Fishing a ''blood sport''

[Guest uk_lurcher]

Eelfisher, my point was that claiming there are 4 million(?) coarse anglers when the EA sell 1 million (?) licences is only going to elicit the following response from an anti...

 

'so three quarters of you fish illegally then?'

 

Not a good debating tactic I feel, best only quote the number of licenced coarse anglers.

 

UKL

edited for spilling!

 

[This message has been edited by uk_lurcher (edited 19 July 2001).]

[Guest Newt]

Originally posted by BarbLess:

As for the American related postings...different country brother....has anyone seen how Americans catch carp.....they spear gun them.

 

Barbless - as you pointed out, different country with different issues. As was pointed out by Leon, our hunting and your hunting are very different for the most part.

 

I do have to take issue with your rather sweeping statement about how "Americans catch carp" though. Yes, it is legal in most states to take them with bow & arrow. Yes, there are some people who do take them that way. I don't personally like the method but as long as it is within the law, I do accept it. The numbers taken this way are much too small to have any impact on the fishery though.

 

Most of the carpers I'm acquainted with fish for them with rod and reel and release their catch unharmed. Some are taken for the table. While this would be a major problem in the UK as carp don't reproduce particularly well in most of the waters there, it is not a problem here as the spawn is successful and the populations are more than self-sustaining. Without a sufficient number of predator fish, a venue will get overpopulated with carp and sunfish fairly quickly which can cause stunting of the fish. This is true even though most of our lakes run to thousands of acres.

 

The only places I know of carp being stocked are in what are called "pay lakes" which are very similar to smaller UK lakes or ponds. These are kept with a good head of carp and they are fished for in a sort of match style. Absolutely Catch & Release. No carp nets or sacks allowed. Fish are weighed when caught and released immediately. Barbless or microbarb hooks only. Proper mats required.

 

To put in a bit of personal detail, I fish for carp with microbarb hooks, use a mat on the carpet of my boat, and release them. I doubt I have ever caught a carp that was ever caught in the past or is likely to ever be caught again. None the less, I release them in as good shape as possible. Same with most other fish although I do keep the occasional catfish if it is under 4 lbs and if I want fish to eat. I also keep a few sunfish if I am after live bait to use with larger catfish. The bait fish go immediately into an airated live well where they stay perfectly healthy until I either use them for bait or release any extras at the end of a session.

 

I am familiar with the way Nightwing fishes for carp too. He normally uses a fly rod and always releases his catches in good shape. Usually the fish is never even taken out of the water.

 

If you are ever in North Carolina and have a bit of time to spare, let me know and we will arrange to fish. Then you can see "American carping" first hand.

[Guest Nightwing]

Originally posted by BarbLess:

You can't put Course fishing in the same category as Hunting, wether that be fox, stag etc.

Look at stag hunting for example...they creep up on a Deer, shoot it in the leg, foot so it is lame, chase it round for 20 miles, finally wear it down, trap it, then they all jump on it. (I'm talking humans btw)...the dogs just bite it's ******.

As for the American related postings...different country brother....has anyone seen how Americans catch carp.....they spear gun them.

The only thing that is cruel with fishing in this country is overstocking of commercial fisheries, IMHO.

 

 

 

I suppose I should really be offended by the speargun reference, but considering the rest of that post, it would not be worth the effort. I assume that the rest of you don't have quite the same level of contempt for us Americans as ol' barbless here? Hope not, as I really enjoy hanging out here, and would hate to have to decide to leave.

As for the rest of the posts here, there is obviously a great divide even among you, as to where you should be going as far as the animal rights agenda is concerned. The best I can say is that I really hope it turns out for the best over there, as you have a long an honored tradition in angling. I still think you should all stick together, but as has been pointed out, our cultures are just too different to make direct comparisons, and maybe my doing so was a mistake. Still, I have a feeling that when all is said and done, you would have been better served by standing as one, and fighting back against the anti's.

[Guest Vagabond]

Like Nightwing and Newt, I too am appalled by the "them and us" attitudes shown on this thread. I have been involved in hunting foxes, hunting rabbits with ferrets, wildfowling, game shooting, deer stalking and many forms of angling.(I exclude falconry solely through lack of opportunity) I do not condone cruelty to animals, and if I thought any of the above activities "cruel" I would not have pursued them.

 

To put into perspective some of the emotive nonsense about foxes " being torn to pieces by hounds" just consider two points.

 

1/ I have seen a fox caught by hounds - it was in pieces within seconds, and dead in a much shorter time than that - in less than a second from when the lead hound grabbed it.

