Removal of Fish - the wording?

Interesting at a meeting last night where the members of the committee wanted to propose a change to regional bye-laws to outlaw the removal of coarse fish by certain you-know-whos. We were informed that because it is a bye-law, it is far more difficult to change that than if it were an Act of Parliament and could take as long as 3 or 4 years to implement.

So I want your help.

Irrespective of who is doing it, with what and how often (and do they have a licence) how would you word one rule to cover all situations so that pike anglers make take live/dead baits and maybe the odd eel?


(PS this is a serious question and your answers may be forwarded to the appropriate people - so no tomfoolery and keep it clean!)

If it is a private stillwater, then you can put signs up saying private fishing, anyone removing fish from this water will be charged with theft. You will require something like - removal of a limited number of fish for bait purposes is permitted.

if you said you could remove fish for bait puposes any fish that the eastern europeans took they would say thats what they are for.you would have to say permission only with the owners consent.

Can you not put the use of small fish for use as bait on the day with permission of the club is allowed,as you wouldnt be removing the fish it would be on the bank with you.

Just to get the ground rules straight so that I understand them.

I assume, Woody, that you are referring to a committee meeting of your local AA.

I can see how you can propose, or recommend, to the EA that changes be made to the byelaws.

I can not see, however, in light of 1, the conversations that I have had recently with the enforcement dept. of the EA, the last being only yesterday 2, the statements that have already been made in the SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES BILL Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment (both reported to the forum in the latter contributions to the thread "The Polish Angler") that the EA give a flying f**k about the opinion of your AA or anyone else for that matter.

Their public and technical consultation on the matter shows that fish stocks in rivers have grown considerably in the last ten years.

It would appear that the EA will only take the broader view i.e. tourism and leisure and will not get involved in the parochial but potentially politically explosive matter of our Eastern European brethren taking a few fish.

Have you received any assent from the EA regarding consideration being made on their part to the changing of regional byelaws?

Have you canvassed the local constabulary to see if they will pay any attention to complaints made on the matter should the byelaws be changed in 3 to 4 years? Three to 4 years being the Government processing period. It will take you two years to thrash it out with the EA prior to this period commencing.

Have EA bailiffs made statement regarding their concerns over the existence of fish stealing?

I am not a defeatist woody but I see any proposal of this nature as p*****g in the wind and even if, in 5 to 6 years, you do achieve a minor change in the regional byelaws how is it really going to affect rivers in England and Wales.

With all the committee time and effort that you will put into this matter over the forthcoming months surely the time would be better spent patrolling and protecting your own waters.

<u>Your AA has the capability and the power to forbid its members to remove any fish at any time from your AA waters irrespective of byelaw and you can word this any way you want. The words are not difficult to conjure. Your bailiffs have the right to deal, within the law, with any itinerant anglers who fish your waters without permit.</u>

Why are you intent on traveling down an impossible road with nothing at the end of it but an impossible situation?

Your local AA rule could read:-

1, ??AA forbids the removal of any fish for any purpose from its club waters other for live bait.

2, The length of any fish taken for live bait must not excede 15cm in length from the snout to the cleft of the tail.

3, Any fish taken for live bait may be retained only for use as live bait on ??AA waters.

If every AA of the 5000 in England and Wales had this rule then a very large pecentage of riverbank would fall within the protection of local bailifs The EA would support this ruling and so one could start to turn the tide of fish removal.

athe beauty here is that we can achieve this within one season.

If we use the authority and the power available to us we are not only demonstrating our duty of care but gathering support from others who would see us as whingers and whiners hanging on to the none existent apron strings of the EA.

AAs have the oportunity to drag this sport kicking and schreaming into the 21st centuary.

Lets bloodywell do it....!!!!

The national rule should be that you can take no fish from any water in the UK without the express written permission of the fishery owner.

On public waters that should mean the EA.

We are all missing the point here, apart from the fact that certain individuals are taking any and all fish away, is that

THEY ARE FISHING WITHOUT ROD LICENCES.

We know that Paul but that is not the point of Woodys thread. It is the act of taking fish that is in question here not the means by how one goes about it i.e. with or without a licence.

I understand that but to see people taking fish when they haven't even got a rod licence really is taking the p*ss, especially when the toothless EA will not act.

