Last Pieces of Unity Jigsaw in Place

Cananyone shed some light onwhy game anglingis not included?

It's because the Salmon & Trout Association is a registered charity and this causes legal issues.

True. But the charitable issue could I suspect have been overcome.

I suspect that it is also because of the lingering doubts of the game fishing world about hooking up with the coarse fishing world as:

a) coarse fish are competitors for the same food resources

b) game fisheries won't ever give up their rights to kill and cull coarse fish without a struggle.


c) the sheer numbers of coarse fishermen v. game fishermen mean they would be permanently outvoted on any issues where voting was by way of simple head count

d) the game fishing world has one hell of a lot more valuable land, rich fishermen, political clout and money

e) fishing used to think it was safe from abolition because of the number of members and value to the economy of the tackle trade and riverside fishing rights. Since the crass abolition of hunting foxes with hounds and the evident reduction in fishing numbers a cold wind has blown through the subconscious of all of us coarse fishermen. It is no longer unthinkable or impossible. If the loony greens ever get as far as the German model and force all fish caught to be killed for food then the game fishing world has no difficulty complying, whereas it would be the effective end of coarse fishing.

f) money

g) I think they suspect, and probably rightly, that they would end up spending many many wasted hours being preached at by the likes of the Pike lobby going on and on and on and on seeking to prevent any culling in game rivers

h) did I mention money ?

i) they don't think that all the different coarse / sea disciplines can ever in truth manage to cooperate together and that the new body will be riven by timewasting internal dissension between different species groups with conflicts of interest with regard to policy.

Although I think that last point has, with luck hope and goodwill, been overcome by the very foundation of this overall body at all. I certainly hope so, and I intend to join up with that hope at heart. But we shall see....

Oh, and

j) they're quite the most <u>ghastly</u> snobs.

Some sound points Evan,not sure their posted in such a way as to cement the relationship between game and coarse anglers........................ Surely that should be a goal?

Windy,

You mention the abolition ofFox hunting with Hounds, yet this still goes on today, and as big as ever.

You may know better than most on FM, being an Ex Lawyer, but as I understand, the law banning Fox hunting hasn't been passed in full.

Come Boxing Day The Hounds will be out in Force, and without breaking the Law.

A few huntsmen have been to court Ray, those that are out are pretendingto be after a laid scent,......... drag hunting.

<blockquote class=quoteheader>Mark Hewitt (ACA) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

Some sound points Evan, not sure their posted in such a way as to cement the relationship between game and coarse anglers........................ Surely that should be a goal?</blockquote>

I am both a game and coarse angler, with no side either way.

Ignoring our faults and thereby letting them continue without cure is <u>not</u> the way to cement anything. Facing up to our faults and difficulties honestly and directly and dealing with the conflicts of interest which arise is the only way we will achieve the sort of unity and therefore political clout the RSPB manages to demonstrate is a real possibility (fanciful ? you think pigeon fanciers like the Raptor fanciers any more than Roach anglers like Pike ? but they all recognise that cooperation despite their dislike of each other is the best way forward for birds in general).

I really hope this new body is the one to put the first wedge in that door and make it a reality. Nothing is ever perfect, there will surely be bumps along the way, but I think it has a chance.

Go back a year and a half or so and there was a long thread about what a united angling representative body would need to do and would need to be in its formation, constitutional and inter-relation with existing fishing bodies.

I was pretty damned downbeat and cynical about the possibility of any such body getting very far towards the goal of individual memberships, no 'special interest body' block votes, open democratic election of officers and - the thing I thought frankly impossible - the dissolution of all the old competing single interest bodies to bring them into the tent instead of p***ing on it from the outside.

Well blow me if they haven't gone and done it all !. Almost as if some bugger was actually reading the thread and paying attention to what the various contributors were saying !!!! Who knows, maybe they did /forum/smilies/disappointed_smiley.gif

So, money where my mouth was, they get my £20 and best wishes just as soon as it starts up.

I hope that the liaison committee dealing with the Game fishing side of the sport has more tact than me.... tact was never my strong point. Equally that the Game fishing liaison committee has the sense to bear in mind that Game fishing is no more immune to attack in the long term than coarse fishing. If coarse fishing were to be lost they'd be fooling themselves to think that game fishing would last very much longer... say ten to twenty years at the outside is my guess. And ten to twenty years is a fleabite in the context of the rest of eternity with no fishing. Let's not let it happen.

I reckon that as long as there is a hole in my backside,there will never be unity between the game anglers andcoarse anglers.Sure you will get the odd game angler who will try a bit of something else and the same goes for your average coarse type angler (power to them forhaving a go)but no matter how noble the cause is mark,it always has and always will be a them and us thing.

Nick, there need not be unity as long as there is cooperation and mutual understanding. It may be them and us on certain issues and always will be, but on the greater issue, fishing as a sport at all in general, there's not a fag paper between us all.

On that one its up to us show that there is real opposition to the incredibly small minority of ludicrously vociferous opponents who make so much noise about the issues that politicians are disproprtionately swayed.