 

2/Consider the fate of a fox that dies a "natural" death. There are no retirement homes, hospices or pain-free deaths for aging predators or any other wild animal. A fox, when too old and feeble to catch its prey, becomes vulnerable to a lingering death - and I don't want to harrow you with the details, but they start with an attack upon its eyes by crows or gulls (I once saw a sheep killed by a Greater Blackbacked Gull this way - couldn't intervene as it was the far side of a river and miles from anywhere) Relatively few wild animals have the opportunity of a quick death in nature unless caught by a predator large and powerful enough to finish them off rapidly. This is an aspect the "bleeding hearts" with their anthropomorphic view of animals conveniently forget. Nature is itself extremely cruel.

 

I have spent time in other parts of the world - USA, Australia, Africa, S America, Asia and even Antarctica. I must say that the general attitude to field sports in Australia and the USA is a much more realistic and healthier one than that currently prevailing in the UK.

 

So please, youse overseas guys , continue with your valuable input - we Brits have always had the idea that we are the only soldier in the platoon that is in step!

 

BTW Newt - are coyotes and racoons hunted with dogs in the USA ?

 

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Vagabond

[Guest Newt]

Originally posted by Vagabond:

BTW Newt - are coyotes and racoons hunted with dogs in the USA ?

 

Racoons for sure are. Southern thing mostly. I've done it. Night time only and the fun is listening to the hounds as they track the coon and "give tongue". People follow the dogs as best they can - headlamps required. The dogs will eventually (usually) run the coon up a tree where it will stay and aggravate the dogs. If we were after coons for meat, we would usually shoot them out of the tree. Anti-climax for sure. Normally only done by the group I hunted with if there was a large event comming up (church picnic or some such) and coon was on the menu.

 

We would lose dogs too if the coon was a crafty old male and there was water to cross. Coon would let a dog get close and then begin to swim the creek or whatever. Dogs would follow. Coon (which is a much better swimmer) would then circle back and climb on the dogs head and force it under water. Result was a coon that got away and a dog that got drowned.

 

Never had occasion to hunt in coyote country except for quail. I rarely if ever hunted for game I wouldn't eat and predators have really nasty tasting meat.

 

Back to another earlier comment about "hunting" pen raised birds. Only time I ever did that was as part of the training program for a bird dog. Start em out on something easy like a quail made stupid by being raised in a pen and fed. No sport to it but it did help in an early phase of the dogs training.

 

This is turning into a rather long post but there are still a couple things I want to say.

 

Those of us from the US probably should not comment on the angling/hunting situation in the UK. But, we do and will likely continue to do so. We aren't really civilized after all. Put the comments in context though. For any oldtimers on this bbs, apologies as I think I've said much of this before.

 

Our waters are for the most part not privately owned and we can fish if we wish. Only a licence is required.

 

The majority of US anglers started as youngsters and most hunted too. To our thinking, the two passtimes are difficult to seperate. I gave up hunting several years after my return from Viet Nam in the late 60s. I imagine it had to do with the fact that I had spent considerable time hunting people who were also hunting me. Not sure as there was never an "I won't ever hunt anymore" decision.

 

Some game is hunted with dogs as that is the most effective method - or the most interesting method. Racoons (necessary), rabbits (just more fun /w beagle dogs), birds such as quail, pheasant, grouse (much more effecient), deer (not sure on this one as I don't like the method). Also dogs are used quite a bit to fetch killed birds.

 

To a US sportsman, these are very normal pursuits as is angling. For us to decide that an attack on hunting had nothing to do with us would be really stupid.

 

Likewise the PETA folks here are more of an annoyance than any sort of threat. Still, their stated aim is the same which is to eventually do away with hunting, angling, meat eating, pet keeping, and many other "normal" pursuits. I have a serious objection to letting them get even the smallest victory in any of those areas. Many in the UK seem to feel that as long as it is only the "other fellas ox that is getting gored", there is no problem. We will all know in a few years who was right and who was wrong.

 

Do take a look some time at the situation in Australia though. Guns there are a real no-no. Horrible things. Everyone safer if guns are banned. Oops, their crime statistics are getting much worse rather than better.

 

As a last thought before I close this long post. Based on his current post, Bretty might now think that the UK position re: gun ownership by private citizens is open to question. I know that anyone wishing to burgle my home has to think that I probably own at least one gun and he might be shot while trying to make off with my things. He would be absolutely correct in that thinking too. I may be burgled but I damned well bet that the burgler will make sure no one is at home at the time.

