hunting

[Dave Hill]

Mally,

 

The only point I would add is that I believe the Tories have generally ALWAYS been pro angling...

 

and fox hunting for that matter...

[P@UL]

There's a war of propaganda being waged against us, by people who are ignorant, narrow minded bullies who are just inverted Nazis in my opinion.

 

And will they ever ban fishing? OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!! :mad:

[adamg]

Thinking about it does anyone know the figures for how much the angling ‘industry’ is worth in the UK? It must be in the billions I can’t see any government banning anything that would generate that much revenue. Think of the TAX they lose out on!

 

Tight lines,

 

adamg

[chesters1]

i came up against a very anti fishing person a few years ago ,i was pike fishing at frensham great pond when a labrador hurtled into the water next to me and cleverly dragged both rods of their rest and then proceeded to swim merrilly up and down ,as i rose to tell the naughty dog off a woman screamed at me that her dog could get its self caught in my line and cut its self and that i shouldnt be fishing on nat trust waters anyway ,she then used a naughty word and called her dog muttering about rangers ,police r.s.p.c.a etc .i wish i wasnt so stunned as i would have reminded her that if it wasnt for the monks of waverly abby making the pond to hold carp for the pot her and her dog would have nothing to walk round! :mad:

[Peter Waller]

Perhaps its time to start an anti-anti faction. Our sport is Angling, the antis' sport is being a blessed pain in the neck. That is the price of Freedom. The sickening thing is that the 'anti brigade' are using this Freedom as a means of attacking, with the hope of destroying, our Freedom to hunt. Before anyone says it, no I don't consider that there is already an anti-anti faction in the form of the C.A.

 

All the CA has managed to do is to drag us down and use us as a lever, as the Times editors comments indicate. The CA is NOT a good friend to angling.

 

[ 22 March 2002, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

[TeAl]

I think that shooting will be banned in the future, i think it is next. I have never foxhunted but I shoot and fish.

 

Ok as one guy said a while back, once fox hunting goes, what will the antis target?

They will target, SOLITARY anglers on the riverbank or by a lake they will not target groups of people out shooting. Who knows in todays world they could just knife a person by the river. One incident occurs and bam no kids allowed to go fishing because of dangers. No kids fishing = no future for fishing.

 

I think shooting will be next on the governments and antis list but I think that Angling will be targetted by the people on the ground. They could just chuck your equipment in the water, what can u do, they outnumber you call the police? By the time they come there is no reason for the antis to hang around.

 

I think foxhunting for one thing keeps the antis off our backs.

 

William

[Mally]

Totally agree with tim kelley's point - you dont have to shoot or hunt to be in the countryside alliance, its for all forms of country life!! And as for your point TeAl, i'm not saying your wrong, but i would doubt it, and if anybody threw any of my gear into the water they would find out that they shouldn't have, be it right or wrong they would get a smack in the gob for there troubles! Come on lets stand together on this, the vast majority of anti's dont have a clue what tey are trying to ban anyway and whenever ive had to defend my sport the other person has always ended up quite suprised at the facts which i can quite easily point out to them, i.e. where do they think the money comes from for the general up keep of waterways, where do the fish come from when a river is decimated by pollution, who do they think funds the ACA and what do they think the ACA do? (if you dont know then say so and i'll tell you) Fishing wont be banned but at the same time we cant aford to be complacent and we should really be supporting hunting and shooting at the very least not saying anything against them!!

[Vagabond]

A few thoughts and a prediction

 

The Times did a piece on hunting, and came up with some surprising figures - I can't vouch for their accuracy but here they are :-

 

Over half a million people participate in hunting from horseback

Over three-quarters of a million more follow hounds on foot

 

That is a not inconsiderable number - compare it with the number of fishing licences sold in 2001 (anybody know offhand?)

 

There are more lurchers in the country than foxhounds - who said hunting was a toff's sport?

 

Come to that, many regard shooting and fly-fishing as toff's sports - so how safe is angling in this class war? (Make no mistake, this is a class war)

 

If hunting is banned, I predict that even more of our countryside will be lost to urbanisation - in fact, this may be New Labour's hidden agenda - devalue our countryside as a recreational resource, and thus make the sale of greenfield land for building a more attractive option for land-owners.

 

BTW If anyone wishes to remind me that I am chairman of a development company, let me say we ONLY build on reclaimed inner city (ie brownfield) sites. There is less profit in doing that rather than trashing the countryside with yet more housing estates - but Rural Britain needs all the help it can get.

[TeAl]

Oh oh Mally. You did not read my post very carefully did you.

 

I was refering to groups of antis harrasing SOLITARY anglers and children.

 

William

[Nightwing]

For whatever reason, this subject is a sore spot with me, even though I have the luxury of an ocean, and a very different culture, as a buffer. I never ceases to amaze me, the aparent animosity between the fishing and shooting sports over there. Here, even if we chose a particular aspect of outdoor life to persur, we almost to a person support our brothers and sisters in other outdoor sports. We have a number of organizations dedicated to single minded pursuits, yet, many of those are alligned in larger, wider organizations.

Here in Michigan, we have the MUCC(Michigan United Concervation Clubs), as well as several other large organizations, which gather the resources to fight attacks upon any of our respective activities. Several years ago, when PETA and others tried to ban bear hunting here, in a matter of days there were several hundred seperate organizations, representing over a million sportman and woman, organized and fighting under the umbrella of these larger groups. Money from such diverse groups as fly fisherman, hikers, bird hunters, all made its way into the fight for a sport practiced by less than 5,000 people here yearly. We put aside our personal preferences, and did not take tha attitude that "its not my sport" I see here, nor did we even consider that defending a less popular sport(bear hunting with dogs) may "drag us down" with it.

We helped the bear hunters because we saw in them the begining of the push to end all hunting and fishing here, and because it was just the right thing to do. Peta thought that here was and easy target, a foot in the door, one they could use as a lynchpin for further encroachment onto, and eventual elimination of, our priveleges of hunting and fishing. An intense and expensive pro-hunting campaing quickly came up to speed, including TV adds, rallys(over 75,000 people rallyed on the steps of our capital building, again, for a sport practiced by about 5,000 state wide!), widespread dissemination of information, and lots of negative PETA information and adds. All in all, several million dollars was spent by the pro hunting side, spearheaded by the big multi-activity groups.

Bottom line result?

In a state with 5,000 bear hunters, over 700,000 people, representing over 80% of the vote total, voted to keep it legal, and the anti's have not mounted a serious campaing of any type here since.

So, regardless of your personal feelings about hunting, shooting, fishing, you need to organize and fight as one. If you let them take out the easy, less popular aspects of the countryside life, you will one day find fishing standing alone, and protrayed as an outdated and brutal remider of the past. They will get you then, so do something now!