Burton Mere bought by RSPB?

Burton Mere, the biggest coarse and carp fishery on the Wirral penninsula has apparently been bought by the RSPB! Terry Knight, the owner, has had the place up for sale for a couple of years now but no one has been prepared to meet his valuation(around £1.2 million) with most potential owners offering £800-900K.

Burton hold carp to 30lbs plus, some massive cat fish, and provides good all round coarse and match fishing on three other lakes as well. Though not a user myself I know many who do and its loss to the bird brigade will be a huge blow to angling locally.

Rumour has it angling has two years grace before the place,which lies on the edge of Burton Marshes, becomes a bird sanctuary, during which time it would be hoped the fish can be removed and sold elsewhere before they become the main dish of the day for cormorants.

I have been told AT ran a story about the RSPB buying up fisheries to close them but dont know if Burton Mere was mentioned or the catalyst for the story. A worrying development if true. I wonder if it occurs to the RSPB that many anglers ( myself included) are bird lovers and have contributed in the past by buying books published by them and other items of ephemera. I'll think twice now as they are threatening my sport.

Buying Burton has to be a political move because the marshes have loads of watercourses and ponds so why buy the fishery?

Although I have no time for the organisation you have to give the RSPB a lot of credit. They have consitantly managed to do what angling never has been able to achieve, that being unite all interested parties behind one banner with the same agenda. They are organised, well financed, their PR machine is ruthless and thanks to the likes of Bill Oddie, springwatch, et al their ranks are swelling. They have just purchased an 180 hectare site in my locality which provides some cracking fishing but alas its future seems to be destined as a cormorant magnet, which alsosounds the deathnell for many other local fisheries.

You don't need to have a "gift" to seethe future, they are going to walk all over us.

So did the owner sell up 'knowing' that the twitchers would close the amenity to anglers do you know Pete?

All word of mouth at present Ed, but the fact Terry has apprently negotiated a two year 'stay of execution' suggests he knows exactly what the RSPB intend to do with it.

During that time I guess he'll be trying to find buyers for all the big carp, tench, bream and catfish, but if I was a skimmer or small roach I would be seriously worried I might form part of the menu for a new take-away on the marshes.

Gents,

One BIG difference between angling and the RSPB is that usually, fishing requires a payment of some kind. Access to these reserves is, I think, usually free, except for a charge for parking. That charge may be a nominal amount of say £2 per day or something similar.

Compare this with angling. Most angling waters are leased to local clubs. Only their members are allowed to fish. The cost of membership is similar to that of the RSPB or NT but that only gives you access and rights to a handful of waters. If you want to fish a water outside your local area, you will need to join another club, or visit a commercial. As such the costs increase. All the angling funds are held locally. There is no central management or direction with the associated clout, advertising, pressure etc.

Whilst the work of the likes of the ACA, NUBA etc is great, the angling fraternity needs to stop thinking on such a local level and start thinking on a more national level. Only then will we be able to fight off the threat from the likes of the RSPCA, the canoists etc. If we had a central body to whom all waters were leased, then we could fish waters all over the country for the membership fee. That body could then look into purchasing waters such as those mentioned above to keep the angling available and then work with the likes of the RSPCA to manage them in a way that would keep them happy, but until we have one central body, this isn't going to happen.

At the minute we are a very divided bunch.

There is some good news gents.

The ACA and RSPB will be working very closely together over the next few years on the EU Water Framework Directive, so there isa realchanceat last for some meaningful dialogue between twitchers and anglers (and who knows, maybe even consensus?).

Let's face it, ultimately both sidesshare the same vision.

We want more'nature' to encounter and access to the green stuff in a clean environment that we can pass on to our kids; now it's just a case of making each party see how similarwe allare...

Well said Mark H and some good points from InteraX. From their recent actions it is clear to me that the RSPB is anti-angling. We urgently need a single, decent governing body IMO, to which all anglers belong, then we as anglers could collectively start to punch our weight and not below it like at present.

The question is though, would the likes of ECHO, The Carp Society, The Barbel society, The Tench Fishers, NUBA, SAA, NFAetc consider combining into a single organisation and then running a sub-comittee on their specialisation. Also, only once that has happened could this possible single organisation start looking at getting royal approval. Whilst that isn't critical, that could help any organisations political/public influence.

If you look at the likes of the RSPCA, RSPB etc., the royal in the title seems to be something that gives an air of respectibility to their cause.

How about the Royal Society for Piscatoial Endeavours? /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

I think they should merge, but are there too many ego's at risk?

The concept of NUBA was a good one, shame it has been poorly executed in some ways (Alan Suttie states he's not a fan of committees, but surely a union is run by its members for its members, hence you're gonna need some form of committee) Although I was never too keen of the (what I saw as unecessary) inclusion of 'British' in the title. British AND National in the same title of an organisations does conjur up certain images for me, and you only need one, either British OR National, to include both is overkill IMO. I think a better name would have been simply the NUA. Despite that I did join and in all honesty don't thik I could have done as well as Alan has, shame that due to some unfortunate circumstances it seems to have fizzled out for the time being.

Whatever title we have for a unified body, I think that like the 'shooters' we should have the word 'Conservation' somewhere in the title.

For a angling to have the clout that reflects its number of participants, then ALL anglers need to be members. A way to ensure this is that (somehow) the governing body is the organsiation to whom we pay the licence fee (then they pass on a share to the EA for the work they do and would continue to do be contracted to do)

The increase on top of the licence fee (which should be 'updated' & changed) to cover the work that the ACA does would be minimal, as it would be spread across 1.5m anglers as opposed to just 9,000 or so. Eg, the ACA gets just ?215,560 from membership fees at ?20 per member. If it was shared over 1.5m of us, we would only need to pay 16 PENCE EACH to provide them with ?240,000!

