Armed gangs stealing fish

RUTHLESS gangs armed with guns and knives are stealing thousands of fish from the River Nene for a healthy profit.

Using catch nets and often working in the dead of night, the criminals are targeting big fish to sell them on to fisheries.

The bigger the fish, the more cash poachers can receive as larger specimens are attractive to anglers who pay to fish private waters.

Now, Environment Agency officials armed with batons, handcuffs and body armour are patrolling the riverbanks and lakes in the area in a bid to clamp down on the thieves.

The River Nene has been cited as one of the worst hotspots for fish thefts along with the Thames, and the agency has stepped up efforts to restore calm by sending out the "high-impact fisheries enforcement" officers.

Environment Agency project executive Steve Moore said: "The officers are fully trained and equipped to professionally address the threat of serious fishing crime.

"From a legitimate supplier, a 20lb carp is worth about ?500, while larger specimens can attract much more. Recently a 44lb common carp sold for ?8,500, and illegal stocking of waters can be a profitable crime.

"It's not just what the fish is worth, but how much revenue it can attract from anglers wanting to catch it."

Mr Moore said that illegal activity in the waterways can crop up wherever people think there is money to be made or corners to be cut.

He added: "When enforcing the fisheries laws, our officers have the same powers as police officers. In certain circumstances they may arrest suspects, and all officers involved in enforcement work are now equipped with body armour, handcuffs and extendable batons.

"The covert nature of some of our surveillance activities means that both training and equipment differ from normal fisheries enforcement.

"Officers have reported incidents of abuse and threatening behaviour. some suspects carry knives and occasionally we encounter firearms."

Mr Moore said eastern Europeans stealing fish to eat was another problem they had to deal with in Peterborough.

While freshwater fish, such as carp, perch, roach, bream and pike are not to British tastes, in many central and eastern European countries they are regarded as delicacies.

The Evening Telegraph's fishing expert, Ken Wade, who is the match secretary for the Peterborough and District Angling Club, said: "We have fish taken daily, and people are not respecting the rules.

"It has been going on for 18 months or so, but is becoming much more noticeable.

"Anglers pay a lot of money for fishing these days, and they want everyone to play by the rules.

"I know all over the world people catch fish for their dinner, but in England that is not the done thing.

"It is not only that, but there are groups of people going round stealing fish, and something has to be done."

Keen angler Darren Crombie (25), of Sugar Way, Woodston, Peterborough, said: "The first rule of fishing is that you always put your catch back. Any true angler does not want to see his catch die, and much less have him for dinner.

"I have seen it with my own eyes and it makes people very angry. it's going to lead to violence on the riverbanks in the future if it isn't sorted out."

Prosecutions for the most serious types of fish crime have tripled in the past three years. Between April and June, the agency dealt with 1,200 cases of illegal fishing. The cases resulted in formal cautions and fines and costs of ?145,000.

>> Anyone with information about any possible incidents of illegal fishing should call the Environment Agency's 24-hour incident hotline, in confidence, on 0800 807060.

Ive no doubt that violence is going to erupt somewhere through fish theft and someone is going to get seriously hurt or killed. Especially if the fish are being sold on to be stocked in fisheries. A 20lb carp is woth more in the hand than the belly and if the people stealing them are doing it to stock venues they will fight for the right to keep them.But isn't it true that you could in theory at the moment quite lawfully catch a 20-30pound carp from the river and eat it if you are that way inclined?. So just as an observation is the carp better off in a lake somewhere or a very big plate of chips. Ignoring any disease factor of course. If the owners of fisheries don't buy them this will surely slow down the poachers who take them for fisheries. But food wise , well the law has to be changed smartish . No-live fish removed from any fishery full stop.But whats the outcome if a foreign person is caught with a net of fish A fine a setence or a slap on the wrist because they say they didn't know our laws.

With resepct Rik, that is nonsense.Does this mean I am not allowed to take a trout for my tea next time I visit Scotland?

Livebaiting is out of the window as well?

We go down this path at our peril.As the Times article shows arguing that fish should be preserved at all costs so that we may catch them is one which is not sympathetically received.

We seem to be putting our bogyemen all together now.Taking of fish for illegal stocking has been going on for as long as I can recall and long before the recent influx of eastern europeans.Is there any evidence the two are now linked?

What on earth is in the Nene that thiefs can steal in their thousands and find fisheries to buy them?

Are there really that many big carp in the river that it's worth netting it in the dead of night to sell on to dodgy carpholes? And if not carp, then what else is worth stealing to sell? Just what is the going rate for a black market gudgeon?

(Blimey, four sentences and they're all questions! Except these last two!)

