River close season

That's right, they're keeping the close season on rivers. Ag minister Elliott Morley told MPs the Govt planned to follow advice of Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Review panel and keep the March 14 - June 16 break.

They've also announced a ?3million fisheries funding boost for the EA from the Year 2003 - and a third of the money has to be spent on coarse fisheries this time, instead of all being spent on salmon conservation.

Glad to see that common sense has prevailed. I was think that the close season should stay on 'wild' waters, but on 'managed' waters I dont think that it is needed.

At last a begining but there is a long way to go yet

personally i think we should go back to a complete shutdown as i know after a long hard fishless season i could do with a break

i think the close season should be completely lifted, paticularly considering that with global warming and the rivers spending more time in flood than ever. This shortens down the season even more, and i personaly dont see what great harm could become of it. The close season in my opinion is an outdated tradition, and should be lifted for the good of the sport.

I partialy agree with Steve, that the close season should be lifted completely.
If only so many anglers wern't so selfish as trying to catch pb's when fish are full with spawn.
The current close season would have to be extended to probably 12 months to be 100% certain of covering all species and weather conditions.
The main thing is to stop anglers fishing for fish in spawn, never mind what time of year (it used to be against the the law to fish for these fish, I don't know if it still is.)
So we must stop anglers especialy name anglers, saying things like I hope its a late spring so the tench wont have spawned and so on and so on.
We all know where the spawning areas of most fish, so anyone fishing these areas when it us obvious the fish are spawning should be castigated, outed or what ever it takes to stop these people (I wont call them anglers).
The angling press could do a lot more than showing fish with larger bellies than me.
The emphisis has got to change on these threads from everyone saying what a wonderful thing keeping the close season,
to promting the points I've raised

Good fishing

Keith

Gentlemen if you go back just a short way into the archives of this forum you will find that there was a prolonged debate on this issue with much thoughtful and erudite discussion from many parties.
It may be worthy of study.....