Countryside Alliance Angling Forum

[Peter Waller]

YSA:

The  killing for fun argument always worries me, as many anglers, myself included, kill for fun, so we can have some fun pike fishing.  We don't all get our dead baits from tackle shops or fishmongers.

 

Cheers

 

SteVe

YSA. I sometimes kill a fish. Maybe because it is damaged. Sometimes I kill for the table, which is the case with many sea fish that I catch.

 

At no time do I 'kill for fun'. It is just part of the whole, I can not eat my catch unless I kill it. I certainly gain no pleasure in killing a fish, but I do in eating them.

 

But atleast, once killed, my catch is not wasted. I certainly won't go down the primitive path of 'blooding' my grandchildren the first time they go fishing with me!

 

I will probably teach them, as I was, to handle and respect a gun, as I hope they will also learn to respect their prey. I certainly won't teach them to celebrate the death of their victims.

 

Regarding the League Against Cruel sports, a dilemma for many of us. In many respects I would like to be able to support them, as I once supported the RSPCA.

 

Whilst I agree with Elton's point I think we have to be wary. The RSPCA was infiltrated by 'new thinking', the same could so easily happen with the LACS.

 

CA supporters have been harsh on angling, at times, during radio interviews. As much as I distrust the CA I have to admit that such comments, like with the LACS, might just be personal and not official policy.

 

At the end of the day how can one be cruel to a fish that feels no pain? It is no more cruel than harvesting a field of quorn! However, we should still respect our catch.

 

Alan, you mention 'blind bigotary'. You are quite right to do so, and perhaps it does apply to Craig. It does equelly apply to many CA supporters, who, in the past, have poured out all the predictable dogma and traditional, social and political bigotary. It happens on both sides of the fence.

 

[ 28. February 2003, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

[Peter Sharpe]

Alan made an interesting point about the killing of pike. Although it is mainly frowned upon in most areas, there are still groups of mainly match anglers in some parts of the Fens (the March area comes to mind) who have been holding predator matches for the sole purpose of slaughtering pike and zander. A few years ago it was common to see carcasses strewn along the bank in a manner that suggested the perpetrators were actually proud of their achievements, although they have probably bowed sufficiently to public opinion to hide them in the nettles these days.

 

People such as these have similar morals to the fox hunters, and are quite probably of the faction that support them. The world has moved on, although there are still a few primitives who would bring our art into disrepute. I am not talking about a cull based on scientific grounds, but those who take sheer delight in exercising a bloodlust based on uneducated, misplaced and out dated attitudes. It has taken far too long, but these people are now being rightly alienated, which is necessary if we can take up our claim to be conservationists and guardians of the countryside.

 

There are certainly skeletons in angling's closet, though mainly based on ignorance and primitive tradition. Conservation is now the driving force, and angling has adapted to the modern world. The fox hunters have clearly failed to realise that public opinion has turned against them, instead relying on privilege and arrogance to defend spurious practices based on manufactured, pseudo-scientific and contradictory evidence.

 

Apart from a few Fenland Neanderthals, I doubt if any angler has been motivated to fish for the chance of making a kill. The vast majority of anglers have grown into the sport (or art), from catching tiddlers in a net as five year olds, to progressing to angling with rod and line, through that irresistable urge that makes prolonged absence from the water side an intolerable agony. There is far more to angling than catching fish: it is more to do with an inbuilt urge in chosen individuals that just forces them to be at the waterside. The urge to be a true coarse angler is unique. The purpose and motivation is to be beside the water and by artful deception to have the privilege to see creatures at close quarters that non-anglers would never know even existed.

 

I realise that there are other branches of angling where the moral lines are less clearly defined. I can only speak for the one to which I was drawn.

 

I wonder if Lee has been reading my local paper. The letter pages have been featuring complaints about the farmers who have been leaving the roads in such a state that is difficult to discern where the road ends and the fields begin. There have already been serious accidents as a result.

