Butt out CA!

[Peter Waller]

I like Anglers Mail, its a good publication. In it this week is the news that the Countryside Alliance is poking its nose into angling matters yet again.

I have no firm feelings on the matter of licences for sea angling, one way or another. It could be argued that the EA acts for both freshwater and sea anglers therefore both should pay the same for a licence. I do know that quite a few sea anglers believe that those of us who sea fish should also have a licence. I suppose a fishing licence should really cover both sea and river. Best go with the flow on that one at the moment.

 

But Anglers Mail this week has the headline 'Sea licence attacked'. Guess what! The dear old CA has waded into coastal waters. What the hell has the coast got to do with the CA? Why on earth should the Countryside Alliance want to comment on matters outside its sphere?

 

Oh, I forgot, they want to be seen as the champion for Angling!

 

Time for an angry letter to Mr Jardine I think!

[rob.i]

Peter you complain that the CA has waded into coastal waters Id have thought youd be happy with that

[kleinboet]

Never mind waded - drowned would have been better!!

[GlennB]

Lately the CA have been incorporating angling into virtually every public pronouncement.

 

Desperate people do desperate things.

[Elton]

Some of you need to stray beyond these forums and look at the rest of AN some day

 

I posted this article on the 6th of August!!

 

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/news/articles/396.html

[Peter Waller]

Nice one Elton! It was only in AM this week! But atleast I now have the CA address for an 'angry of Oulton Broad' to write to!!!

 

Should I start Dear Mr Jardine or has anyone got a better suggestion !!???

[medwaygreen]

The CA has its own agenda of course,yet that agenda encompasses some hundreds of thousands of people.ANGLING on the other hand has MILLIONS of people who maybe do not fight their corner, we have become easey pickings for the likes of Mr Jardine who uses ANGLING to meet his own ends,i would think that is our fault for allowing it to happen.This is from a life member of BASC and an angler for more then forty years.Born in the town dedicated to the country.

Regards

 

[ 13. August 2004, 09:11 PM: Message edited by: medwaygreen ]

[fenboy]

We all know the CA is desperate to get angling on its side. What we need is a national angling body to stand up and say: "We want nothing to do with them"... and make it plain we are not the CA's allies.

 

Er, trouble is we haven't got a proper national voice to do that. And the general public will see angling as supporting other field sports (which I, for one, don't).

 

Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't want to join the self-styled anarchists on the hunt picket lines. I'm pretty ambivilent about hunting and shooting. I dislike the hooray henrys from the city who pay £2000 a year to shoot the local tame pheasants then come into my local on Saturday afternoons in winter and generally bray, get ****** and drive off drunk in their Range Rovers, but that's nothing to do with so-called blood sports. That's me disliking rich city types that descend upon the countryside. I'm happy to eat the pheasants they've shot, which are in such a glut mid-season that the gamekeeper flogs them for 50p a brace.

But that's me being a bit political. Truth is I'd rather have that crowd in my local than Phoney Blair's shallow cronies.

And it's politics that this is all about. Hunting looks like being banned because it's a class thing more than anything else. It's seen as upper class and something for the envious lower orders to sort out.

At the end of the day it's tradition, so I don't really want to see it banned. But neither do I want to see angling get tangled up in it through Mr Jardine's own crafty agenda.

How can me make it clear that we are not pro-CA? Urge everyone to write to their MPs? If anyone has a good idea, please share it. This is a very important issue.

[Peter Waller]

I'm glad that you and I share this opinion of the CA issue Fenboy. I suppose a start would be in letting Mr Jardine know of our concerns.

[Ian FG]

Good stuff fenboy.

Anglers are being hijacked by these people.

The strange thing is that most anglers anglers respect the fish they catch and wish them no harm...far from it, the CA on the other hand do not respect their quarry...unless you call ripping a fox to pieces respect.

Of course no one objects to a fisherman taking a trout from a stream or a couple of pollack for the table, in the same way that no one objects to a man shooting a rabbit or two for the same purpose.

What British people hate is wanton cruelty and fox hunting is certainly cruel and I for one do not want to be associated with it and I wish the CA would stop thinking I am on their side and trying to convince the public that we are mates, I am no friend of these people.

Which leaves me in a dilemma because I have enjoyed fishing for stocked trout in the past but now question the morals of that when compared to shooting tame pheasants....i think I need help