Licences..?

Text from the article "An officer patrolling the River Cam spotted anglers fishing on the opposite bank. He flagged down a passing boat, hitched a lift and issued them both with tickets for fishing without a licence..."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it still the closed season, so they shouldn't have been fishing a river at all, regardless of having licences?

My thoughts as well Simone. Also they keep going on of fines of upto ?2500 but the usually only get a ?120 fine. Hit them with the bigger fines i say.

The maximum fine I have ver heard of in my area is ?350, and that was a friend of mine who was caught fishing 3 rods with only one rod licence! I think if the fines were at least a grand, with a top up fine for fishing in the close season, then the deterrent would be more likely to stick...

But there are nowhere near enough EA bailiffs, and they need to be out on the 'wild' waters where the dodgers know they are not going to get caught, and not just the easy numbers commercials.........

12000 licences checked, there are 3 million + anglers, not even scratching the surface..........!

Give them all the maximum fine possible. there are no excusses these days.

Isn't eel fishing still allowed on rivers?.....so perhaps an angler on a river at this time of year ain't so bad?.....i'll legally be fishing them next week for shad, and i used to love my eel fishing.....tarring all with the same brush lads?

I had my Licence checked last week during the 'blitz'. There were some lads fishing on the lake I was on and they looked very worried when they saw the bailiff. Two of them turned out to have no licence, but I dont know what action was taken. It appeared that they had claimed to have licences but the bailiff came back later after checking and confronted them.

There were some more lads hanging around in their car, waiting for the bailiff to leave at which point out came the rods and off they went. I know they didnt have a licence because they told me so.

Its only fair that if they want to fish, they should have a licence.

Perhaps fishery owners could do their part by not selling permits without seeing a licence?

Rob, some fishery managers aren't overly concerned about whether you have a licence or not. They are however, very interested in whether you've given them their ticket money though!

I agree though, they should take some responsibility and check licences before allowing people to fish.

Licences should be checked before you are allowed to fish by the owners of what ever fishery you attend. We have taken the time and effort to follow the correct procedure of getting a licence, only to have some a*sole in the next pitch laughing at you. It must be enforced to a greater degree.

As an owner of a fishery I care not if they have a licence to be honest. The EA get paid to check them not me and I don't fully agree with them either.
Get rid of them and let?s just enjoy the sport. Why does everything need a licence nowadays?
If fishing was banned tomorrow you can bet the EA would still find ways of funding their projects.
Why the hell do us British love giving our money away is beyond me, then again I guess that's why you have to work till you drop because we just love giving our money away.
I'm going to get hammered for this but my feelings are the above and all this licence stuff brings nothing but hatred towards each other. It?s another government way of splitting up and dividing us up.
I?m ready to hide behind that big boulder now

Can anglers fish your water for free then Stuart?! No licence nescessary? Sounds great!

Jon I make no money from my fishery. We allow a local club to fish it and the cost of rent goes back into the fishery so that club members can benefit. We operate a closed season and we allow guests to come along for a day out for free. I'm not interested in making money, just want to see anglers enjoy a day out.
Guess this type of fishery is fast disappearing reading some of the threads here and on other sites. Such a shame but that old money has a strange effect on some.
If there was one thing I would like to see it would be more involvement with children which the club does very little for. You can't beat seeing a kid hanging on for grim with a carp on the other end.
Now going to hide again behind that boulder

Nice one Stuart! I used to be a club sec until about a year ago, and since Soham everyone was too scared to do anything with children, unfortunately......there is now a lot of red tape around children in fishing, which may be necessary, but puts adults off.....

whether eel fishing is allowed on rivers during the close season varies in different areas of the country.i have no problem with people fishing for legal species etc,but it gets my back up when i see people bivvied up carp and pike fishing for several days(when night fishing is banned full stop)and pleasure anglers cramming fish into keepnets.the EA don`t seem to have the manpower to deal with the problem.fishing is allowed in somerset ,on uncontrolled,non sssi stretches,provided that the angler uses only worm,fly or spinner for trout.all other baits and methods are banned,as are keepnets,yet on the local town stretch of the river tone in somerset,you can see people using maggots,corn,bread etc and also using keepnets.some of our ex eastern bloc immigrants even use buckets without water?what do the ea do?nothing,they are apparently targetting commercial holes in the ground,where they can boost numbers of anglers checked with little effort.another case of "targets" to hide the real issues.
then the ea use the excuse of underfunding,why then,does it take 3 vehicles and six blokes to put up a new walker friendly gate on our local river,when two men could have easily coped?

