Banging the Drum for Conservation (on the other side of the world)

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"These are people who have moved on from the zero sum game which is the real ‘tragedy of the commons’ where folk say.. ‘if I don’t take these fish someone else will.’ "


Not merely a tragedy of the commons, Martin. I know from long experience that there are still many British (and Norwegian and Finnish, and even some Icelandic) salmon-fishers out there, many of them rather a cut above your local Welsh or Scots association / club, fishmongering spinner and wormer, to whom catch and release remains anathema - some of them spending serious money (an average month's salary or more) on a top beat on a suitably laissez faire river in the late summer - autumn prime time merely to fill their freezer and to have smoked salmon both for themselves and to give away at Christmas, pleading by way of exculpation "Releasing fish is unsporting and cruel ... a huge number of them die if you put them back...".

Ho hum.

Such dinosaurs are slowly dwindling in number fortunately, but there is still some way to go yet.

Correct Paul. Sometimes it takes a full generation for changes in human angling attitude to take effect, the problem is that the fish don't have that long

Yes, as someone who "went through a lot of salmon" from my mid teens onwards, I stopped doing so as I reached my thirties. It was twenty-five years ago this coming very early September, 1988 being the year, when after a season of big salmon runs on the western rivers, I clunked a 12-pound fresh-run fish on a small river that had twice moved to a small tubefly fished on a 9-foot 7-weight but missed the fly completely on both occasions, then tried it with a little fast-moving Mepp (ignored), then with a single worm and after this a bunch of them freelined with a swanshot or two, then with a float-fished shrimp off an 11-foot carbon barbel rod and centrepin that I had in the car boot a quarter of a mile away. The Drennan Crystal Loafer twitched a couple of times soon after touchdown a very few yards away from me (the river was less than ten yards in width) then sank. Into a fish that went potty in the large livingroom-sized pool, a fish that joined the 17-pounder I had had from the same pool three days earlier. Something happened that evening, soon after returning home to the woman in my life, showing her the fish then putting it in the freezer - I had "a moment" of self-relevation: "Not so much too easy, but way too often, Paul ... becoming ruddy meaningless ... buy the buggers [salmon] if you want them...".

So that 12-pounder and the 17 before it were the last I clunked.

Many of the fishers I knew back then and a good few others later, some of them rather posh, thought that I had gone and joined the Moonies or something. Things change.



PS - And as with Angling, so with Angling forums now, I reckon - some types of habitual behaviour do you and your pastime no good whatsoever; it's then time to move on.

Very fair points Martin and it can be frustrating listening to anglers who resist any change to their sport or their "right" to catch a feed. Surely allowing fish to attain maturity so they can spawn before being harvested is common sense ? But as with marine parks , set lines on the River Murray (only got knocked on the head a few years ago beleive it or not) bag limits some of which which beggar belief there is a lot of pushback from anglers who seem to consider this more an attack on their freedoms rather than a sensible measure to protect their fishery and their sport.

However since i have been in Australia since 1996 i have seen a huge change in attitude among recreational anglers and the promotion of catch and release and conservation. There is still a long way to go but i would say a lot of the 'no' camp are in the minority these days.As Paul has said above attitudes change but they will take time.

The main problem with Australia is its physical size and lack of fisheries officers to enforce regulations even if they are enacted. maybe in places like Sydney Harbour or Port Philip bay in Melbourne it's feasible to enforce these sorts of size regulations. However a single angler fishing km's away from civilization on their own will only have themselves to question what they do with their catch.....