagree, but if it happens it has to be collected by the EA as part of the canoe license and redistributed somehow to angling clubs and landowners.

[Worms]

The EA recently spent a substantial sum of public money on this river creating an artificial environment which favours barbel (a non native species of fish) and then authorised a stocking programme. Barbel eat whorl snails, bullhead, brook lamprey and white clawed crayfish. It's what they live on.

The barbel fishermen then turned around to the canoeists and told them "you must not canoe down the river because you'll be disturbing an SSSI".

I suppose it depends on the reason for the designation, but as far as I'm concerned if a river has SSSI designation then that's generally a good reason to go there, not a reason to stay away.

Odd that isn't it! Apologies for being slightly off topic but the EA recently spent a lot of tlme and money 'improving' a SSSI near me so that ranunculus could grow, to please the Barbel Society. The SSSI is so designated because (amomgst other things) it is a salmon and twaite-shad spawning ground!

 

Is there someting we don't know about the BS and their connections?

 

As for canoeists, most of those that I meet are polite, quiet and warn others behind them if I am seen. Paddles are lifted and the minimum disturbance made. Other members of my club do not have similar views about them and threaten all kinds of retribution (usually in the pub after a pint or two). In fact all of the horror stories about canoeists that I have heard have been hearsay in the pub.

 

As has been said many times, we don't own the rivers we just pay to fish them. As far as I see it we have no right to prevent other people from using the rivers in a responsible manner and, a properly managed river should have no problem supporting non damaging pastimes.

 

As for GRJ, well he should have known better but appears to be laughing it off as a joke. If that was how it was intended then perhaps he should make that fact equally public.

[Steve Walker]

That would be a kind of partial nationalisation of private property, though - I mean it's attractive in the sense that I'd also quite like it if my rod licence gave me free access to every private fishery in the country, but I'm not sure how you could administer it fairly. A day's trout fishing on the Test costs £155-£170, whereas my Amalgamated card costs £40 a year - the financial loss of allowing canoeing to devalue the fishery would be very variable. Would people who only wish to canoe on the Bristol Avon be willing to pay for compensating the landowners on the Itchen and Test? Seems to me that local negotiation between canoeing clubs and landowners would be better able to settle on market value figures.

[andy_youngs]

Don't stop and get out on the bank for a pee or you might kiss the floor with some SAS chap sat on your back.

These guys seem to have made through the Balmoral Estate ok in 2005, and that was before the right to roam came in : http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/scotlan...landbraemar.htm

 

Quote : Get out was where the B976 crosses the river, just 0.5 km downriver of Balmoral Castle (I don't recommend stripping down here - we didn't see any security cameras, but then you wouldn't, would you?)

[andy_youngs]

Is there someting we don't know about the BS and their connections?

 

Possibly dodgy deals involved Worms, but I think its most likely that they just make more noise than anyone else (a bit like a child who's about have his dummy confiscated). Investigations are ongoing though ...

 

Sorry to go even further off topic but I'd be interested to know what a ranunculus grows into? I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently it's a type of buttercup

Edited July 28, 2009 by andy_youngs