Rudd Killed

[Goose Ganderton]

I have to express my absolute disgust at what I have just read in this weeks Angling Times.

Alec Watson has caught two Rudd for 8Ib 7oz, a most magnificent pair of fish that will most probably never be bettered as we all know of the decline of such large Rudd and what has this man decided to do, he has killed the two most beautiful fish ever seen and is going to stuff them for his own satisfaction of being able to look at them in a glass case.

He uses the most feeble of excuses that they were old and that no one would miss them. Christ, my parents are old and no one would miss then either.

He goes on to say that he is now financially in a position to have them set up. Well if he is so well off why not have a pair made from wood or plaster after taking a detailed photographic record of them. Can you imagine what would happen if the next captor of Mary decided to keep her and stuff her or if Guy Robb killed his new record Barbel to have it stuffed?

I would like to know what the RSPCA have to say on this matter but I imagine that because it's not some scrawny neglected moggy that they don't give a damn.

I just don't understand how someone could kill such magnificent fish. He said that they would not live much longer as they are thought to be around 15-17 years old. If he had the right to remove these fish could he not have transferred them to an aquarium or pond and look after them until they died of natural causes then have them stuffed?

I hope I never meet Mr Watson or I will give him a piece of my mind. This man's actions do absolutely nothing to help promote the image of angling.

 

[GrahamM]

I couldn't agree more. We've moved away from the time when this kind of thing was acceptable. We now have cameras to record our treasured memories.

There was just no need to kill those fish whatever age they were. Apart from anything else, how the hell does he know how old they were? They may have been really fast-growing, relatively young fish.

But that's nothing to do with it. They were two unnecessary deaths of two magnificent fish by a selfish 'angler'.

 

[Stewart Bloor]

Reading your mail Goose, I was going to reply basically with what Graham said - get a camera. I've got some great memories on film, I don't feel I need to do any more than that. Certainly, society has changed, and stuffed fish really are a thing of the past. Not that people were wrong then, they were products of their generation, just as we are now, and I'm sure attitudes will be different in 10 years time towards various issues that we don't bat an eyelid to now.

I didn't see the AT article you write about, so don't know the way it was presented. But perhaps something like this would have been best left unreported and maybe the reporter concerned confronting the angler about the situation.

Unfortunately, things like this don't do us any favours. The benefits of 1,000 anglers using unhooking mats, fish disease liquids etc etc can all be wiped out by one incident of this nature.

I suppose it shows there is still a long way to go in educating not just the general public about the true nature of angling, but also anglers themselves.

 

[Alan Roe]

The cynic in me tends to wonder if the story was run to provoke a reaction and thus increase circulation as the one thing that AT can rely on is lots of free publicity by the likes of you and I discussing this outragous incident...

The perpetrators statement about his having been out of coarse fishing for a while and is mainly a trout fisherman does not wash either up here in the North West there are a lot of us who are trout anglers I fish the Ribble, Hodder, Aire, Wharfe and Lune. On many of these rivers the clubs are moving towards a no-kill policy towards trout and salmon as well as the coarse fish. The careful return of coarse fish has been a guiding principal since the last war so this chap has no excuse.

Again the cynic wonders what the commercial value of these fish set up in a glass case will be with all the added publicity....

 

[peter webber]

Stewart
If you give me your email addy I will be more then happy to send you a copy of the article in AT.
I think that watson is just being selfish as Goose said he could of had them done in plaster or wood by just taking photo's and measurements. What a tragic waste of two magnificent fish.
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