Please answer the question

A man who by accident of birth is of British extraction. He is fair haired, blue eyed, Anglo Saxon, Christian. He goes out one day equipped to fish. He has a rod and line and all the accoutrements of fishing. He has an EA rod licence, He is a member of an angling association. He catches some fish and decides to take home to the table a small Carp of 5lb and a large Perch of 2.5lb.

Is he wrong to do this?

If the answer is YES then please answer Woodys question and keep answering it and debating it until we get it right.

If the answer is NO then some of us are living in different angling worlds.

Don't get too hung up in trying to be too clever in drafting*.

Woody;

You simply need a ban on the removal of any fish, dead or alive, from any water within club XXX or YYY water authority's area without the fishery owner's** express permission in advance or (on public water) in accordance with the bag limits / size limits prescribed.

The fishery owner's permission is also of course subject to any bag limits / size limits established by bye law.

So, for example, in the Thames area it's no more than two fish of the sizes above those in the Schedule to the bye laws and no fishery owner within the Thames area can lawfully authorise more than that.

As we have already canvassed ad nauseum the fishery owner can limit it further to say one fish of larger than specified size, or refuse permission altogether.

These rules relate to the removal of fish from the water. There is therefore no need for an exception for pike live baits - they're NOT being removed from the water !

Under present fish movement rules no live fish can be taken to a water for use as live bait. They have to be caught from the water you intend to use them in. Retaining them in a keep net for later use or release if not used is not removing them from the water.

Catching fish one day and taking them away for use the next or another day is plainly a possible loophole but it isn't in reality, as any fish caught and retained live or killed for later use as a bait on some other occasion is still limited by the fishery owner's permission, and in turn further limited by the bye law limits, as above.

So to stick to the Thames example anyone with more than two fish alive or dead is plainly caught.


All of the above is jolly interesting etc, but the fact is that it is already the state of the law as it stands !.

No further legislation is needed, simply enforcement of what we have. Enforcement is the key, without it the rest is just words in the wind.

And I think I have already been round that particular Mulberry bush often enough not to be interested in restarting the debate, so please don't bother, I shan't be feeding the Trolls again for a while thank you.





* That problem bedevils modern statutes and statutory instruments, pages and pages and pages of reams of self-reinforcing definitions and sub-definitions that only serve to confuse, obscure and make unintelligible instead of clear. Have a look at some 17th century statutes (and judgments). Beautiful in their economy, simplicity and clarity of wording.


** a loose and non-technical phrase intended to refer to the owner, possessor, person club or body in control of the exercise of the fishing rights in any relevant piece of water.

"He has an EA rod licence, He is a member of an angling association. He catches some fish and decides to take home to the table a small Carp of 5lb and a large Perch of 2.5lb.

Is he wrong to do this?"

Legally he is only permitted to do so if he has

(a) the angling association's permission to take fish away from the water AND

(b) he is permitted to take two fish of that size under the bye laws applicable to that water authority area.

If you are asking the question rhetorically and morally then it depends on the individual's view, whether you think coarse fish are as valid an object for the table as any other hunted game, or if you belong to that faction which thinks that no fish should ever be harmed under any circumstances*.

Thereby of course immediately giving aid comfort and support to the antis in favour of a ban on any form of live or dead baiting at the very least and, logically, dictating the abolition of any angling at all.


* Unless, curiously, they are Salmon or Trout or sea fish. Just a little illogical or what ? Never mind, keep taking the tablets....

Evan - an excellent post or two - but did you answer the question I posed? I was simply trying to establish a base premise.

If there is not a problem with bag limits then the issue is simply one of licensing and enforcement. Over to the EA and local wardens/bailifs.

If bag limits are a problem and there is a feeling which leans toward banning the removal of any course fish then 5000 AAs saying the same thing must influence the sport, the EA and the public.

If Paul is correct and I suspect he may be then licensing enforcement is almost none existent. If so then adding insult to injury by spending a good many years adding further byelaws is futile.

If bag limits are acceptable then the sinister truth of the matter is that much of what we have been reading here in the last week has been written by those who are really saying "its ok for us to take a couple of fish home but if you are Polish or Lithuanian sod off" I for one can not deal with that lack of altruism and logic.

If we don't get our act together and seperate these issues we can't ever hope to offer any constructive support to the sport of angling.

