Rod licence

[Guest David]

I feel it is unfair that many anglers only fish for part of the season but have to pay for a full year, why can we not choose the months we wish to fish and only pay for them. I fish all year round my mate goes fishing from June to mid October so why should he have to pay for a full year. It would be easy for the post office to punch out the months you could not fish, from 12 months that could be on the licence.

[Guest davidP]

See my answer on the previous topic about club cards as some of what I said there applies here. In this case however it's more a case of administration costs. Yes, it may well be easy for the post office to sell licences for limited time periods but it would make the administration of the whole thing far more complex and costly. The calculation of the amount owing from PO to EA suddenly gets way more complex as does the commission charge. Changes have to be made to the computer systems on both sides to cope with it and this makes it even more complicated and so costs rise. The main reason the licences are now sold in Post Offices and not tackle shops is because the administration cost is far cheaper and the cashflow much improved. If you want to make the system more complicated and costly then that's fine, but you have to pay for it with increased licence fee. And given that anglers whinge endlessly about how expensive the licence is anyway I can see it being a really popular move. Can you also see the EA going for anything that would reduce their income which this would do?? They already find it hard to do the work they need to do with their current income let alone a lower one!

[Guest David]

David

I would have thought this would help get more income by cutting down on the numbers who do not have a lincence, and I can not see why this should incure more expence, other licence systems allow for this. Even a licence which was valid for twelcve months from the day of issue would be a step forward?

[Guest davidP]

Less dodgers? Dunno. I suspect if people aren't going to buy a licence then they're not gong to buy one regardless. As for other licence systems then if you're thinking of car licences then they have the advantage of a dedicated computer system and economies of scale. The post office system is just that - the post office system. It can sell licences because that's what the post office do (and I know this because I'm involved in testing it - it was me that raised the bug report on that fact the system spelt 'coarse' as 'course') but it doesn't have the capacity to record start and end dates, names & adresses etc etc because it was not a requirement. The costs to change this system and the EA system to enable them to have rolling start date licences would probably costs well into six figures, and that's assuming the changes were fairly straight forward. Can you imagine the uproar if the EA spent 100,000's on a computer system just for licences and it came out of the fisheries budget?

[Guest Gaz]

I am not sure if this is very relevent but the issue of licences in Ireland is a whole different model.I live in N Ireland where I buy my licence at a tackle shop.To fish any given water I must then buy a permit which I can't always obtain at the same time especially ministry ones.The amount of revenue collected is so minimal it would hardly pay for the bailifs to cover these waters.There are so many different permits ranging from 3days to a week to a year it is a wonder any one understands it.Even if you buy a 3 day ministry permit you still have to buy a licence for a year even if it is in december ( licences run Jan to Jan) .Because of this hasles a lot of people don't bother and do most of their fishing in the south where fishing is free and you can use 2 rods per angler.For the coarse fisherman it is heaven.The money generated from cross boarder fishing and tourism from europe/uk mainland is worth far more than any revenue that could be collected for licences .Because of the licence/permit debacle in the North we are actually loosing out on a source of income which in fishing terms would be far more beneficial tourists don't need the hassle.Sorry if this is a bit long I just had to make a point.

[Guest oliver g]

£19 over 4 monthes is £5 a month!!you dont quibble about paying £5 for a day ticket DO YOU!!! thats only 2.5 pints down the local OVER A WHOLE MONTH!!!!!

 

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oli

[Guest David]

DavidP and Gaz

Thanks for the reply, David I see your point, Gaz your syste seems worse then ours.

David I have a lot of time for the good work of the EA, and my points were to try and inprove things all round and yes you are more then right about the licence dodgers.

[Guest Jonty]

Do you remember the good old days, when there was no such animal as a National Rod Licence ??

 

If you wanted to fish multiple rods, you had to buy multiple licences - if you wanted to fish multiple Water Authority regions, you then had to buy multiple licences from multiple Water Authorities !! - not any more.

 

I live in what used to be the Severn-Trent WA area, but with North-West Water only a few miles away. Currently, I buy one rod licence, which allows me to fish both areas with up to 2 rods - a few years ago, I would have had to buy 2 licences for each of the 2 areas. And I know that there must be some anglers who will fish in 4 or 5 different `water authority` areas in a year.

 

I don't really think that there is any genuine basis to grumble about the cost of the current rod licence. And by the way, I am currently on a 3-month close season rest, so don't think that I fish the full 12 months !!

[Guest Gaz]

Just for the record guys, a rod licence in N Ireland is only £8 per rod and a yearly coarse permit for ministry waters is £19 although private permits for eg the lower bann system are only £10. There is no closed season for coarse fishing anywhere in Ireland.All in all I suppose I should'nt really quibble.

[Guest Gaz]

Just for the record guys, a rod licence in N Ireland is only £8 per rod and a yearly coarse permit for ministry waters is £19 although private permits for eg the lower bann system are only £10. There is no closed season for coarse fishing anywhere in Ireland.All in all I suppose I should'nt really quibble.