Not in five years.

[hunters moon]

I'm down on the river at least four days a week during the season and in the close season I walk by the river most days and in the last five years I have not seen an e a officer or been asked to show my licence NOT ONCE IN FIVE YEARS. we have a problem with E E laying out longlines etc like many other
parts of the country we are doing our best to combat this problem but it would be nice to see e a officer around if e a are short of officers may I suggest employing some of the police or and some of our army lad's recently made
redundant.


....I have fished through fishless days that I remember happily without regret.
....Roderick haig-brown.

 

[thecrow]

Wont happen, cutbacks have made it even less likely that you will see an EA bailiff, read recently about an area where there were 6 now there are 2, as they have to work in pairs it means if one is not at work there will be no bailiff patrol.

The chances of a response if you report anything you see such as nets or out of season fishing are IMO virtually nil.

I have long thought that licence money is not all spent on fishing related matters, now we are to get a reduced service with no reduction in cost to us, the EA is to big with to many departments most pulling in different directions, it will never work as it should while that is the case.

 

[binka]

Licence checks have been more common in this neck of the woods over the last couple of years but prior to that were pretty poor.

I can only say that schemes such as the Angling Trust Volunteer Bailiff Scheme, where volunteers are trained and warranted with the same powers as an EA Bailiff, must surely be a good thing if enough people step forward to plug the gaps.

It does make me wonder just how much the EA had anticipated and planned for a reduction in Bailiffs when you read this quote from the link to the following article:

"This innovative idea was supported by the Environment Agency, which agreed to fund a pilot project in the South East (EASE) Region"

A genuinely good idea on behalf of the Angling Trust or a thinly masked and calculated attempt to transfer the burden of policing fisheries by the Environment Agency?

Voluntary Bailiff Service - The Angling Trust

 

[beerweasel]

There isn't the money to employ newly redundant servicemen, but why not use the actual army ?
They're getting paid anyway and we are not at war.
A spot of bailiff work would teach them something useful like how to deal with aggressive foreign people (peace keeping ?).

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

I go so far as to suggest that if you only ever fish commercials you would never need to buy a licence - no one is goign to ask for it

 

[hunters moon]

gentlemen some very valid point's but I do like the idea of beerweasels
(use the army) if only, the voluntary bailiff idea I think is brilliant but I fear
not enough anglers will offer to help.

 

[Titus]

I think the army have been used to catch salmon poachers on the Wye in the past, the rumour was that the SAS were approached and they used it as a surveillance exercise.

I think they are still a bit busy in Afghanistan at the moment though.