fieldsports!

just as a matter of interest, how many of you support country sports in general, ie shooting, hunting etc?
I have been bought up with ferreting, coursing and shooting and I think it as made me a well rounded human being, having learnt many country ways and crafts and also learning to respect the countryside and its wildlife.
The reason I ask is that I have had debates in the past with other anglers concerning fox hunting and shooting etc and most think that such things have no place in modern society.
Are anglers really any different? after all we are still hunters.

mark

I shoot and ferret on a fairly regular basis as well as fish. However, both have taken a backseat to fishing again after a period of primacy. I'm not a big fan of hunting with pack dogs though but I don't have any real objection, just a personal dislike. Long dogs can be useful as can terriers in certain situations but I have and use neither. Many anglers seem to distance themselves from such things, perhaps with good reason, but, rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure that Joe Public sees much difference.

I am anti all the bloodsports. I dont consider fishing to be one. I accept the need to control some animal populations, although i suspect these needs are often exaggerated (as with badgers). I have working class origins, so have little truck with elite/landowner country pursuits.

well, someone calling them bloodsports!!
I have been bought up in a working class family, I don't follow hunting as such (I have had run ins with them while out shooting) but I do believe that with 95% of anti hunt folk its a class thing, but go up in to the lakes and see the walked in hounds and the nice folk who run the pack and you will see that its not all toffs wearing pink and riding £10,000 hunters! The fell packs are run as a service to the hill farmers AND their sheep!

Bit narrow minded Chub on the block? i have been shooting for years, and not organised shoots (though I have spent a few seasons beating) and think its neither posh or elitist. I shoot rabbits, hares, pidgeons and the odd pheasant that strays onto the land I have permission to shoot.

Its like fishing, but with an enhanced licencing system I have three guns - cheapest £300, most expensive £2000 - hardly eletist - its a country way of life and if you live and work in the country - its a working class pursuit too. I happen to be a teacher now, but spent 6 years in engineering , 2 months unemployed, 2 years in a care home for young disabled people, 1 year as a security guard - then uni, teacher training and what I now do......am I elitist?

mark brailsford 2 said:

I am anti all the bloodsports. I dont consider fishing to be one.

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You must be a mental contortionist or is it just convenience? Most country pursuits are followed by the ‘working class’ not ‘the landed gentry’. Blood sport is the way PETA might put it, field sport is more accurate but not as emotive. Angling is certainly a field sport.

Not that it matters but as you brought it up I also consider myself working class but minus the chip on the shoulder.

Sorry Mark, I quoted Chub on the block and it came up as you.

I am happy to support country pursuits, only sorry I haven't taken the opportunity to take them up.

Especially rough shooting.

Working class and proud of it

chub_on_the_block said:

am anti all the bloodsports. I dont consider fishing to be one. I accept the need to control some animal populations, although i suspect these needs are often exaggerated (as with badgers). I have working class origins, so have little truck with elite/landowner country pursuits.

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Why is it that so many people are obsessed with what is called "working class"?

Fishing, shooting, and hunting are all the same - hunting sports. A "blood sport" is any pastime where a living quarry can be killed and that includes fishing.

I have done a hell of a lot of shooting in my life from rough bird and rabbit shooting in England to fair sized antelope in Africa. All of it I class as hunting!

I personally would not enjoy killing something unless it was absolute vermin eg rats or geese. If there were people in the village where i live shooting the rats or anglers shooting the geese that would be a great thing.

I would stand by my assertion that country pursuits are elitist, but there will always be exceptions. Rather like salmon fishing perhaps?.

Having access to private land is hardly a right open to all and many landscapes are barely accessible even by footpaths or bridleways (i think in some counties only about 25% of woodland is accessible to general public).

I think its a complex issue as there is no doubt that without grouse shooting etc moorland landscapes and woodlands would have been ploughed up decades ago, so i respect the importance of field sports for nature conservation. However, then i hear about cases of badger sets being destroyed, the largest deer in Britain being shot (i think it was Dartmoor last year) and persecution of birds of prey etc.

I value nature and landscapes first and foremost and would hope that all pursuits - including fishing - contribute to nature conservation rather than damage ecology. I am not convinced that converting a natural lake into a carp fishery is a good thing at all, but on balance anglers do more to conserve than destroy.

I am not an animal rights nutter - releasing mink was one of the most damaging things in recent decades, and the introduced deer species are also very damaging to woodland ecology and should be controlled.

Re bloodsports shooting something is clearly a bloodsport (unless its a tranquiliser dart), whereas 99.9% of the fish i catch are returned alive - as is the practice in coarse fishing. Infact, given the arguments raged on this site in past discussions about unhooking mats and caring for fish i dont see how it could be regarded as a bloodsport. I dont have a problem with trout or salmon fishing for the pot either - so long as natural populations are safeguarded from over exploitation.