Pehaps i should re-phrase that to read no COARSE fish to be removed. Game fish are eaten in this country after all.But when it comes down to it a fish is a fish afterall its only the supposed to be the taste of the king of fish the salmon its cousin the trout that has caused the preference of eating game fish.(I've actually been told that Perch tastes superior to trout from someone that use to catch and eat them regularly. Or is just some sort of old elitist throwback that only any fish caught on the fly is worth eating.(We all know that virtually any fish can be and has been caught on fly as well). Does this mean that a bream compared to a salmon is worthless or a roach to a trout? Perhaps the whole of Angling coarse and game should take a good look at itself and see where it is going. The game rivers of this country are protected far better than the coarse fishing because people with money fish them and pay big money to. And yet i suspect a lot lot more money is spent on coarse fishing and always will. With the advent of the commercial fisheries explosion private owners and Water Authority owned,perhaps more of the money made from the fisheries should be put back into the sport on the security front. Say in a general fund to help the smaller waters protect their stocks.
As far as livebaiting is concerned i personally don't do it and do not like it but that is my own preference.
Considering the present situation regarding the theft of fish from so many waters i cannot undertand this i quote "We go down this path at our peril.As the Times article shows arguing that fish should be preserved at all costs so that we may catch them is one which is not sympathetically received"
Why not protect our fish stocks at all costs? is there something wrong with protecting something from being abused. Or do we stand back and wait for all the rivers or lakes to have a majority of fish taken from them for food or other reasons. Oh what a good idea, yep empty the fisheries and kill angling in this country , well coarse anglers and their shops anyway.

Thats not the point I am making.If you prevent the taking of fish, coarse or otherwise, for eating then you are saying that the sole justification for angling is the pleasure of the captor.This in many peoples view is much more morally questionable than the taking of fish for the pot.The antis cause is therefore immediately strentghened.It would be an own goal of massive proportions in return for a law that would be impossible to enforce even if the authorities allocated funds and resources to it, which they will not.

There are laws in place now to protect the taking of fish stocks.If the stories are to beleived then immigrants are taking many fish per night.This is already an offence so why should a new law be any more effective in controling it.

The answer is greater enforcement of exisiting laws as well as education to promote the gradual assimilation of people of different cultures to our own so that they realise this behaviour is not acceptable here.

I can see what you are saying Nigel, but why do you go fishing?

And why should it be "a gradual assimilation"? It should be immediate.

Steve, as I hope is obvious when we have fished together, I go fishing purely for the pleasure it brings.I am comfortable with that and will carry on as long as I physically can or someone stops me(other than my wife!).I fear however that if we call for the imposition on a ban on taking fish merely to preserve the pleasure aspect of the sport then we will be severely weakened when,not if, we have to face down the antis.

Assimilation by its very nature can only be gradual.We have to be realistic that enforcement of laws, either new or existing, will not solve this problem.There is simply not the will or resources for this to happen despite Martin Salter's admirable efforts to make it a higher priority.

Of course Nigel, your face when you caught that mullet said it all.
My point is that we all fish for our own pleasure, the added bonus being that we are protecting nature and pumping billions into our econonomy.

Steve, there are lots of very good reasons to justify fishing, I just do not want to lose one in fishing for the pot, minor though as it is to a lot of people, especially coarse anglers.

If you catch your fish legally (with rod and line) and they do not belong to anyone else (a private water) then surely it is legal to take some for the pot?

I can see that we would be very uncomfortable about taking a specimen sized fish for the pot, and we have a legitimate legal complaint if the fish are either being trapped (illegal) or taken from a private water (theft)or caught by rod and line by someone without a licence.

We should be pressing the point that these people taking fish for the pot are most often breaking the law, and the law is in place to protect fish. We should not be trying to argue that taking fish for the pot is in itself morally wrong or somehow unethical. To do that would be to break the whole connection between fishing and our ingrained hunting instincts.

The only time the government will act on this issue is when the RSPB has a few birds killed for the pot.Maybe as i have already said on another thread we should tell them comorants are better than chicken.
Personally i highly recommend carp with KHV cooked lightly and served with rabbit gravy.