[Guest sslatter]

Peter Waller:

But we live in an evolving society. We have evolved away from cock-fighting and dog-fighting. Is fox hunting so far removed from dog fighting? After all, the fox is a breed of dog, isn't it? A pack of dogs is trained to kill a single dog.

 

It isn't quite so much that I find traditional fox hunting distasteful and inexcusable but rather that I question the ethics and morality behind the whole procedure. It is certainly NOT a social or wealth divide issue.

Well said. That puts it in a nutshell for me.

 

And as far as the 'fish bleeding' syndrome goes, as a young naive impatient 7 year old, I hooked a dace high in its upper lip, and carelessly ripped its lip off trying to get the hook out (barbed hook). I felt terrible, and vowed it would never happen again. I can safely say that was the last fish that I ever saw bleed from the mouth. And unless I'm using a worm, I use barbless exclusively. But that was another thread, wasn't it...

 

[ 01. March 2003, 02:05 AM: Message edited by: Graham X ]

[phil hackett]

“Lots of humans get knocked down on the road, and it's all down to lead?”

And your point is?

 

“……………….but how about otters? Their road deaths are increasing!”

Err! A little thought to this subject might explain it to you!

 

”Do foxes get killed to the same extent in towns where traffic is slower?”

Yes, and actually there are more foxes in the urban environment now than there is in the rural one. Opportunists you see, more food available, and from a fox’s perspective less harassment. A bit like ducks on shot water and unshot waters.

 

“How about deer?”

Couldn’t say there aren’t any in the Manchester region other than in fenced deer parks.

 

”I suggest it is more down to traffic speed than lead.”

There is a clear correlation between the lead levels in the liver and the numbers that are killed in road accidents. The levels found are above the know threshold limit values where foxes become weakened by lead poisoning. I suggest you put in a search engine “lead poisoning” and look at the effects it has on all mammals including Man.

 

“I expect the work was done on road killed foxes because they were available.” Whilst a large part of the near 1,000 foxes examined were road kills, other foxes found dead with no sign of road accidents or sent in by farmers/gamekeepers, which they’d shot, have been examined.

There is also a step decrease in lead liver levels the near you get to the rural environment, as are the road kill victims.

 

“They would probably find the same diet in foxes that are killed in all other ways.”

True, but I didn’t suggest otherwise!

 

 

“Yet another way that the antis and their supporters are plugging away at the fringes.”

So you know Paul Chipmann do you? And read his papers?

 

“I wonder who paid for the research!!”

Paul and MMU

As Paul is a principle lecturer at MMU, one of the perks of the job is to be able to research any topic you like providing it doesn’t put to bigger drain on time or resources of the University. Paul like any good independent Scientist had noticed that in and around his own area there were what appeared to be high levels of dead foxes. Being inquisitive as most independent scientists are, wondered why this was and started to look into it. No agenda, no payment from any organisation, other than as above and an inquiring mind.

 

It is I suggest, somewhat scurrilous to insinuate otherwise when you don’t know the background of that person or the work they do.

[trent.barbeler]

Dear Pete,

 

No I haven't read your local rag unless it is the Grantham Journal. But I have all winter long been driving through swathes of mud on what were, once clean country lanes. Frankly, I'm getting a little mit miffed by it!!

 

As a "practising" countryman myself who lives and works within the rural setting, I fully appreciate that the countryside is a "workshop" for those living within it. As such, I expect and fully understand that there will be at times, mud on our country lanes when farm machinery crosses roads or use roads in their day to day activities. But like everyone else, they are obliged by law to clean up mud left behind at the end of each working day. I work in construction, if I sent one of my diggers or lorries out onto the road leaving it in the same state that some farmers do then I would be landed with a sizable bill from the Highways Department for cleaning up my mess.

 

Of course, this also applies to farmers. If they leave mud all over the road and the HD have to come and clean it up, then the farmer gets the bill. Trouble is, in most rural situations, very few ring up their local HD so the abuse to our highways continues. And apparently, our local HD wont do anything unless someone actually rings up to complain!! So much for the local council tax and the fact that our local HD inspectors seem to drive around blindfolded!!