I don't think there is any racist or, to be more accurate, culturally imperialist clash of cultures in anyone's posting on here. Not to say that it doesn't exist in British society, but to bugger all extent compared to what it was like as recently as in the 70's (Black and White Minstrel show anyone ?) and I don't think that it has any relevance here.

People aren't objecting to Poles etc as Poles, but as people who are taking fish in breach of existing rules when they shouldn't. If, for some inexplicable reason, it had suddenly become fashionable for teenagers to poach fish we'd be going on about bloody teenagers and not Poles.... it's not who they are, its what they are doing.

And you can have any rules and laws you like, without enforcement they are an arbitrary waste of time. Our present rules and laws are, IMHO, adequate if enforced. But they aren't.

Harsher / more draconian laws won't be enforced either, for the same reasons of lack of money, manpower, funding and interest in the powers that be when it comes to a few silly fish - their perception, not mine, but in the context of concentration of resources guarding against terrorist threat etc. not entirely without some justification.

I don't know that I agree with your last post Evan I shall have to give that some thought. I don't think we are talking different languages, maybe just a matter of semantics.

Anyway I am sure Woody won't thank me for buggering up his thread.

Sorry Woody.

Interesting, but the bye-laws I am refering to are the EA's bye-laws that would relate to every angler throughout the Thames Region, whether on a private, club or public stretch of water.

Evan has come close to identifying the problems (in fact he's hit the nail on the head with regards to dead/livebaits etc.)

Problem we have is that if someone (anyone) is presently caught walking away with a 25lb carp and a 10lb pike (dead) an EA officer can do nothing about it. The club or owner can if they can prove the fish came from their waters and if (as has been said) their rules state no fish to be removed.


I agree with Clive, we may be p***ing against the wind, but we have to try.

The West Region apparently have a well-worded bye-law that prevents any fish other than salmon, trout, grayling, eels, pike and powan to be removed (I'd like that confirmed please).

I'd like wording in the bye-laws that would cover all these eventualities that you mention that is unambiguous and unchangeable.

Woody Which West Region is this. There are two. North West and South West. I have looked at both but can find no such ruling. I will continue to search.

Woody - The North West Region have this regulation

"No person may take or remove from any waters within the area of the Authority without lawful
authority any salmon, trout, freshwater fish or eels, whether alive or dead."

This a blanket statement in all the regulations even the national ones. It simply means that if you have a licence and follow the licence conditions you are an authorised person.

The The North West Region Regulations then go on to say.

"No person shall take from any waters within the area any fish of a kind and of a size less than
such size as is hereinafter prescribed, that is to say:
Migratory trout 300mm
Brown trout and char 200mm
Chub and barbel 250mm
Grayling, tench, bream and carp 230mm
Roach, perch, rudd, crucian carp and dace 200mm
Gudgeon and ruffe 100mm"

There appear to be no bag limits for course fish in this region and the South West Region appear to have no bag limits either on course fish except Grayling which is 2 per season.

I think Clive has grabbed the problem by the b*lls and led it to your doorstep Woody, in his earlier post.

Surely he is right that there is a need for all AA's to implement a uniform set of rules which allow the use of fish for the purposes of live/dead baiting to a maximum size for use on the day in question only. The difficulty would be to get all of them to agree.

I can't honestly think of a good reason why anyone should need to take a dead bait away from any venue for future use. A handful of maggots and a whip can capture what you need on the day.

With legislation in place already, it is definitely the enforcement where all the rhetoric falls down. The recent publicised responses from the EA to out-of-season 'fishermen' on the Bristol Avon et al. confirms how far away we are to finding a solution to the problems being faced across the country.

Education of 'Johny Foreigner' may be the quickest solution in the short term, but this would require the intervention of someone in authority.

Wow! A vee formation of pigs overhead.

Given the apparent inabilty of the EA to enforce existing legislation, why should a change in the bye-laws make any difference to their priorities.I was listening to the head of the EA on the radioand they are facing year on year cuts.Preservation of fish stocks will be a low or non-existant priority, bye-law or no bye-law.

Practically speaking it is down to the clubs to properly bailiff and police their waters hard as that may be.Theft from my house is against he law, but I do not leave my doors open in thye vague hope that the police may confront the burgulars with a bag of swag somewhere down the road.