Well i personally only fish for the pleasure along with a massive majority of anglers in this country.And that is my sole justification for angling.
And how the Antis cause is helped by having a ban on the Taking of coarse fish for the pot i don't know,we are saving the fish from being eaten!. Prior to all this recent uproar about the theft of fish for the pot and/or selling on,what sort of percentage of people fished for the pot.A very very low percentage i suspect.
So whats the problem with the banning of the taking of coarse fish. If 99% plus of people who fish do it for the sheer pleasure of it making it 100% is not going to help the antis one iota.
Its a simple law really No coarse fish to be taken . Then you know that anyone taking any is breaking the law and should be prosecuted for it. It's easier to say don't take ANY as opposed to take 2 or 3 and you can come back tomorrow and the next day to do the same.
We all know there has been a massive influx into this country by persons who would in their own country catch for the pot.So if they carry-on catching the fish here , whats going to happen to our rivers etc. They will end up virtually barren. The more the demand is (Which it obviously is)the more people will get on the band wagon and say i can get you some fish carp/bream/pike. And the market is born.Simply supply and demand.
I can think of a few top fisheries on rivers that are heavily fished for big fish. So mr X and his mates know this and go down when no-one is there and plunder the fishery by net or otherwise and END of fishery.End of income for club for the E.A.
And the eyes of the anglers that report problems like diseased fish dead fish through pollution,and any other relevant problems to do with the rivers and lakes.

Wrote an article last year about fish theft for the Angling Star but the person in question was not Eastern European but a local fishery owner who removed most of the chub from the Retford Canal and deposited them in his commercial fishery

The point is Rik, as the Times article shows, is that for some non anglers there is more moral justification in allowing fishing for the pot as there is in allowing fishing for pleasure.Remove the right to fish for the pot and we are exposed in my view.

What we must remember is that it is not how we perceive our sport and the justifications for it, but the wider public.No huntsman supported a ban on hunting and they were able to put forward cogent argument against the ban.At the end of the day however public opinion was against them and the bill went through.

The coffee may be still in the packet but one day we will need to wake up and smell it!

I can still see your point Nigel, but how many times have you had it said to you "You catch them and put them back, that's daft?" I've lost count of the times I've had that said to me.
We can't deny we fish for our own pleasure, that is fact. How many anglers exercise the right to take fish for the pot, coarse not game?
It's all about stopping immigrants or organised gangs steeling fish.
I'm with Rik, ban taking fish, change the archaic law and then fight the antis with the truth.

Steve, but if you change the law as to taking fish do you think there are suddenly going to be loads of Police and EA enforcemant officers ready to jump out of the bushes and nab the nearest Kosovan with a carp down his trousers?

Ignore the fact that you can, subject to bylaws, take two fish for the table.The majority of those currently taking fish will be doing so illegally whether it be fishing without a licence, setting fixed lines etc.Little is done to stop them now so what will change if the law is made stricter on the amount of fish you can take?

Its a high profile band wagon which is easy for the Angling press to jump on.Angling faces far greater issues than this one which as individuals we can try and resolve.How many of those who support this step on the site are members of the ACA for example?

Its simple Nigel if you can't take fish fullstop. you can't take fish.!!
So irrespective if someone has one stuffed down their trousers it shouldn't be there.
So anyone caught with a fish is obviously breaking the law.So excuses of license left at home or suchlike don't come into it. If the law says no fish it means NO.
I'm not expecting police or bailiffs to jump out of bushes or cars if they see someone walking around with a nice big old fish in their arms. Because at present there maybe no point in it, because they are allowed to take 2 fish ,dependant on venue, and they may well have a license. But if they are spotted with a fish and the law says NO well license or not. They're in the proverbial s--t.full stop.

Rik, the problem I have with your argument is twofold:

Firstly, what you are effectively saying is that something that is currently lawful (taking fish for the pot, if caught within the rules) should be made illegal, and that this should be done in response to people who are currently breaking the law (fish poachers)

It has always seemed to me that if someone is breaking the law, then the right response is to catch them and punish them.

By just introducing a blanket ban, you will hurt those who take the occasional fish for the pot, but will do nothing to stop those who already hold the law in contempt.

By way of example, I offer up the legal clampdown on the ownership of guns. This has had a massive effect on the law abiding (such as competition pistol shooters etc)but no effect at all on the criminal element (illegal gun ownership and gun crime continues to rise)

My second provblem with the argument is your attempt to justify it by saying that only a small minority or people take fish for teh pot (you estimate 1% which seems about right to me)

I worry about this argument, because it seems to justify teh oppression of the mainority by the minority. We are becoming a much more urbanised society, and much more sentimental about animals/fish etc. It is easy to conceive how a traditional country sport like fishing could one day be very much a minority sport, maybe even down to 1% of the population. Is that then an excuse for banning it? the antis will certainly think so, as will the polititians after their votes.

BB
How will the second most participated sport in the UK reduce to 1% of the population? I don't understand that.

If there is a blanket ban on taking fish then that is that! No excuse, you will be charged with fish theft, there will be no loop-holes that can be exploited.

Angling does face greater issues Nigel, but we have to deal with all the issues as they arise.