The CA again!!

[poledark]

Peter, and anyone else that thinks the same...I am not an enemy of anglers, never have, never will be.

 

What I do see very clearly from actually talking to family and friends and quite a lot of the public who chat to me when I am fishing, is this..... when asked if they think fishing is cruel, the considered answer is YES, no ifs and buts, a simple YES.

 

They usually politely concede that the fact we try not to harm then, and return them to the water is commendable, but is really only a sop to our consciences.

 

When I have been brave (or foolish) enough to ask how they compare fishing to hunting then again the cosidered reply is "THEY ARE BOTH CRUEL"

 

So fight the fight in any way we can.

 

For the benefit of any new or recent posters...I was a member of CA and I went on the march, along with over 400,000 other people, and that protest is what has delayed the final passing of the hunting bill, and may very well have delayed the start of the really serious attacks on angling.

 

Let us not bring up examples of extremism in either the hunting or fishing or anti behaviour, these are diversions and not the heart of the matter, what is at the heart is that slowly but surely the public are being conditioned to the fact that what we as hunters and shooters and anglers are doing is simply killing/catching or chasing wild creatures for our own pleasure and gratification.

 

Some, not me, are happy to ignore this fact and will continue to snipe away at anyone that they percieve to want get us to ally ourselves with them in the fight.

 

Angling for pleasure will be banned one day all we can hope for is that it will not be very soon, and anything that can be done to delay it can only be in the interest of those who wish to continue.

 

Den

 

[ 29. July 2004, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: poledark ]

[Tog]

Hear, Hear Poldark!

The issue is not hunting but alleged 'cruelty' to 'animals', the public (non angling / hunting) consider angling to be cruel just as they consider hunting to be cruel - just to differing degree's.

What gets me is that if the fox were not furry (say it looked like an alligator or spider!) the public would be all for hunting! Therefore the public perception of hunting is mixed up by the 'disneyeque' view of furry animals. We now have peta being permitted to use Disney's 'fish are friends not food' slogan from Nemo! God knows how many children will refuse to eat fish fingers because of that.

All the pressure groups have a ‘divide and conquer’ message to their supporters and separating anglers from the country sports issue is part of their plan. I can see some members of this site squealing on about how unfair it is the way the anti’s portray us in the media in 10 years time, wondering where all the country sports enthusiasts have gone and why they don’t help us!

If I placed the ‘discomfort’ that I cause any fish I catch as 0.1 ‘cruelty points’ and a fox’s ‘suffering’ as 100 I would only have had to catch 1000 fish to equal one fox, Opp’s I’m on quite a few foxes!

If only Fox’s were tasty – we wouldn’t even be having this discussion!

[barblesss]

Well guys, we could always start a new thread on wether fish, animals feel pain blah blah. That is *not* the point

This is about the CA and Angling... one weakening the other. There is no argument whatsoever that the CA would threaten Angling. It's a NO BRAINER.

[Peter Waller]

I don't altogether disagree with you Den, but at the end of the day, and please be as honest as you always are, is angling better off with the CA, or would it be better off without, and why? Come on Den, convince me!

 

I made the point very many eons ago, (on AN), that once hunting with hounds is banned then I would consider joining the CA. I still feel that way. But there are those who feel that once the fox hunting ban goes through then the CA will more or less collapse. One such commenter is a very moderate reporter friend of mine who has interviewed Charles Jardine & Liz Mort of the CA.

 

For the CA to survive, and in many respects I hope that it does, it needs to shake off this 'fox hunting' tag.

 

At the end of the day don't you think angling would be better off fighting its own battles? I know I do.

 

Personally, if anyone has to join anything else, then I would be more than glad to see anglers and shooters join forces. I don't believe the fox hunting issue can be doing them any good either,

[waterman1013]

Thanks StuMac

 

One of the few useful and intelligent posts on this thread. I learnt a lot and hopefully so did others.

 

Interesting the difference between "feel" and "experience".

 

Question. Is that Pat Wall who was doing research into pain, I think, at Leicester Uni? I heard a pice on Radio 4 some time ago but was driving and could not note down the details of the interviewee.

 

Mike

[Jim Roper]

Peter Waller:

You already know that I am passionately opposed to hunting with hounds, as, I firmly believe, are the majority of the country. To link angling to such hunting is seriously damaging to angling, or so I feel.

 

If we believe CA figures then anti versus support for hunting, on the widest front, e.g. shooting, in the UK is about 50/50, and I'm happy to accept that. What the CA propaganda fails to tell us is what the actual support percentage for hunting with hounds is.

 

At the end of the day don't you think angling would be better off fighting its own battles? I know I do.

Shooting is never thought of as 'Hunting' in this country, only by those who would prefer us to adopt everything American.

 

Angling is not fighting and winning it's own battles. It is being eroded all the time.

Livebaiting.

Parking bans.

Access denial.

Water Pullution.

Visual pollution.Etc., etc,. etc.

