PR and the Future of Angling

Plenty of food for thought from David. Regular FM contributor Chris Bishop is News Editor of a regional newspaper so it will be interesting to read what Chris thinks of David?s approach to providing news items to them. Chris?

Cracking article David, but I wonder if the old trend of angling apathy will stand in the way of many of the things you suggest?

I can only speak from experience. I am also one of those people who would love to publicise anging in a good light to the general public and I have tried.

When I organised a 'Champion of Champions' match I involved the local paper all the way. I even got a phone call whilst I was in Belgium from the reporter concerned, he seemed that keen. Come the day we had three world champions and a silver medalist and most other had golds from the team victory.

What did we get as a report? Fifty seven words and one picture!

The guy couldn't even say who won (it was TV presenter Keith Arthur) because he turned up at 10:10, got the photographer to take a couple of pictures and then he p****d off by 10:45. We faired better with the Maindenhead Advertiser with a couple of pages of photographs and Ian Welsh too gave it a mention in his column.

Later I heard that the guy that wrote the match results in out local didn't want to do it any more. I ask the paper if I could take over. After 6 months I was exasperated. All the club wanted the publicity, but no match secretary wanted to give me their results. I couldn't get any venue reports from the other clubs because they "didn't wnat others to know how good it was."

Anyone wants to do this kind of job, my hat goes off to them and good luck. I've had a taste and it a thankless, almost fruitless exercise. Angling itself wants a b****y good kick up the pants first.

Something I posted just now on another forum -- Sea Trout Fishing. It refers to stuff I posted here some days ago. How desperate 'some' are now for our numbers, 'normality', public acceptance and real political clout...



In my opinion this is nothing less than alarmist Alliance sh1te. Here is summat I wrote recently on another forum in reply to someone asking how we promote ourselves:

Here

Once you have read it, click "Next 20" (or Page 6 of the thread) for more from me -- "I don't know why we get so paranoid about losing Angling..." or somesuch.

Click here

Sorry, Mr Booker, for me at least your stuff just doesn't wash.

PS -- heck, you might as well read what I had to say earlier on page 3 of the same thread, whilst we're at it:

Here.

Hi Paul.
Just because you had a bloody good hiding for opening your big mouth in the wrong place,( happened to me pal, several times ) it should not sway your opinion of all members of the countryside alliance. If you think that angling is going to be left alone by the antis then you need to do a bit af hands on and speak to the canoeists and ramblers, they are now campaigning for access to rivers, 12 months a year and using the alleged suffering inflicted on fish by anglers as their main defence for disrupting our fishing. They will disrupt our sport to a stage that a ban would be pointless and unnecessary.
We are at the beginning of a campaign against angling and we should fight back now before it is to late. They are organised, we need to be.
The government is handling this one by running with the fox and the hounds, and are quite prepared to let DEFRA and other bodies chip away at our paid for rights. We must seriously start fighting back now before it is to late. Cheers.
I have also posted this on the other forum.

I opened my "big mouth" in the RIGHT place, Gethyn -- to fellow anglers, in private. If Hunter thugs want to gatecrash OUR party (ie Angling's) then they should be able to take the heat, and not try and silence any critics with the fist and the boot. My father fought a war to stop fascism.

As for a hiding, you didn't see that bastard's face after I'd been at it -- he'd have needed a good plastic surgeon, and then some; I don't fight clean when subjected to an unprovoked attack -- my years at a top English public-school, you see -- rife with pederasts, bovver boys and bullies -- I will survive! (A school bully probably still remembers the time when I lead a charge of new boys (aged 13) at him (18), and left him for three hours, gagged in a dark cellar, with his hands tied behind his back and his head in a large woodworking vice.)

Foxes? I have killed many in my time -- with a Browning seven-shot semi-automatic .22 and a scope. Still tying flies with their tails and skins.

But those who chase them?

As I have long said, leave them, the Hunters, to get on with their fight -- we'll be guilty by association in the public's eyes, otherwise -- a PR disaster for Angling.

Canoeists?

Loathe the worst of them -- arrogant, stroppy, disruptive and rude. Agree that summat has to be done to stop their insidious take-over of our rivers.


I have also posted this on the other forum.

Hi Paul.
Forget the PR disaster for angling, It is going to be a simple job for the Anti's to infiltrate the canoe clubs and disrupt and possibly ruin river angling without even trying to impose any ban. The EA will not get involved, even when these so called canoeists paddle over spawning area's at this time of the year.
You must remember that the Riparian owners are nearly 100% behind the Countryside Alliance, fall foul of these guy's and they will soon be welcoming these canoes and granting them access to our rivers. We may be asking them for assistance shortly as most of the clubs and association's only hold the fishing or shooting rights, there is nothing written in about other activities!.
We must be prepared or these guy's will walk all over us.