 

A great deal of my personal friends are farmers. Most are responsible in their attitude to local highways which they frequently use. But as in everything to do with life, there are always the eliment that gives a whole community a bad name. And where I live and work in the Vale of Belvoir, its always the same farmers that blatantly break the law.

 

Sooner or later, someone is going to get killed as a result of farmers leaving spoil all over the roads. And as is usually the case, perhaps thats what it might take to get our local HD inspectors to start actually doing their jobs!!

 

Sorry to digress chaps.

 

Regards,

 

Lee.

[poledark]

One doesn't have to have a scientific mind to notice that the number of dead fox's lying around is on the increase. Anyone who drives in and around the fringes of any town will have seen the evidence almost on a daily basis.

 

The numbers rise in January due to the coming together for mating and again in late summer and early autumn when the youngsters set out on their own.

I wonder what relevance all this research has?

 

 

Re the state of our roads, it is not only the roads which are getting churned up, most of the bridle paths and some footpaths around where I live are getting badly rutted. Local farm hand reckons that it is heavier machinery and persistant high groundwater levels.

A couple of the BOAT's that we used to walk are now almost impassable on foot due to rutting by offroaders, one which passes thro a stunningly beautiful valley is now just a muddy scar.

 

Den

 

[ 01. March 2003, 09:50 AM: Message edited by: poledark ]

[trent.barbeler]

Dear Den,

 

Good morning to you.

 

Off-roaders are a particular problem around my locality as well. Running right through the Vale, is the historical "Viking Way". As its name implies, this is e very old track used by traders going back to Viking days and beyond. Indeed, Dick Turpin used to ride this ancient pathway as it once was a major road in its day. It is documented that Dick used to lie low in the coaching inn the "Three Queens" (now long gone) just up from my house. His ghostly figure on horseback is sometimes seen coming through banks and hedgerows locally to. Although these tales are mostly put around by local pub landlords and B&B's!!!

 

Off-roaders now use this green lane for their own activities which to my mind, "should" have no place on such importantly historical pathways. Aside from the damage their four by four converted vehicles cause to the old pathway, convoy's sometimes 5-10 in number destroy whole habitats for various species of flora and fauna. Once, in an effort to protect this ancient and historical pathway a couple of years ago, local people placed obstructions in the form of huge logs across it to keep the off-roaders away. Surprise surprise? The Highways Department inspectors came along and ordered the path be re-opened. The off-roaders were back the very next day.

 

Its a crazy world sometimes.

 

Regards,

 

Lee.

[poledark]

The particular BOAT that I was referring to (and I will not name it) has featured on TV and is one that I used to visit about once a week. To sit on the hillside and listen to the larks and the sound of a tractor or two working the land was a real joy.

 

The last time we went, a couple of weeks back we had to keep standing aside to let mostly old 4x4's go by. Then we were invaded by about 20 motorcyclists. There is a gate across this track which horseriders have no trouble opening, hikers have no trouble opening but the bikers decided that they needed to make a small gap in the hedge even larger so they could drive in the field and around the gate.

 

Several walkers gathered and all expressed dismay and bewilderment as to why this was allowed to happen.

 

I know that the law allows it but these BOATS were used by packhorses and drovers and the farmer, not noisy petrol driven vehicles.

 

Den

[fcuk]

KILLING FOR FUN,In my opinion,if you eat meat ya can't realy knock hunting,i can understand that if you are a veegan you may have a point.

[Peter Waller]

bloodworm:

KILLING FOR FUN,In my opinion,if you eat meat ya can't realy knock hunting,i can understand that if you are a veegan you may have a point.

I can, and I do knock it!! Well, one bit of it anyway.

 

Hunting for foxes, whilst sat on a horse, relying on a pack of dogs to kill just one fox has little to do with eating meat!! But then, ofcourse, you were refering to the wider issues of hunting, and there, I think, we probably agree.