Now let's ban fishing

[Peter Waller]

Peter Sharpe:

Just to please Dragonbat, I've now emailed the Bolton Evening news as well.

These letters have given 'angling' an opportunity to speak for itself, and your letter, Peter, has done it very well. Be interesting to see if any CA spokespeople leap to our defence.

[Peter Waller]

Den, neither of us spoke to the other, in private or otherwise, on this one. We arrived at the same conclusion quite independently, I assure you. Please note, one or two others have also expressed their doubts on this thread. Den, do you not think it a reasonable conclusion then?

 

Personally I think it is a CA scam that has backfired. I doubt that any 'anti' would write such a letter at this time. Surely the last thing an 'anti' would want to do, just prior to the march, is to further unite the 'hunting' factions. That simply does not make any sense whatsoever! It does make sense though that the CA should attempt to activate anglers into joining their march in this way.

 

I have no practical evidence, just an instinct that something is wrong. It may not be the CA itself, but sure as Tesco's bananas are green, Mss Thom is probably a CA supporter. P.S. They tend to be green at my local Tesco!

 

An angling friend of mine, from London, points out that James Street is bang opposite Bond Street. This is home to Hooray Henry's and Henriettas, four wheel drives and Barbour coats, rather than yer average plastic sandled animal rights activist. Since he is an estate agent in the area he should know his clientel! As he says, draw your own conclusion.

 

[ 05. September 2002, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

[Alan Fawcett]

eeeeee i'm so excited i could crush a grape (or at least go t' foot of our stairs), the Stafford newsletter is due out today & its normally delivered to our garage around midnight, but not tonight just my luck.

 

If there is a letter in there the same as the aforementioned ones then i would suggest a "mass" reply to show that unlike the non fishing public the anti's can't fool us so easily (i hope!!).

 

The editors might well look fools so we'll have to be careful how its worded as to make the editors realise that we aren't blaming them for being pulled into a decietfull campaign.

 

I have a freind who works for mirror group publishing (yes he's an editor) i'll give him a shout & see if he can "accidently on purpose" let me know the e-mail address of the sender if they have recieved the same style of letter.

 

lets not forget that Peta & all the other saddo's with nothing better to do have got people who are paid to write this kind of thing.

 

the CA ...well they don't seem to have as much support as they thought they would recieve from the angling fraternity so maybe (i did say maybe) they could be responcible for this is an attempt to scare anglers into supporting them.

 

I am reserving my own judgement for now.

 

mods please note i was a good boy & didn't swear once, cos i'm a good boy i am

 

I've gotta type slower

 

[ 05. September 2002, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: ALAN FAWCETT ]

[mpbdsnu]

Bearing in mind this woman is based in London, and bearing in mind also those who constantly picket (and much worse of course) the gates at the Huntingdon Life Sciences laboratory in 'Cambridgeshire' - most of whom it seems come from way out of the area (London perhaps?) - could it be that her reasons for visiting the Cambridge area is that she visits the above and is an out-and-out ANTI???

 

A number of suppositions have been put forward here - all of which could be true!

 

However, I do feel we should be contacting the editors of said newspapers and to try to find out WHY they are printing these letters?

 

Many of these local papers are often (don't know if this is the case here?) printed at the same works, so could it be that there is a connection there? probably not, but just a thought!

[Jim Roper]

Just got in and read most all the things posted on this thread while I've been working.

Cambridge seems a good place to find double, treble or even quadruple agents.

 

Letters similar to the one quoted have been appearing in our local paper from time to time for years. I wonder if there is any way that editors could recall what the dates were and if there has been a pattern before, as there appears to be with this instance.

I seem to remember the 'Campagin for the Abolition of Angling' (http://www.anti-angling.com/)being mentioned before in these letters.

 

Has anybody here seen similar letters in their local paper before?

 

With so many fishermen scattered all over the country, someone has been a little naive in thinking that a pattern would not be noticed, or was that the intention? Perhaps it was someone who has not heard of AnglersNet, but I doubt it. Elton will be really upset to think that might be possible.

 

I have Emailed our local rag (http://www.thisisdorset.net)to enquire as to whether they have had anything recently. They are fairly anti-hunting so they might co-operate. I have mentioned the fact that the CA has been accused of sculduggery.

 

If the letter was received by Email then there is a return address, but it could be from a bogus sender who has an account with someone like hotmail.

 

Perhaps if someone were to post an answer to one of these letters and include their Email address, it might be possible to engage the person in an exchange that will lead to something.

 

There are a lot of bogus sites with all sorts of agenda, eg http://www.countrysidealliance.org and http://www.bfss.com. A lot of them trace back to a chap in Brighton or URLs that he is associated with. http://www.hedweb.com

 

Newt would be able to give us a line on tracing sources of transmissions. I don't think 'Ping /a' will help here, or will it? If the source has a permanant IP address, it should be simple!

ZoneAlarm Pro should do it, I think.

 

If a chat room like this one can sense when a certain computer is switched on and connected to the net, then I'm sure the source of these letters could be traced.

 

Does anybody know an IT person working for a local newspaper? They might be willing to give you enough details whereby you could do some detective work yourself.

 

Jim Roper

 

http://www.march-info.org

 

http://www.saddletude.com

[wazzygib]

The answer to this is fairly obvious, have you seen the [edited] address, London, W1.