Hang on a minute, Paul. I'm a free agent now, who was first and foremost an angler before I professionally came to the defence of hunting, shooting and fishing. What I've written barely mentions hunting, so the Alliance references refer to my previous life, as it were. To refer to my piece as Alliance 'sh1te' is to say its Stocker 'sh1te', but because we aren't acquainted with each other, I shan't take it personally. Like it or not, the CA's PR skills have won plaudits from the press, and they won a prestigious PR industry award in 2002 for 'overall excellence in public relations'. You seem to base all your criticism on my CA connection.

It might be more helpful, then, if you'd like to comment on my basic assertion viz that if angling is relatively 'invisible' as an activity so far as the general public is concerned, then it is easier for folk with an agenda to start demonising anglers/angling. Also, you may wish to comment on my observations that ideological forces are abroad that are innately hostile to activities that can be construed as abusing or exploiting 'nature'. Don't forget, it was the Greens who admitted in the European election manifesto wanting to see an end to angling. The one thing I wanted this piece to be was non-hysterical, measured, and about taking the long view.
In the Spring of 2003 I 'sold in' a photo-feature piece (ie. I wrote it and gave it away)to three big regional newspapers, on the subject of 'the joys of fly-fishing for trout now that Spring is here'. Lots of what-its-all-about-and-how-to-get-started info., written in a style aimed at the ordinary person who knew nothing of the subject. The papers reproduced it word for word, and picture for picture. If this kind of exercise is wrong, Paul, I'd like to know why. Dave S.

Here is a reply to Gethyn that I posted on those Sea Trout Fishing forums just now. As I said, on this matter at least, I am leaving you all to it. Indeed, I am just five minutes away from hitting my local pub. Have a great Christmas everyone.


Reply to Gethyn:

I am going to leave you fellas to it -- not leave these forums, but cease to talk on this matter and about the direction I believe that British fishing should be going (like just who runs it, and for whom), if it is to have a long-term future. Shame, I'd like to have met and fished with some of you guys in Wales, but it looks as if I am going to have to continue doing what I have being doing in recent years: fishing with like-minded friends, very very anonymously.

Love British fishing at its best, don't like a lot of the outmoded politics that harm it and hold it back. My problem.

Didn't read the links Paul put in, don't like wandering of this (the best of all) fishing sites. So the rest of what he wrote just didn't make sense, along with that last posting.

Do I understand he wants to be left alone? Fine, b****r off, be alone. Everyone else does what they feel is right. Not that any of us get it 100% right, but at least someone's trying. Far better than sticking your head in the silt and hope that all will be ok.

Dave, if as you say "the CA's PR skills have won plaudits from the press," and you were writing them, did you know there might be a job going at the ACA? )

Cheeky Monkey?

Are you sure about?

Ostrich, maybe, with its head in the silt...

Probably why Angling continues to get the far from perfect, self-serving, own agenda, masters and leaders that it has.

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"Are you sure about?" - about what precisely? It's an unfinished sentence.

"Ostrich, maybe, with its head in the silt..." - 'head in the sand' normally, I changed it to silt for the benefit of anglers. Again the sentence bears no relationship to any topic, I'm puzzled once more as to your point.

Thankfully there are some amongst us that can write clear English and set it in a context where it makes sense. It's a wonderful language that helps us to communicate and impart knowledge. These people tend to get jobs as PR officers whatever their motives.

Thanks for the ACA info, Cheeky Monkey. I was only too aware of the situation, but sadly with what's been going on at the ACA at present, the words 'snake' and 'pit' come to mind. Also, It's been suggested to me by someone in the know, that someone out there is already waiting in the wings to step into BJ's shoes. This may not be true, however. Let's see if they advertise the post.

And I've visited your post elsewhere Paul, and it seems we're not very far apart at all; you mention women and children as an important audience, as I do in my piece, and you stress the need for anglers to appear normal. Where's our point of division?

fishing and its internal politics at work, meat and drink!

It's typical of angling that a man (Dave Stocker) who comes forward with some positive and highly practical suggestions gets shouted down.

I'll second that Bob


and Paul Boote just keeps referring to postings on other sites (like Cheeky Monkey I cant be bothered wandering)and then he comes on here and posts in riddles