I actually used the term bloodsports by mistake in my first post, but happy to stick with it as the mud flies...

mark brailsford 2 said:

just as a matter of interest, how many of you support country sports in general, ie shooting, hunting etc?
I have been bought up with ferreting, coursing and shooting and I think it as made me a well rounded human being, having learnt many country ways and crafts and also learning to respect the countryside and its wildlife.
The reason I ask is that I have had debates in the past with other anglers concerning fox hunting and shooting etc and most think that such things have no place in modern society.
Are anglers really any different? after all we are still hunters.

mark

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No Mark, generally speaking nowadays we put them back. You can't release half a hare unharmed.

I was born and raised on my grandads dairy farm and country sports where just part of everyday life... shooting, ferreting, coursing etc. I've been a full time gamekeeper and fully support country sports / fieldsports...of which fishing is one. I remember David Bellamy the naturalist saying that a shoot is one of the best nature reserves there is...which it is.

In my life I have hunted everything there was to hunt on land, on water underwater and all that flies.

I am a man a result of the evolution of a primitive with a very thin veneer of civilisation covering me and making me seem as a modern man.

Scratch anyone and just under the surface is the same primitive that we all come from. We have been primitives and hunter gatherers a lot longer than we have been civilised.

But wait a moment what is being civilised...Aha! I know what being a modern man is, its enslaving people, polluting the environment, mass murder, corruption, extortion, torture, dictatorship, minorities forcing their ideas on others, raping the planet all in the name of civilisation.

Have been trying to change my lifestyle so I can get myself a hawk(as I am well into falconry) Like most things I am getting there and hoping it will come about in the next couple of years at the latest.

chub_on_the_block said:

I have working class origins, so have little truck with elite/landowner country pursuits.

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Damn and blast, here I was thinking that I was just another peasant when just by virtue of dabbling in some country pursuits I'm somehow "elite". Must be that 'cos I'm certainly no landowner. Sorry, the idea that all country pursuits are carried out by the upper echelons of society is utterly laughable. The whole class war aspect of fieldsports is a myth perpetuated by those that are anti. Yes, you can undoubtedly find toffs on horses and the seriously wealthy on some grouse and pheasant shoots. However, in just the same way as exists in Salmon fishing, there are plenty of working class folks involved too.

I'd go so far to say that some of the less savoury aspects, you referred to badger digging and the poaching of the Dartmoor stag, are usually perpetuated by distinctly working class folks and usually town dwellers to boot. Anything untowards happens on most of the land I'd frequent and the coppers will invariably blame the inhabitants of a town twenty miles up the motorway.

You can dislike fieldsports all you want but I'd take a good look at your own prejudices if you really believe that it all boils down to a social class thing.

If I told you that the landowner I do a bit of pest control (mainly rabbit) for is fiercly protective of the badgers, deer and hares on his land, would you believe me? I'm not so daft as to believe that all landowners are so enlightened but they aren't all the neaderthals you seem to think they are.

Guess that must make me Lord Toad of Cockerney...hehehe

From a philosophical point of view, it is to many on the anti side of angling, wrong to release a fish that has been caught on rod and line. They say that we are having fun out of capturing fish and not doing it for a good reason, ie to provide food.

That's why in Germany you are not allowed to release fish.

But we have been through these aspects of angling many time on this site.

And I have in my life had access to many thousands of acres of private land. For several years I was also part of a syndicate owning about 10,000 hectares of land which we shot and fished on.

And I am a fairly ordinary bloke, certainly not one of this mythical "landed gentry" you talk about. The "Landed Gentry" may have existed a couple of hundred years ago, but there are not many of them around today

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chub_on_the_block said:

I would stand by my assertion that country pursuits are elitist

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Bowlocks!!!

Just the sort of talk you hear from a left wing Labourite with a chip on his shoulder!

I fish both for Coarse and Game fish and on occasion shoot as well.

I fully support the hunting of foxes with dogs, and am a member of the Countryside Alliance looking forward to that notorious Act being repealed.

It is not a debate that ever seems to change anyone's views so therefore not really worth persuing. You are either for it or against it.

We have loads of shooting clubs around the area plus land that has been put aside for the purpose .The thing that tickles me is that just up the road from me there is a sign nailed to a tree ,it says "NO SHOOTING TOURISTS .PRIVATE GROUNDS"
Another sign about a mile away says NO TOURIST SHOOTING PRIVATE CLUB" Know I do not know which was first but obviously one of them saw the other sign and changed the words around slightly because to them it must have looked wrong !

Peter Jacobs said:

It is not a debate that ever seems to change anyone's views so therefore not really worth persuing. You are either for it or against it.

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I tend to agree with the former but not the latter. I'm not for certain fieldsports but neither am I against. That's with the benefit of some involvement and observation of the things I'm not a proponent of.

sam vimes said:

I tend to agree with the former but not the latter. I'm not for certain fieldsports but neither am I against. That's with the benefit of some involvement and observation of the things I'm not a proponent of.

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I meant that the hunting of foxes with dogs is not a debate that ever seems to convince one party or the other.

I sincerely hope that my daughter will become proficient enough to join the local Hunt next year as it is a fine tradition that should never have been banned, in my opinion.

In fact, I have to wonder if that Bill would have gone ahead were it not for the 'donation' of over one million pounds to the (then) governing Party from the 'antis?
However, that leans far too close to politics to be fully discussed here . . . . . . .