 

Endit.

[Guest BarbLess]

Fishing for cold blooded fish and hunting warm blooded animals with developed nerve systems can NOT be put in the same category.

They are TOTALLY different.

[Guest Leon Roskilly]

Two reasons why I didn't vote for the present government this time around.

 

Well, just one reason if you really think about it.

 

1) The last Labour government came in with a huge fanfare of how the environment was going to be at the top of the agenda. It had taken aboard the terrible statistics showing how traffic growth was affecting both the nation's health and degrading the environment. It had taken aboard the fact that new road building leads to more cars on the road, and to greater car useage, and had already passed the point of sustainability.

 

It promised to continue with the cuts in new road-building already put in place by the much more 'car friendly' previous Tory government, and promote an integrated transport policy which didn't rely on people driving from A to B.

 

Then it got cold feet when it emerged that motorists were unhappy.

 

It might affect the party's popularity.

 

Knowing full well the facts of the terrible toll which growing road traffic will visit on us in the next few years, it cynically asked its public servants to put forward around 30 new road building programes for consideration. Exactly 30 schemes were put upon the table!

 

God forbid that Tony, and his Government should lose popularity by standing up against a huge lobby for what it knew to be right!

 

2) The move against fox hunting.

 

The polls showed that the majority of people in this country are against fox hunting, and the statistics showed that only a relatively tiny minority were involved in fox hunting.

 

To my mind, the fox-hunters, like the anti-new road lobby, won the argument. But like the hand-gun lobby before, they lost the popularity contest.

 

God forbid that the government's popularity should suffer by reason of doing the right, moral, ethical thing in the face of contra-public opinion.

 

I didn't deny my vote to Labour because I support fox-hunting, I don't. But I did withold my vote because there is no case to ban fox-hunting.

 

Anyone with half a brain, who thought about the deeper issues involved, should have done likewise!

 

Government by popularity contest scares the s**t out of me!!

 

We shouldn't be arguing about whether anglers should support fox-hunters. We should be discussing whether citizens approve the banning of fox-hunting. That's a very different argument.

 

I don't support the fox-hunting lobby, but I do oppose the banning of fox-hunting.

 

I oppose the picking on of the activities of a minority, even though it doesn't stand up to logical argument, because it's seen as a cheap and easy win in the popularity stakes.

 

But then, I don't see why anglers should get behind the fox-hunters as a group, any more than anglers, as a group, should get behind the anti-new roads lobby.

 

(That the pro fox-hunting lobby are trying their damndest to push angling into the firing line, to make sure that they are counted amongst the blood-sport group does nothing to win them my support!).

 

Just as we anglers, as a group, are split on the the issue of new road building, we are irreconciably divided over the issue of fox-hunting.

 

Any move to commit angling to either cause would tear us apart.

 

If we are serious about angling unity, and all that can be achieved by it, then trying to align 'angling' with fox-hunting is not the way to go. It would make the Blithfield incident seem like a meeting of old buddies who haven't seen each other for years!

 

I think that the government made a bad misjudgement of the situation when it went after the seemingly 'easy' target of fox-hunting! It forgot that voters have brains!! If it had faced a decent, unified opposition, at the last election, the votes it lost because of the issue could easily have swung the result.

 

Just as it was scared at seeming to take on the motorist, I doubt that it would have the stomache to take on what is arguably Britian's most popular particpant pastime (well leaving shopping aside!!).

 

If we are serious about defending the future of angling, the answer doesn't lie with getting behind another threatened group, unified as anglers, putting the future of angling on the line (though perhaps we should, but as indivuals). But in promoting our sport, getting future vot..., er kids, onto the banks and teaching them to fish, making it easy for anglers to take a friend fishing, without all the unnecessary rigmarole of obtaining a licence, joining a club etc (there's some ideas as to how this can be done before the SAA).

 

But more importantly than that, putting before the public all the good things which angling stands for, keeping kids from drugs and crime, promoting a love for the environment, caring for our rivers and wildlife......that should be our priority!

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Guest Bruno Broughton]

Leon

 

Bullseye! That's EXACTLY what the NAA is all about.

 

Bruno

 

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Bruno

[Guest shaca]

Absolutely spot on, Leon

 

Shaca

[Guest TheDacer]

Blimey these posts are getting long!

 

I fish. I don't object to people killing for the pot. (With a gun or a rod).

 

I just object to people killing for pleasure.

 

Sorry. Can't support it.