Another Tara Pothead Tompkinson, little rich girl with feck all better to do! If she just stopped to find out more about the sport, she might understand how fishermen think. [edited]!

 

Colin Brett:

From the Letters page of the Cambridge News 4th September 2002.

 

Now let's ban fishing!!

 

from Teresa Thom

 

I had the considerable displeasure of witnessing an act of great cruelty on a visit to a popular fishing spot near your offices on Saturday.

 

A group of people were engaged in a fishing match.

 

I could not believe that this hideous and grotesquely cruel practise is still permitted under British law.

 

Now that we are banning hunting with dogsin this country I am sure that we must ban this evil practise as soon as possible.

 

Please tell your readers that if they ever see this evil practise they are to approach the fishermen and women and tell them to stop.

 

I shall be returning to your area at the end of the month and looking for people who will support a ban on fishing.

 

James Street,

London W1

 

Enough said??????????????????????

 

Colin

[This message has been edited to remove two sexist comments - John S]

 

[ 05. September 2002, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: John S ]

[Peter Waller]

Its now daylight, the pike have been remarkably cooperative, three days on the trot, I'm a happy man!

 

Time to think. Jim's letter is fair and good, surprising that he has not leapt straight into the defensive mode. Can we read anything into that folks ? All very reasonable and reasoned Jim. MPBDSU's is a viable alternative.

 

My money is still on the same horse, but the odds are, perhaps, not quite so long! Am I hedging my bets now? :confused: My gut instinct still says I'm right on this one.

 

[ 05. September 2002, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

[Jim Roper]

Peter Waller:

surprising that he has not leapt straight into the defensive mode. Can we read anything into that folks

Nothing to defend!

 

A lot of speculation and we can all have go at that.

 

There are stupid people on both sides of this arguement.

 

Interesting to see the different reactions on this and the sea-fishing forum!

 

Got to get some sleep now!

 

Jim Roper

 

http://www.saddletude.com

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

 

[ 05. September 2002, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: Jim Roper ]

[poledark]

No one seems to have grasped the real problem with this woman i.e. Where is the coordinated response? Where are "our" spokespersons?

 

Accuse who you like, argue all you like, wind each other up, take the p**s, but don't you see, she has succeeded. She got in first and it doesn't matter what answer is given, the damage has been done. Certain readers will have read her letter and made a judgement which will be almost impossible to alter, the rest will take no notice.

 

Best to wait a while and then post a letter pointing out something good about angling, not get into an argument with her, because she will win it every time. She will have gained a few more supporters.

 

I was not going to get involved in any more CA/Angling/Hunting issues, and will try to steer clear of getting drawn in again, but ( ) I have to say that it stretches incredulaty too far to think that the CA can gain anything by trying to ban angling, in no way can it help the foxhunters, and would only add to the list of cruel pursuits that the public can attack.

 

Surely if anglers were organised properly all that would be needed is a simple phone call and the relevant spokesperson would spring into action.

 

Peter Waller, keep up the good work on the Broads,

 

Den

[waterman1013]

Regardless of what organisation she may or may not represent it is important that anglers respond to such letters and I have sent the response below to the Oxford Mail. Feel free to use it as you need.

 

Dear Sir

 

You recently published a letter from Theresa Thom who gives an address in Central London. This letter is part of an orchestrated campaign against angling and has also been published in Cambridge, Peterborough and Shropshire. Angling is a pastime which many of your readers locally will participate in and from which many local businesses will benefit because of angling tourism.

 

The use of emotional language like “evil” “grotesquely cruel” and “evil practice” show her to be much more than an uninterested observer but a member of the animal rights movement parading herself as a concerned individual.

 

She is certainly well briefed and appears to be part of the animal rights movement. Those “nice people” who send bombs to scientists, bully and cajole employees of legitimate businesses and cause environmental havoc by releasing non-native species, e.g. mink, into the wild, where they do untold damage to our native species and their habitat.

 

Her “facts” are wrong, fish are cold blooded and there is no scientific evidence to show they feel pain, even though the animal rights movement claim that there is - the now discredited Medway Report. If they felt pain, in the way that you and I understand it, they would not be able to eat fresh water crustaceans, molluscs and other hard shelled food items. Indeed recent work on pain receptors and cold blooded creatures indicates that they have no sense of “pain”.

 

Fish do not suffer in properly used keepnets, there is ample scientific evidence to show this. Fish do not suffer when hooked, repeat catches of the same fish in a short space of time show this. Fish when handled properly do not suffer in the hands of anglers.

 

More than five million anglers in the UK enjoy the sport, enjoy our countryside and enjoy the environment, travel to localities such as yours and spend more than five billion pounds a year on their sport, much of that locally. It is anglers who have protected our rivers from pollution and worked with Governments of all persuasions to improve the lot of our aquatic wildlife. It is anglers who continue to monitor the state of our nations rivers. It is anglers who first report problems to the Environment Agency. It is anglers who raise millions of pounds each year to help pay for that same Agency and its vital work.

 

Do not let yourself be mislead by these “animal activists”, who know nothing of the realities of life for most of us in the country and care even less.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Michael Heylin

Secretary

Specialist Anglers Alliance

 

Specialist Anglers Alliance represents some ten thousand big fish anglers and is a member of the National Angling Alliance which represents more than one million anglers in Britain.