Angling Trust: Close Season

Following on from the following post on a locked thread

"How do you justify your stance on the Close season re the BS party line when you are also a member of Angling Unity who's board member Mike Heylin appears in this weeks Angling Times calling for the abolishment of the Close season and stating the Angling Trust would work towards those ends ? "

I can confirm that I have heard from Mike Heylin and Mark Lloyd.

The above,as expected, it is complete rubbish, and anintentional misreading of the piece in the Angling Times

Well there you go Fred: I blame Greg /forum/smilies/i_dont_know_smiley.gif.

But really it just shows how they can seem to get away with publishing lies, but the best of it all Fred: Just how many of theAngling Times readers will beleave what is writting ?

The Angling Trust must therefore come out and make a public statement and clear up any misunderstandings. This is one issue that requires absolutely no ambiguity.

I haven't read the Angling Times but it seems that it's credentials are sliding.

To be fair to the Angling Times, somebodyhaving a poke at me,put amisleadingslant on apiece in that paper.

Still Greg's fault though./forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Actually, not my fault, but the intentional misreading of my piece. Mike definitely wasn't calling for the closed season to be abolished, just commenting on the implications of the Marine Bill as he personally saw it.

I wrote:

And AT can reveal that once the new Marine Bill is passed later this year then the Environment Agency may have no choice but to review the current river closed season.

That’s the view of a number of experienced fisheries experts, including Birmingham AA secretary John Williams and Angling Trust board member Mike Heylin.

Under the new laws the EA will have the power to radically change the length and timing of closed seasons, meaning that fishing trials on select river venues through March, April, May and June could be a distinct possibility.

Such trials, if properly controlled and scientifically assessed, would prove once and for all whether year-round angling pressure adversely affected fish and other riverside flora and fauna.

It was the opinion of both John and Mike that the EA's (forthcoming) new powers will make it increasingly difficult for theAgency to resist calls for the science to be done, and it can't be done without trials. The EA's Adrian Taylor essentially admitted as much in a later quote in that same story:

“We have never felt that spending rod licence payers’ money on scientific research into the impact of angling during the current closed season was justified,” explained EA fisheries policy manager Adrian Taylor.

“Let’s first of all get the new legislation in place. If the Marine Bill is passed then we’ll have more opportunity and options available to us to do some science if enough anglers want us to,” he added.

It couldn't really be plainer than that. All I am leaning towards in that story is the recommendations of the experts involvedSalmon and Freshwater Fisheries Review (the process that led to the current draft of the Marine Bill going through Parliament at the moment), ie that we do the science.

Admittedly, Mike didn't say that with his Angling Trust hat on and it definitely wasn't an official AT stance. However, I can't describe him as SAA secretary any morebecause that organisation no longer exists. (Any ideas Mike?)

So it wasn't a lie, it's just that some peopleare too illiterate and stupid to understand plain English. I would argue that, far from AT's credentials sliding, we are trying to write as factually as possible about the things that most affect the sport.

But then you lot always seem to need to have someone or something to slag off. I guess the best-selling angling publication in the UK is an easy target..../forum/smilies/i_dont_know_smiley.gif

I sincerely hope that if these trials do take place then they are made on all rivers at the same time. Otherwise it could result in excessive pressure on some stretches. If the trials were done on a universal basis then personally I wouldn't have much of a problem with them as the results may prove interesting. But if the trials were done on selective rivers only I think it would be very detrimental to the river they were held on.

Either that, or you Greg!/forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

Anyway, you 've actually written what I wanted to say inyour last but one para, but I dare not , in case it was taken as a statement on behalf of......well you know who, or I was bullying somebody!/forum/smilies/dont_tell_anyone_smiley.gif

Correspondence received by the way,indicated much the same ./forum/smilies/thinking_smiley.gif

That is a very good point Dave. Such trials aren't inevitable though. The Agency will probably try to resist anything that costs themmoney. It would definitelytake a lot of anglers to influence them. Having said that Birmingham is a big club and Isincerely doubt they'll be the only ones calling for scientific investigation.

Any sample stretch would have to be fairly sizeable and on one of our bigger rivers. Trialswould alsohave tobe conductedover a long period of time in orderto get an accurate picture of the impact of year-roundangling onfish stocks.But I doubtthe EAwould agree to a widespread sample, if they agreed to trials at all.