 

Who, in angling is going to organise any march, on the scale that the CA can, to counter any of the little niggly bits of legislation that is gradually stifling everything.

 

Those who claim to be on the moral high ground might be described as enemies within.

 

Peter, get your reporter friend to interview Jackie Ballard. The questions to ask can be put forward by AN posters.

 

Political Correctness is a tool of International Socialism.

[Beebs]

From what I can see, it's irrelevant arguing whether anglers should join the CA. Which anglers? Coarse anglers? Game anglers? Sea anglers? Shouldn't fishermen make an attempt to unify themselves into a potentially much stronger force to be reckoned with? Wouldn't angling itslef with its millions of participants be a much stronger voice?

 

But the problem with saving angling is anglers themselves. Most can't be bothered to get off their arses to help save their sport. They think other people will look out for their sport for them. Well it's not anyone elses sport it's ours. I probably spend as much on tackle and bait each year as some more famous 'names'. It's just as much my sport as it is Matt Hayes' or John Wilson's.

 

Carp anglers hate Match anglers, Match anglers hate pleasure anglers, game anglers look down on coarse fishermen. When it comes down to it and if we ever get our heads from so far up our own backsides, we might just realise that we all sit by the side of some water with line and a hook trying to catch fish. Why all the politics? The answer is simple enough and everybody knows it and everywhere you look on forums on the internet you always get the same answer and that is unity. But can you get unity between anglers? I can't see how anglers can claim any kind of unity when we can't even agree what is an animal or not.

 

If I wanted to join an angling body where do you look? NFA? SAA? Salmon and trout association? NFSA? CA? ACA? NAA? PAC? What if I did coarse, sea and game fishing? Would I have to join them all? We've got too many angling bodies for our own good, in my opinion and I don't think any of them represent me, my needs or how I think things should be done.

 

Is fishing cruel? Some think yes some think no, but squabbling over viewpoints is pointless. You're not going to change someone elses opinion so why bother arguing? We'll wake up one day and find our hobby has been outlawed and we'll have nobody but ourselves to blame because because we spent too much time bickering over the petty things and not enough time concentrating on what should be the most important bit which is working together on the commonality to all aspects of our sport instead of picking at the little differences.

[Guest allibee]

Well the Joint Angling Governing Bodies was supposed to be the united voice of angling ... more like a little squeek

[barblesss]

Beebs:

From what I can see, it's irrelevant arguing whether anglers should join the CA. Which anglers? Coarse anglers? Game anglers? Sea anglers? Shouldn't fishermen make an attempt to unify themselves into a potentially much stronger force to be reckoned with? Wouldn't angling itslef with its millions of participants be a much stronger voice?

 

But the problem with saving angling is anglers themselves. Most can't be bothered to get off their arses to help save their sport. They think other people will look out for their sport for them. Well it's not anyone elses sport it's ours. I probably spend as much on tackle and bait each year as some more famous 'names'. It's just as much my sport as it is Matt Hayes' or John Wilson's.

 

Carp anglers hate Match anglers, Match anglers hate pleasure anglers, game anglers look down on coarse fishermen. When it comes down to it and if we ever get our heads from so far up our own backsides, we might just realise that we all sit by the side of some water with line and a hook trying to catch fish. Why all the politics? The answer is simple enough and everybody knows it and everywhere you look on forums on the internet you always get the same answer and that is unity. But can you get unity between anglers? I can't see how anglers can claim any kind of unity when we can't even agree what is an animal or not.

 

If I wanted to join an angling body where do you look? NFA? SAA? Salmon and trout association? NFSA? CA? ACA? NAA? PAC? What if I did coarse, sea and game fishing? Would I have to join them all? We've got too many angling bodies for our own good, in my opinion and I don't think any of them represent me, my needs or how I think things should be done.

 

Is fishing cruel? Some think yes some think no, but squabbling over viewpoints is pointless. You're not going to change someone elses opinion so why bother arguing? We'll wake up one day and find our hobby has been outlawed and we'll have nobody but ourselves to blame because because we spent too much time bickering over the petty things and not enough time concentrating on what should be the most important bit which is working together on the commonality to all aspects of our sport instead of picking at the little differences.

Too right we need to join as one... as a strong force. But you need a decent strategy. Joining with the CA is not one of them and would only weaken our defence.

[Beebs]

barblesss:

Too right we need to join as one... as a strong force. But you need a decent strategy. Joining with the CA is not one of them and would only weaken our defence.

I agree, but at least the CA are out there in the public eye. They might well be using anglers to champion their cause, but where are the angling bodies?

 

I don't know how many members of the CA actually hunt, shoot or fish but I would have a stab and guess that there are more anglers in the UK than there are hunters and shooters, yet angling seems to be a small section of a bigger organisation. I think angling and anglers are potentially a much bigger force than the CA, but what are we doing to help ourselves?

 

Aren't there 3 million anglers in Britain? Quite a considerable number of voters isn't it? 3 million unified voices is a massive show of strength, but we're not even trying to pull together.