The reason I repeated myself is because Ray clearly did not see it the first time round.
You could start with the biggest club in the land, PAAS, very keen on the chainsaw are that lot. I have also been on plenty of barbel society work parties where tree mangling is carried out, on one of them someone thought it would be a good idea to use a big log tied to a bit of rope and thrown into the crook of a limb on a crack willow, the idea being that the combined weight of several people hanging on the rope would snap the limb and remove the obstruction. Thal little adventure resulted in the Secratary at the time being airlifted to hospital so dont try preaching to me about the great and the good and what should and should not be done, just because you have no idea who I am does not mean I have not been around a bit.
As well as those two examples every club I have ever been a member of holds work parties between April an the end of May and to the best of my knowledge none of them have ever sought permission from anyone.
You said "NI doesn’t have indigenous stocks of dace, chub, barbel and grayling" which is true but they do have plenty of bream, roach, tench, rudd, pike and (god help us) carp, which all seem to do fine in the absence of a close season.
With regard to Scotland you started in with some anecdotal opinions about where you can and cannot fish during the salmon season. As soon as you start talking about the salmon and trout seasons I swich off as that is irelevant to this discussion which only concerns the coarse season. However, seeing as you have brought salmon and sea trout into the discussion it is worth mentioning that they alone of all the game which is hunted are the only ones who are specifically targeted as they head for the spawning grounds which makes the conservation argument a bit difficult to defend.
The continent does have a few close seasons for certain fish species but they tend to be centred around the ones they traditionally eat and not the chub/ide/orfe type and certainly not barbel.
I have also yet to see any of the retentionists answer my main objection for it's retention which is the undeniable fact that due to changes in angling practice in this country i.e the universal adoption of catch and release (even among our game fishing brothers who are fishing for wild fish) the conditions which prompted it's adoption no longer exist.
The thing which really surprises me about this is the energy which you, as an educated man who clearly cares deeply about the environment, are willing to put in trying to protect something which probably makes very little difference to the welfare of the rivers as a whole when your obvious knowledge, passion and talent for rhetoric could be better utilised fighting something which really does cause a problem such as over abstraction, creeping urbanisation, building on floodplains, red signal crayfish, myton crabs pollution from road runoff untreated effluent, polluted groundwater or any number of other menaces to the rivers and the future of our sport.
Dinner last night was spectacular thank you Ray.
If the fish in our rivers were pursued relentlessly I would probably be standing with you but the fact is for a large portion of the coarse season as it stands it is not possible to get near many of the rivers and even of you did you would be wasting your time,
Comparing the coarse fishing season with any other field sports season is also a bit like comparing apples with pears as the glaringly obvious difference is we do not kill our quarry but return them alive which is not the case with other sports.
Very easy to snipe at the biggest club in the land from the keyboards, but its that big for various reasons - The landowners have trust in the club to manage it’s members as they would like. Trust that they’ll manage their waters correctly and within the law. They feel it’s well run and has a good reputation amongst fellow landowners who lease to them. To list just 3 of the many reasons.
Nothing wrong with using chainsaws in the right place, at the right time, with the appropriate qualifications, training and owners consent (leased waters) to carryout the work in a safe manner, all of which PAAS users do and have. Just so there’s no misunderstanding here from your comment above.
Unless of course you are hinting that’s not the case?
And may be, if the injury you write about above, had had a qualified, trained chainsaw person and saw present, along with the right equipment for safe working, the injury could have been avoided.
All of the above…. I’ve been on X number of work parties, doesn’t negate the fact that those are the laws that govern work around the nesting season. And ignorance of them is no excuse as far as the law’s concerned if it’s reported to them.
I’ve supervised and been on at least a 100 WPs for several clubs where the work is done during the winter period Only! I’ve also been the surveyor and “suitably competent person” on at least 20 emergency WPs who does the assessment and paper trail so that the clubs are law compliant.
As to NI as I think you know, the species they have, have different spawning requirements and habitat for it to the species I referenced. All their species spawn in and on weed or vegetation. So the Herring you are waving there is rather red!
The angling pressure is also far less - Sport NI states there are 30,000 game, coarse and sea anglers in the province. 40% of which are reported as coarse anglers. As to visiting anglers, its miniscule, in 2012 458 coarse licenses were sold to them. Therefore, even accounting for an under estimation of 50% that’s still less than 1000. In how many 100s of miles of rivers? I’ll bet that rivers like Wye, Severn, Trent, Ribble see almost that amount each per year visiting them. So the fish you talk about in NI aren’t in reality under much pressure at all!
As to close seasons on the Continent it is not as clear-cut as you state, Holland for instance has a closed season for Dace, Chub, Barbel, Ide and others 1st of April to May 31st. Estonia similar and on regional basis. Russia spanning two continents a fish species close season, Hungary again similar. Denmark no close season for coarse fish.
As to your point about S & ST of all the angling sections the Game Anglers more than most have recognised the need to conserve the fish they fish for and have agreed grudgingly in some instances to reduced season take limits over the last 10-15 years. The Ribble catchment is now down to 2 fish a season that can be taken legally and has a catch and release of 89% Lune, Eden 4 fish limit and a C&R of 80%. Oh and that club you had a go at, has a club bag limit of 2 fish per season irrespective of what region or river you’re fishing in. And to police it you have to place a club issued tag (2 of per season) on a retained fish. Caught with a fish with no tag and your feet won’t touch on the way out of the club. Whilst you may think the conservation argument is poor because they target fish heading for the spawning grounds, the above figures show game anglers are putting their house in order and taking the conservation of the species they fish for very seriously indeed. The S&TRA also recommends to it members a 100% C&R.
As to my passion, rhetoric, etc being put into protecting rivers. And as you don’t know me personally, you haven’t a clue what I do in this respect. Which is hilarious really to me, given the many consultation submissions, meetings, public inquires, etc, etc, etc, I’ve attended down the years and continue to do in this regard.