I just find it amazing that everyone gets so riled and that a hack like myself gets vilified for calling for something that was recommended at the end of a lengthy public consultation involving a wide selection of angling interests/organisations. The recommendation to do the science is in an easily accessible public document published by Defra (then MAFF). The review process was begun a decade or so ago. Yet everyone starts behaving as though I've mugged an OAP!

Is there anyone out there who really believes year-round angling on riversis going to have a more detrimental effect on fishstocks than the worse effects of global warming (the main reason the EA needs flexibility around closed seasons), pollution and flood defence work? Why is it that everyone completely loses their perspective when the closed season gets mentioned? Wierd.

Thanks Fred. I'm relieved to hear that I haven't alreadyburnt bridges with the AT's top brass (I'd hope it would take me a bitlonger than two months!/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif). The closed season is going to be a total minefiled for the ATboard as it is without anglers believing the Trustis calling for an end to it! I suspect it's a subject they will avoid like the plague!

If the EA get the go ahead to change the closed season, to lets say different time's, etc, they could just as well make the close season longer.

As I have always said, you will have to open all rivers to get a true outlook, there is no way a trial on say the Trent, could prove anything other than for that water.

I don't see how the AT can avoid this issue, but Greg is right, they will want to for as long as they can, or until, our if, the marine bill gets past.

You can only open (all) rivers, if the owner of the fishing rights on both banks agrees to.

<blockquote class=quoteheader>Fred Bonney wrote (see)
</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

You can only open (all) rivers, if the owner of the fishing rights on both banks agrees to.</blockquote>

Why?

At the moment, on bank owner could insist on barbless hooks and the other on barbed. The same fish swim side to side, what difference would it make?

OK, an angler could sit on one bank and cast to the other, but that would just be tough on the guys who had the licence to the other bank. Otherwise, makes no difference.

To any breeding areas and the fish it might, but you couldn't stop one owner doing one thing and the opposite owner something else. As is the case now where, during hot weather, one owner might suspend fishing in July and the other just carries on.

So, just asking what logic you apply to that, Fred?

Well Jeff,couldn't it beargued that fishing the opposite bank, in otherwords over the half way line, was fishing without permission?

Just thinking of an excuse for the EA!/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

OK, but fishing up to the half way line and everyone will be happy then.

/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Fish up to half way??, I have never least a water and found that you can only fish half way. When you lease a River you lease the bankside to fish from, not the river to fish half way.

If the club or whoever do not want to fish the river during the close season, (thats if there were trials) then that is up to them, why should the other club worry, they have paid their money for the lease.

When I used to fish the Sheep Hills section on the Swale the club controlling the opposite bank (one of the Bradford clubs I believe) were forever going on about half way, half way. I remember one day when a demented bailiff spent half his day running upand down shouting about only fishing half way. The section is not very deep but he (fortunately) found a deep pool to slip into, that dampened his enthusiasm.

Are you sure Ray?

Ray, legal precedent has already been set I believe.

If you lease only one bank, then to be casting into the water beyond half way across the river is to be trespassing on someone else's fishing rights. The case I know of concerned salmon fishing, so the defence might have more weight because the price of the fishery and the fish is much higher. This came about because the salmon ran along a deep run along one bank, and the landowner was concerned that the day ticket fishery opposite was reducing the value of his fishery.

I dont think any coarse disputes have gone to court yet, would be interesting though.

I have had the argument on the bank when some clown turned up opposite me and started to cast into 'my water'.

My understanding is, that if you own the riverbank you own halfthe width ofthe river bed.

That depends. Grey areas. Different places have different rules and lawyers will advise people differently - it's often down to how the laws are interpreted. There are no hard-and-fast rules unless a legal precedent has been set for that particular stretch of that particular river - which usually has only ever been challenged or established on game fishing stretches, because litigation is very expensive. Fishing from boats brings this to light very quickly. When boat fishing a river, neither bank 'rights-owner' has any automatic right to stop someone fishing from a boat as long as he doesn't moor the boat nor anchor it, nor let his end tackle touch the bottom (so spinning, & float fishing off bottom are presumably okay). This is because, unlike the land, the river water itself cannot be owned. Unless it is /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif (but the fish can be!). Law is not always a cast-in-stone thing. It can be interpreted diffferently and it can be challenged. To establish the 'rights' (and wrongs) of an issue like this in a court of law would be an extremely expensive exercise that few people could afford to pursue or defend and a ruling on one stretch of say, the Test would not automatically apply to say, the Thames.

No wonder lawyers make so much money. Let's hope the AT doesn't waste it's members money on such trivialities when far more important issues are at stake.