We may all have our internicine differences, we may not, but keeping angling to the fore as a legitimate and legal sport is vital. Even the snobbiest of the Game lobby is going to have to get used to that one. And if we do then we've got potentially three times as many members as the RSPB's million.... Three million subscribing members a year would pay for one hell of a strong lobbying body.

And that's just for starters. Those sort of funds would make us one hell of a purchasing body too, let's see the next Norfolk Broad or heritage water sold to us anglers and not those who prefer to buy such waters and stop us angling. Then make the buggers pay for the privilege of visiting if not fishing. Oh, and a fiver a pop binocular permit.... /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

I know what your saying windy and i hope to god that "cooperation and mutual understanding" is observed by all parties concearned....it`s what is best for everyone.

Now enough of this banter.....i can`t help but remember talk of a certain stew recipe /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Tony,

I know a few that do drag hunting, as you say some have been to court, but not heard of any of them having any action taken against them.

I have been told this is in the hands of the European Courts, if thats right or wrong I dont know. What i do know is the hunting goes on.

Last years Boxing Day hunt was the Biggest turn out for many, many yeras, this year is said to be the same.

Nick my lad.....

that stew recipe is so secret that even I have to look over my shoulder before posting so dangerously addictive a substance on the internet.

Given recent events I had planned to post it 'in memoriam' on the 19th December at 23.59 hours, giving you 60 seconds within which to cut 'n snip before the secret safely died with FM before propogating further....

But now an extension of sorts pending negotiation appears to be in place I shall have to think again ! You shall have it one way or the other, but there are multimillions depending on whether I can trade it for a certain riverbank chilli risottttto recipe of equivalent mightyness /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif. Armed with both I need never look back.....

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- no point, everyone behind me will be unconscious as a result of the consequential f*rts.... /forum/smilies/sick_smiley.gif

I do my fair share of fly fishing but would'nt consider myself to be.........

"j) they're quite the most <u>ghastly</u> snobs"

However freedom of Evens excellent stew recipe would go along way to uniting the two groups........................................................................................................................../forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

Ray,

I think there have been one or two prosecutions, the first was in Scotland I think.

As you say though, hunting continues to go on and is even growing.

Long may it do so I say.

Conservatives have promised to overturn the law when they get in next time anyway.

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<blockquote class=quoteheader>Tony Rocca wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>As you say though, hunting continues to go on and is even growing.

Long may it do so I say.

Conservatives have promised to overturn the law when they get in next time anyway. </blockquote>

Yeah, Just like Labour promised to kill off "Employers Tax". A "Tax on jobs" they called it and people are perhaps losing their jobs today because Employers are finding one straw too many that will break their backs.

Promises, promises.

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I'd still like to hear why the new AT want to charge so much (£20) and yet want ALL anglers to join.

Woody,

The £20 fee is only for Individual members, it will be far less for clubs.

Club fee's are from £50 to £250, so a club with say 3000 members may have to pay the top rate of £250, that works out at just under 84 pence per member.

So the individual members will be paying the lions share into the funding pot, how the voting will work out remains to be seen.

At £20 will an Individual's vote be worth that of 24 club members?, I doubt it.

Tony,

Yes lets hope the hunting law gets overturned

<blockquote class=quoteheader>Ray Daywalker Clarke wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

Woody,So the individual members will be paying the lions share into the funding pot, how the voting will work out remains to be seen.

At £20 will an Individual's vote be worth that of 24 club members?, I doubt it. </blockquote>

So, if I'm in three clubs who all decide to join at club rates, I'll get three votes?

Possibly.

Who knows Woody, I wonder if the AT do?

Reading through this, my club, Durham City Angling Club,must be an Enigma in the angling world. It has taken almost 30 years to achieve but there is no 'us and them' to be found.

Without game anglers the club would not survive, likewisefor the coarse anglers.We all pay the same to fish the waters, no 'nofishing forgame fish' as exists within some clubs. As far as I am and my club isconcerned we are all ANGLERS.

On the 'a fiver a pop binocular permit' my club also has couple of non fishing 'bird watcher members' I'm not proud, I'll take anyone's money/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gifAND they do work party/bailiffing duties.

As for ghastly snobs, the majority of the 'game' lads who fish the Wear certainly ARE NOT; they're just like thee and me. I've almost convinced my salmon angler 'breast cancer' surgeon of the joys of chub fishing.

Ray,(and Woody)if you give me a proper e-mail address I'll send you the pdf of the AT club/organisation brochure. I have said many times on other FM threads, clubs and organizations will NOT get the same benefits as individual members.

'Conservatives have promised to overturn the law when they get in next time anyway.'

That is becoming increasingly unlikely with each passingday with 'Boy David' and his second besty mate, Boy Georgie Osbourne, at the helm. His bestist best mate is the image in the mirror he sees every morning before he puts on his cycle clips. (kept in the boot of his Lexus)

Also, Inow have the 'Individual' ATmembership pdf if anyone would like it.

e-mail to: john@durhamanglers.co.uk and I'll get one out.

<blockquote class=quoteheader>John H . The Wearyone. C.S.G. wrote (see</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

e-mail to: john@durhamanglers.co.uk and I'll get one out.</blockquote>


John,

Please this is a family site.

I know cubs etc will not get the same benefits, its the voting I was talking about.