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Now let's ban fishing


Colin Brett

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Here is the text of an excellent letter printed in the Peterborough Evening Telgraph on September 6th. I am totally against the practice of copying out standard letters, because I feel that this devalues them in the eyes of newspaper editors. However, you may wish to copy this to note some of the points made for future reference.

In the case of Ms Thom, (or whoever she represents), I am of the opinion that you should emphasise that she is a liar, and needed to submit a totally fabricated tale in order to promote her warped and hysterical viewpoint.

 

Get writing.

 

Incidentally, as I was packing up this morning after a night on The Trent, a group of anglers turned up, then proceeded to hammer their banksticks into the rocks beyond the water's edge with mallets! Can you imagined the confused looks on the faces of any antis, if they had turned up to scare the fish away?

 

Anti-angler was lacking in facts

From Eugene Weetman

Woodston,

Peterborough

 

I felt that I must reply to the letter entitled “Let’s ban “cruel” sport of fishing.

 

The terms used such as “great cruelty, hideous, grotesquely cruel, evil, barbed hooks, poor creatures, crammed suffocating and evil practice” are typical of the excessively over-descriptive language that is used by the anti-hunting and anti-angling lobbyists to support their campaigns to abolish activities with which they don’t agree.

Further more, I respond to the content with facts:

 

· Barbed hooks, of the sort your grandfather knew, are not used in modern-day angling. Barbless hooks are now the norm and are much more practical in terms of conservation and protection of fish stocks.

· Fish are not “dragged” anywhere: properly balanced tackle is designed to “play” and net fish with the minimum of disturbance to others in the swim.

· Fish are not harmed merely by heat from the hands. Bad handling is generally a thing of the past. Angling clubs often purchase fish stocks at great expense, and they would not wish to see their investment diminished in this way.

· After extensive research it has been proven that keepnets do not cause harm to fish. Modern nets are specially constructed from close knit materials, permitting the transmission of oxygen in water to the fish, while causing no physical harm.

· If fishing is cruel, perhaps the writer could tell me why leading fish biologists such as Dr. Rupert Garner and Dr. Bruno Broughton still fish for pleasure.

 

Although the writer didn’t mention the issue of lead shot poisoning swans, lead weights (in harmful sizes) were outlawed some 15 years ago, long before lead in petrol, and is no longer an issue.

 

Anglers support the reduction of pollution of our waterways; they are the eyes and ears of the Environment Agency; they support their own anti-pollution charity, prosecuting polluters.

 

The changes to the welfare of the fish that we catch have not come about by changes in the law, but a recognition that we needed, and wanted to, improve our image. No one is more aware of fish welfare than we are.

 

[ 08. September 2002, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Peter Sharpe ]

English as tuppence, changing yet changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag-bearer, lotus-fed Miss Havishambling, opsimath and eremite, feudal, still reactionary, Rawlinson End.

 

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Peter Waller:

That girl certainly gets about! How does she bribe all these editors?

Conspiracy theorists could run riot on that one!

 

Papers always say that they will only print letters that are accompainied by an address and sometimes telephone number. I once had our local editor ring me to check that the letter I had sent was genuine.

 

Even if the writer does not want their address published, the letter is usually printed with 'name and address supplied' or similar at the end.

 

Have all these editors printed these letters without varifying their authenticity?

 

How many have not printed because they could not check them out? We cannot ever know.

 

Both our local papers, one daily, the other weekly, seem to have an anti-hunting agenda.

 

Is there an association to which provincial editors belong?

 

My letters to our local paper usually take about 2 weeks to appear, but I have noticed that one particular anti-road/anti-hunt/anti-GM/anti-car/Hunt Sab person can get his response to my letters printed within 2 days.

 

I have not yet had a reply from our local editor. Perhaps he is going to make a story out of it. I told him that the CA were being blamed in some quarters.

 

Who is the main victim of all this?

 

As the same name appears to be used and it has been done in such a way that, we on AN believe, the pattern was bound to be noticed, was Ms Thom the intended victim?

 

Could she be an anti-hunting angler?

 

I can think of a much better way of keeping anglers and anyone else away from London on September 22nd, but I'll let you know what it is afterwards!

 

Jim Roper

 

http://www.searchlineuk.com/FishList.htm

https://www.harbourbridgelakes.com/


Pisces mortui solum cum flumine natant

You get more bites on Anglers Net

 

 

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Ahh, the old treble bluff tactic.

You shouldn't feel too hard done by. The Peterborough Evening Telegraph automatically prints any propaganda from George Bowyer, the joint master of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, usually giving him prominance as the main letter, with accompanying photograph. It also always prints letters from HH Lee, the local loony, who send in his weekly letter, expressing viewpoints somewhere to the far right of Neil Hamilton.

English as tuppence, changing yet changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag-bearer, lotus-fed Miss Havishambling, opsimath and eremite, feudal, still reactionary, Rawlinson End.

 

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Peter Sharpe:

Ahh, the old treble bluff tactic.

You shouldn't feel too hard done by. The Peterborough Evening Telegraph automatically prints any propaganda from George Bowyer, the joint master of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, usually giving him prominance as the main letter, with accompanying photograph. It also always prints letters from HH Lee, the local loony, who send in his weekly letter, expressing viewpoints somewhere to the far right of Neil Hamilton.

Now if it was to the right of Jeremy Clarkson.....

 

Like I said, conspiracy theorists are having a hayday.

 

The local anti that I referred to can often be seen in the local college library.

 

Gets better dunnit? Or is it worse?

 

Jim Roper

 

http://www.searchlineuk.com/FishList.htm

https://www.harbourbridgelakes.com/


Pisces mortui solum cum flumine natant

You get more bites on Anglers Net

 

 

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Gets even better!

 

Cherie Booth/Blair practices at Matrix Chambers, Grays Inn.

 

Jim Roper

 

http://www.searchlineuk.com/FishList.htm

https://www.harbourbridgelakes.com/


Pisces mortui solum cum flumine natant

You get more bites on Anglers Net

 

 

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Jim Roper:

Gets even better!

 

Cherie Booth/Blair practices at Matrix Chambers, Grays Inn.

 

Jim Roper

 

http://www.searchlineuk.com/FishList.htm

Jim, its time for to say it this time, you really are clutching at straws on that one.

 

Yes Jim, I too can think of an effective way of discouraging the CA march. I think I'll leave the underhand methods to Mss Thom & Co :D:D:D

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