Complaints about Fish Handling

Ron Bennett · Jul 23, 2004

Hi Guys I am a match fisherman at the club describe below. I was wondering, how we could respond to complaints like this one?
COMPLAINT FROM CLUB MEMBER
?I was fishing down at the Cornish lake on Wednesday and was gutted to see the way that the match fishermen treat the fish, instead of lowering fish in to there net they just got slung in them!!! The water level is down at the moment but, this is no excuse for the poor treatment of fish, surely this is bad for the fish?s wellbeing?

It?s not just these guys most match men do it

WHY?? Take the effort to lower them in!!!!!!!?

If any of you out there have got some good advice on how to respond to this type of complaint I would be interested.

Joskin · Jul 23, 2004

surely you would reply by telling the member that you will do every thing you can to combat the problem and then do what you can to stop the match men miss treating your fish. There is no excuse for bad fish handling. We as a Club have just banned one of our members for throwing a fish back.

Ron Bennett · Jul 24, 2004

Thanks Joskin

The point I am trying to make is how do we match men convince the public that we do care for our fish. However sometimes it?s not always possible to lower fish into nets. As in this particular case the water level was low and that means the drop would be about 2 to 3 foot from the top of the net to the water line.

I know when most of the club match men fish the matches they take great care with their fish

The point I am trying to make is just dropping fish in a keep net looks cruel to the bystander but in this case it was another angler who then went on to tar all match men with the same brush

How are we to educate people that most match men really do care for the fish and would not like any fish to suffer

In addition most good match men have there keep nets under foot so the distance from hand to net is minimised to avoid dropping or losing fish

I really think this is a case of someone seeing one bad incident or perhaps someone speed fishing with a whip. and not quite understanding

Joskin · Jul 24, 2004

If I catch a fish that is netable I usually lower it into the net with my landing net.

If you are only talking about dropping small fish then I don't see why there should be a problem.

The fact is that you will always get a few miserable guys that want to moan about anything that they can. particularly with fishermen I find that if you aren't doing it their way then you are doing it the wrong way.

At the end of the day everyone has their own opinions but if your matchmen agree collectively that your conduct is not a problem then you shouldn't need to do anything about it.

However if one or two people are miss treating fish then you will all get tarred with the same brush. There are to many match anglers out there that only care about winning at any cost and it is those anglers that give us all a bad name.

jp · Jul 24, 2004

quote
"How are we to educate people that most match men really do care for the fish and would not like any fish to suffer."

quote
"If you are only talking about dropping small fish then I don't see why there should be a problem."

.......and there you have it, in a nutshell.

If you can't care properly for the fish in a cetain swim because of the circumstances then don't peg that swim.

Trying to be constructive, could small fish be slid down a tube (maybe a piece of 4" plastic pipe) or some sort of makeshift polythene slide in these swims?

Newfie's Drool · Jul 24, 2004

Supply them with the Code of Conduct for Course Anglers booklet which is available from the EA.
Its a very good booklet that gives guide lines that will help them.

Of course they might not read it or want to but aleast they have a chance to. Just guessing but I bet they don't carry mats either.

I have lost caught how often this is said and really to be fair they will never change no matter what you tell them. Some clubs are run by them which makes life harder still.

The joys of angling!

Newfie's Drool · Jul 24, 2004

Sorry should have been lost count. Blame my age

Ron Bennett · Jul 24, 2004

I think we have covered most rules see link if interested

http://www.padcac.co.uk/new_page_12.htm

All match our match men carry unhooking mats and we also have rule that any carp over 5 lbs must be weighed in immediately and released

I have asked the complainant to give me more info to see if we can get to the bottom of this. We only have a core of about 30 match men out of 300 members so identifying them should not be difficult

It is true though all most members want to do is fish but hardly any of them read the rules committee members included

Thanks for all your ideas keep them coming in with a bit of luck we can sort this before it becomes a problem.

regards

Ron

Joskin · Jul 24, 2004

JP

I think you took my comment about dropping small fish the wrong way.

what I ment was fish of a certain size will not suffer by being dropped 2ft into a net. i.e. 3oz roach perch etc.

do you realy think that a 3oz fish should be slid sown some sort of home made flume onto the water.

There are a hell of alot of waters that are well down at this time of year and you would have to leave out all pegs on alot of waters if you couldnt peg the ones with a 2ft drop.

Bill Cox · Jun 21, 2008

Isolated incidents like i believe to have happened here will never be 100% wiped out. What needs to be done is for the people concerned who were guilty of dropping the fish back in from a height need to be re-educated. I am in the club concerned and i am sure it is not a normal practice.

Steve Spiller · Jun 21, 2008

Bored Bill?

4 years old!

I agree though.

slime monster · Jun 21, 2008

match angling in the main has been reduced to a race in getting carp out of the water as quickly as possible just the same as it was with roach in the good old days as a result the carp are going to be put in the net a s a p. i am on the fence on this one as i was a match angler but now i get time to admire any decent fish that come my way and take a lot more care in returning them either to a net or straight back.

Bill Cox · Jun 21, 2008

Not bored steve just blind /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gifmust try and get out more.

kingfisher · Jun 21, 2008

we have a lotof people complaining about anglers today, we are giving them more ammunitionto get at us again , nextthey will want to stop the use of netsI fish on high bank sides and do not have a problem putting fish back safely

Fred Bonney · Jun 21, 2008

My guess is, most of the people complaining about anglers today are...anglers!

kingfisher · Jun 21, 2008

Yes I agree,most of the people complaining about anglers are anglers,but we must be very care full we are being watched by people who will try to stop angling completely

Complaints about Fish Handling

Ron Bennett

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Joskin

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Ron Bennett

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Joskin

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jp

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Newfie's Drool

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Bill Cox

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Steve Spiller

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slime monster

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