Graham Marsden
Editor Emeritus
It's a topic we've covered before in one way or another, but I'd like to open it up again after reading an advert in an international angling magazine (more later).
There's a lot to be said for fish care and conservation, and apart from it being a sop to the antis, etc, etc, most of us take care of fish for no other reason than that we want to.
But no matter what many of us say we want to take care of fish mainly for selfish reasons, ie, so that the fish will be there to catch another day.
In other words, they're an asset.
But don't you think we've started taking things too far? Are we losing sight of the fact that we stick hooks in fish and pull them from the water against their will?
As regular as clockwork we get someone jumping into threads to whinge about tether rigs, keepnets, livebaiting, keeping fish out of the water too long for a photograph, match fishing, commercial fisheries, stillwater barbel......ad nauseum. You can probably think of a hundred more.
I don't know of any other country's anglers who have such a contradictory, oxymoronic, and paradoxical attitude to fishing as we have. On one hand we want to treat fish like warm puppies and on the other hand slate any anti that uses the same comparison. We want to ram cold steel into a fish's mouth and then lay it on a wet cushion as they gasp.
And then return them so that we can do it all over again.
The following are words I've taken from a Mustad advert for hooks, an advert that appeared in the July 2009 issue of the trade magazine 'Angling International'.
SLOW DEATH
New
Slow Death Hooks - it's how the pro's roll
Then follows a description of the hooks and how they work.
Has anyone seen this ad in a UK mag, and do you think you're likely to?
I doubt it.
I'm not saying I approve of the ad; far from it, but it's a damn good example of how far apart we are from the rest of the world.
Of the two, 'our' stance and 'their' stance I'd rather have ours. Ideally though, and as always, there is a middle ground and I think we should start veering off towards it by trying not to knock every mortal thing we read about that can be found in the 'Conservationist's Handbook of Angler's Bad Practices'.
What do you think?
Here's the full page ad:
There's a lot to be said for fish care and conservation, and apart from it being a sop to the antis, etc, etc, most of us take care of fish for no other reason than that we want to.
But no matter what many of us say we want to take care of fish mainly for selfish reasons, ie, so that the fish will be there to catch another day.
In other words, they're an asset.
But don't you think we've started taking things too far? Are we losing sight of the fact that we stick hooks in fish and pull them from the water against their will?
As regular as clockwork we get someone jumping into threads to whinge about tether rigs, keepnets, livebaiting, keeping fish out of the water too long for a photograph, match fishing, commercial fisheries, stillwater barbel......ad nauseum. You can probably think of a hundred more.
I don't know of any other country's anglers who have such a contradictory, oxymoronic, and paradoxical attitude to fishing as we have. On one hand we want to treat fish like warm puppies and on the other hand slate any anti that uses the same comparison. We want to ram cold steel into a fish's mouth and then lay it on a wet cushion as they gasp.
And then return them so that we can do it all over again.
The following are words I've taken from a Mustad advert for hooks, an advert that appeared in the July 2009 issue of the trade magazine 'Angling International'.
SLOW DEATH
New
Slow Death Hooks - it's how the pro's roll
Then follows a description of the hooks and how they work.
Has anyone seen this ad in a UK mag, and do you think you're likely to?
I doubt it.
I'm not saying I approve of the ad; far from it, but it's a damn good example of how far apart we are from the rest of the world.
Of the two, 'our' stance and 'their' stance I'd rather have ours. Ideally though, and as always, there is a middle ground and I think we should start veering off towards it by trying not to knock every mortal thing we read about that can be found in the 'Conservationist's Handbook of Angler's Bad Practices'.
What do you think?
Here's the full page ad: