I'm thinking out loud at the moment

Throughout the years anglers have formed single species societies. And this is not a British thing either. In The USA and even South Africa, organisations have been formed to cater for people who fish for one species.

But what about if you are an all round angler, like me for example. In the course of a years fishing I normally fish for the lot, well with the possible exception of carp these days.

The question I ask is this:

Would an "All Round Anglers Society" be viable?

Many years ago **** Walker wanted to call The National Association of Specimen Groups - "The Sheringham Society" after that truly archetypal all rounder - Hugh Tempest Sheringham.

Maybe the day has come when an all round anglers society might be viable.

What do you think?

thought thats what the dvsg was.

what side of the road do they drive on in south africa?

The DVSG is a specimen hunters group with limited membership.

I am talking about a national society open to all.

The same as here - the left.

Virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa drives on the left.

I could be wrong, but isn't that what the NFA is supposed to be...?

Ron,

I think it probably would be viable, but not on a national level.

Local groups or societies seem to be better adapted, and more capable due to their smaller size, of being able to cater for angler's needs, IMO that is.

For a society to function it needs participation, so again the local groups are better placed for this too, rather than having to travel vast distances for a meeting etc.

Just my opinion, others will differ no doubt.

On the basis that things go round in circles then it is quite likely that we may see an upsurge in small 'specimen' or 'all-round' groups in the near future.

I see no real need for a national unbrella body as the same purpose could be served by a web site where news might be shared, joint trips and social events organised.

Perhaps an expansion on what we did in the Fens this summer?

Tell me if I am wrong Bob, but to my mind the NFA is purely match oriented and coarse match fishing too.

I have absolutely nothing against match fishing but if memory serves me right, I remember going with Eric Hodson to a NFA meeting in Sheffield to present the all round speccy hunters case in the 60s.

We couldn't get a word in edgeways. All they were discussing was match angling and I do remember some t..t bringing up the subject of pike. He claimed that that not enough were being killed!

Forgive me if I appear naive but why do you need a society for all round angling? Surely its better to just do it, you don't need a society for that and if you want to talk about it thats what sites like Fishingmagic are about, or is that too simplistic?

Maybe as a visible alternative to single species groups.

Publicly encouraging variety in the sport as an alternative to specialising.

Just what sprang to mind.

That's just what I'm thinking of Paul, you've hit the nail on the head.

What's the SAA all about (not South African Anglers either)?

Specialist Anglers Association. "Specialist" can mean any fish, even a 3ozs bleak. I always thought it refered to "Special" fish over a certain weight for the species as opposed to someone who sole means of fishing is for one species. Well that's my thought.

As Secretary of the Southern Region of the NFA, the NFA is not all about match fishing. If you go to the annual conference they do not even discuss matches or the rules these days. Several years ago this used to happen but they now have a competitions committee for this business. As far as our region goes we do more on coaching children than anything else. The NFA does a lot of work on all sorts of matters, it's just that this info is not communicated down to the average angler or club member. The NFA is trying to cahnge this and that is why individual membership is a big thing to them, as they need to be able to communicate with everyone, as they just didn't get the feedback from their club secretaries.

To be fair Terry, the NFA did have a large orientation towards match angling from its inception, certainly into the 70s, for many years although the organisation did become involved in many branches of the sport of coarse angling, as specialists, many of us felt unrepresented and that the organisation sometimes became bogged down within its own beuracrasy, the outcome from this created the formulation of the National Association of Specialist Anglings on 24th April 1965 (which has now evolved into the SAA of course). The NFA has for many year been considerd by many to be an ageing dinosaur which has been unable to change with the times, if the organisation is still representative of the majority of coarse anglers, and I`m not sure it still is, then any changes would be most welcomed of course.

Yes Ron, the NASG/NASA/SACG/SAA is the National Group for the all round (so called) specialist angler, but unfortunatly since the last change from NASA, the evolved body has concentraited more on the political side as opposed to the social side of the branch. The reason for this is simply a lack of volunteers and help, the few strong SAA committee members who run the organisation just can`t do everything, although they certainly try.