So a couple of quid per head would, I'd imagine, cover the work of the ACA, ECHO etc. etc.

Edit:

I have reposted this on the ACA thread!

The key thing that any society would have to do, to continue to attract members is purchase some fishing rights. That way, the members would then have some tangible return from their membership fee. Without this, I feel that the whole idea is going to fall flat on it's face.

Not a bad idea InteraX.

On a flight back from the US a while ago I was reading the in flight magazine, in whic it had an article about Golf, and two of the 'big' courses. St. Andrews and Pinehurst No3 (USA)
It stated that these are both public courses and that anyone can book to play on these living shrines to the game. Now wouldn't it be good if some of our waters that are steeped in history (eg Redmire) were bought and then anyone (within reason - i.e. no idiots) could fish these places and they were preserved as angling venues.

I've just been checking out the NFA website.

It seems that you can get up to 36 free days fishing by joining them at the premium level. (£22.50) And as they are supposed to be the governing body, maybe they are better positioned to take up the helm. If only they were'nt so match focused. Perhaps the matchmen are their biggest supporters, but they do put themselves forward as the governing body for all freshwater fishing in the UK.

What about the pleasure and specialists? Don't we deserve a section on the website?

I recently watched Bill Oddie feeding Grey squirels on a nature watch programme. Does he realise what damage these creatures do to bird life?

Chris M...........i like your idea of paying extra on the licence fee, i would be happy to pay at least £5 a year on top if it went to a national angling body.

Every so often the fragmentation of the various angling bodies crops up in debate on the site......the reality is we need to be in a position to pay full time staff, with a democratically elected "management"

I don't agree with the sentimental bit about waters like Redmire though.....we don't want to pay for the past just the future.......Redmire will never be what it was to the likes of Walker and those who followed him, it's just an estate lake that "clicked" at the time.....let those who want to fish it pay for it now.

All funds that would potentially be raised must look to the future not the past.

The RSPB's strategic thinking is looking 50 years or more ahead to a point where rising sea levels are going to threaten several of its coastal and wetland reserves. Along with organisations like the National Trust, it is looking to buy up areas to replace them and so help insure against the affects of climate change.

In a way this is laudable. I don't know if anyone read the report from the Campaogn for the Preservation of Rural England in the papers a few weeks back, but it basically painted a dire picture of how rapidly much of our remaining countryside is going to disappear.

With every generation, it is going to become more and more vital to safeguard what remains.

The big question is where angling fits into the picture. As long as we consist of disparate interest groups and warring factions, we're never going to hasve the credibility and political muscle to stand up for ourselves.

Perhaps things will change - who knows.

I have to say that at last weeks barbel society meeting in the North, Lee (Swords) spent a big chunk of time telling everybody that we are going to go the way of hunting if we cannot move under one effective governing body.

I did not quite realise how true his words were until I read this thread.

I also agree with Paul, and would be happy to put my hand in my pocket to fund such an organisation, because as Lee ably put it, if we do not, angling will go down the pan, because the "Birdie watchers" are very organised, very clever, and have the money and PR to achieve the demise of angling in this country.

His parting words "AND DONT THINK ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!".

From their recent actions it is clear to me that the RSPB is anti-angling.

What actions are those? Buying up sites so it can be sure it will be able to preserve birds? That's more about being pro birds than anti angling.

I've got a foot in both camps, but let me tell you this; when the RSPB starts banging on about an issue, it's done its research. Anglers start gobbing off about things long before they have thought the issue through.

Can you really blame the RSPB getting uppity when AT plastered a picture of illegally shot cormorants on its front page and let anglers advocate poisoning fish with paracetemol as a way of controlling the 'black plague'? AT may not have supported those views publicly but it did tacitly. The RSPB view was then as now, let's wait until we've done the research, as opposed to 'let's give them both barrels.'

The bloke who edits the RSPB's membership magazine is an angler, and so is a lot of the membership. There are plenty of examples of reserves where anglers still fish.

Where angling goes wrong is to start blathering on about tree-huggers and take an antagonistic stance to the RSPB before it's put its views across. We're in no position to take on the RSPB.

Mark, your points are well made. My concerns about the loss of Burton Mere are two fold.

Firstly, on a local level the loss of a beautiful, well established and patronised fishery in an area that is already a coarse fishing desert. There is only one other commercially owned water on the Wirral, which has a population of 350,000 odd. We have the tail end (industrial) of the Shropshire Union canal in Ellesmere Port and the Dee in Chester but that's about it. Nearly all the small ponds that dot the countryside are rented or owned by local clubs with closed memberships.

Secondly, the fact the RSPB were able to raise £1.25 million to buy the place from the current owner illustrates the spending power available to that organisation. Angling could hardly raise enough to resurface the car park.

All in all it feels like another nail in the coffin of angling locally and nationally.

I take your point, Peter. It's easy to forget here on the edge of Fenland that not everyone has almost unlimited fishing on the doorstep.

But there's a side of me that would rather the RSPB had it than some private owner who wants to make it into his garden. And just because it's RSPB doesn't mean that there's no possiblity of fishing; Radipole Lake in Weymouth is RSPB but still allows fishing; maybe some negotiation is in order.

You have to ask yourself, I guess, what positives anglers can bring to a wildlife preserve, and offer them up as toeksn of your willingness to share the responsibility of care for Bourton Mere