I think the 2 things that I would like to see the EA do this year are to issue MUCH bigger fines that would really be a deterrent and more importantly, to have a level of consistant bailiffing on rivers, drains, canals, in fact anywhere that isn't classed as 'commercial'. Last year there were 2 EA bailiffs at Chew, like they were hardly likely to catch anyone there, at least not after the first 4 days! Meanwhile the rest of the Somerset levels hardly gets a look in, that's where the licence dodgers are gentlemen.......

I hope someone from the EA is reading this, but I doubt it........

The EA do not impose fines, that is the job of the courts.

There simply aren't 3 million anglers out there, that's a myth.

The EA does more good than you could possibly imagine. Reducing the level of investment on fisheries projects to fund more license checkers would achieve what exactly?

It would be a drain on our limited resources at the cost of habitat improvements. Habitat improvements are vital.

For example, due to the methodology of drainage channel igging in the middle part of the 20th Century there are miles of river where fish like chub,barbel and dace have no-where to spawn. Current projects are addressing that. Other project are addressing different matters that are absolutely essential if our rivers are ever to recover.

To employ a single license checker, salary, pension, holidays, overheads, bonus, vehicle, etc would cost a conservative ?40K per annum. That's several thousand more license fees. How big an area will he cover? How many for the entire country - a thousand staff? That's ?40 million or roughly 2 million licenses. Hang on, we only sell a million at present so we'll have to double the price of the license to fund this and abandon all fishery projects.

It doesn't add up. Honest people will buy a license. Those who aren't will take a risk, just as they do now.

Introducing speed cameras has increased the number of criminals in society but it hasn't stopped them speeding.

Responsible fishery owners should be prepared to ask to see licenses. Those who say 'why should I' are simply in it for what they want and care nothing for the wider sport of angling. Most would benefit if all rivers were barren so why should they help out?

and yesterday,i witnessed no less than 3 ea landrovers filling the parking spaces where i usually park when i walk the dog(yes i pick up her mess!)
when i went there today,all they had done is cut a path through the grass for the ramblers.the river banks?untouched,with a job to see the river ,as the stingers were so high and thick.now i don`t like manicured banks,but last year,it was impossible to fish the river,due to nettles,hogweed,ragwort and the like,growing thickly along the whole length.some people might say "clear the banks yourself".the reason that i can`t,is that i`m disabled with an arthritic condition.apart from that,i pay for a rod licence and a club licence to fish the river,neither club nor ea seem to give a hoot about river anglers anymore.
with regard to paying bailiffs,employees of the ea ar regularly seen on our local waters,weed cutting and carrying out water quality checks etc.why can`t these chaps be issued with id cards and check anyone that they see fishing when they are working?

bob quote: Responsible fishery owners should be prepared to ask to see licenses. Those who say 'why should I' are simply in it for what they want and care nothing for the wider sport of angling.

So I guess I don't care for the sport. Perhaps I should have our lake go private and that would solve the problem then I will not need to worry.
If this is what anglers think of owners who allow the public to fish their property for very little is tells me they are not worth spending time over.
If you read the licence on the back you will see you can ask, just wondering if you do?

This is my last post here and no wonder I have lost the will towards this sport if thats what people think!

Exactly my point Stuart!

As you say, you don't care for the sport.

And what was the other thing you said - I care not if they have a license...

And - all this license stuff brings hatred to the sport...(?)

Hatred? How? I'd like to see fishery owners made culpable if their customers don't hold valid licenses in the same way that pub landlords are responsible for the age of their customers and car drivers are responsible for their passengers wearing seat belts.

I'm a member of a coupe of waters that will not issue tickets unless you provide a photocopy of your rod license. This causes me no inconvenience whatsoever and I'm happy to oblige. More waters should be run in this way.

Like I said, it is not in the interests of commercially run stillwaters to see investments made in the habitat improvement of rivers.

In a way I agree with Stuart.
It is not part of a fisherry owners job to check for EA licences,(although some do) and why should he if they do not pay him for it.
Yes it does help, but would the EA even give him a concessionary licence for doing their work? I don't think so.