I hope you'll be pleased to learn that the NFA is going through great changes at the moment. Their biggest problem has always been that they have not got their message through to the average angler, for one reason or another. They are now putting professionals into post as they have realised they can't continue with the 'old guard' volunteers. This way they will be able to be in contact with each individual member. Like a lot of anglers, I have been disillusioned in the past, but they are there to help us all. Nobody else is going to fight for us anglers. I sincerely hope they succeed in their new aims.

Many thanks Terry for coming on this thread. What you have said is enlightening and I hope the changes being made to the NFA bode well for the future.

The Name: National Federation of Anglers is a powerful one and to anyone sitting on the outside it represents all who fish with rod, hook and line, irrespective of species.

And thanks to my good friend "His Emminence The Monk" for also getting involved.

Brother Nick was one of the staunchist members and hardest workers for NASA. It was such a great pity that NASA is no more. I enjoyed the annual get togethers, tackle shows and conferences
immensley.

Could they ever be revived?

Thanks for that Terry and keep up the excellent work mate, regardless of organisational types, anyone who helps angling ultimately improves anglings fitness and helps us all. Angling however needs one collective voice and all the angling organisations who represent all the various factiuons, sea, game, course, match, specialist etc need to speak as one of course and this is were the good work of the NAA come into their own, in fact but a few years ago we nearly had the first World Angling gethtogethert but for some of the delegates being unable to attend, so things do go on behind the scenes, often with little publicity seeping down to the man on the bank.

Thanks for your comment Ron, although in reality I did very little in support of NASA, just helped fly the flag a little, indeed your own involvement with NASG and the NSG was more significant. One of the reasons for the demise of the social side of the NASG/NASA/SACG/SAA was political climatic change, basically two things were begining to happen by the end of the 80s, in the first instance angling was becoming more high profile, particulaly with the growth in media technologies and the growth of the special movement, the carp Society was founded in 1981 and that brance of the sport took off considerably as anyone who was around in the 70s will realise. Because of specialist anglings higher profile, more needed to be done politically, hence SACG came about towards the end of the 90s (this was thanks to the efforts of Tim Paisley and Paul Selman), SACG ran along side NASA for a number of years, in fact I sat on both committees like many members and inevitably we eventually merged back into the mother organisation, but with a strong political orientation, this was mainly due to the members learning at the time, but thats not entirely true. You see as the single specie national groups developed, and in recent years we have seen it with what I call the newer groups like the Barbel Society, the movement moved away from the multi specie type organisation (socially) like NASA and members supported their own respective groups, who additionally also had their own conferances and basically you can`t support everyone. In addition to this of course, the multi specie anglers shrank in size, specialist angling you have to remember will only ever be a percentage of mainstream angling, and as the specialist specialised to even great specilisms thus the multi specie angler shrank. There are other reasons of course, but I hope this gives some indication of the evolution of things. remneber in the early specialist days of the 60s and 70s, we had very few specialist magazings and organisations, thus we had very few specialist anglers of course.

I should have added that angling as a sport gets very little funding out of Sport England compared to other 'recognised' sports. In order to acheive this, Sport England needs angling to be represented by a single body that can speak for all anglers. Hence, the changes to the NFA in trying to unify all our disparate groups and factions under one umbrella. I'm not saying there isn't a place for those groups, just that representatives from each should all sit round the same table and help the NFA get the recognition for angling that it has needed for years, and is needed in the future.

These are excellent aims Terry.

As I have said, the very name: National Federation of Anglers puts out a powerful message.

I hope representatives from all angling sub-groups will be involved.

Particularly the ACA, The Salmon and Trout Association, The NFSA, The SAA, all the single species groups, angling trade associations and even organisations like The Fly Dressers Guild. All these people have a stake in our sport.