Anglers Say Poll

Anglers Say are asking:

'Are carp dominated commercial fisheries good for the sport?'

Nip over to 'Anglers Say' and vote and then come back here and tell us why you voted the way you did.

What a stupid range of options to that question. I had to answer -

"I don't have an opinion" because I disagreed with the other two options. I don't think too many of them would be good for the sport and I don't they in principal that they are bad for the sport.

I think they have a place, but that's not a view reflected in their range of opinions.

Poor site, who runs it? I registered, but the ISP of the Email address I provided is shut down today so I can't get any further now without a password which they presumably send you. It's not very clear and not very organised as far as I can see. 2 out of 10 is all I'll give it.

the sites a good idea but i agree with Jay its a bit limited as yet . Maybe it will improve with age.I agree with the majority of the "pundits" the influx of youth coming into our sport is mostly due to the lean towards carp.The silver fish are still in these fisheries and as i often say what comes around goes around.

I hope that the results are not going to be given to the Governmeny as representative of anglers. 1200 odd votes on a very dubious river close season poll is hardly representative and why are the questions so strange.For example what possible research can be done and by whom into whether we should have close season on rivers.Why should the opinions of 1200 people affect how 1(?) million rod licence payers money is spent. At least Martin Salter put this subject to bed once and hopefully for all.Sorry to be so negative but it just goes to show how anyone can take up the mantle of anglers which has been anglings problem for many years.

Never visited the site after the fist poll. I’m always suspicious about small groups of people who set themselves up and try to talk for the majority of anglers.
Smacks of sour grapes to me.

I think that anyone on this website knows my opinion.

Carp dominated waters are very bad for the sport indeed.

Anglers should want to catch natural species that are of this land. Not overgrown imported goldfish that in time will be the demise of angling in this country.

Let's for goodness sake get back to natural waters!!

Carp dominated waters allways seem to cause problems, to be fair mixed fisheries would be better.

Now I know Ron's not being entirely serious there. I appreciate you would like to see a return to other species, but it just isn;t going to happen on some waters. Especially if they are plagued with cormorants, you would be mad to stock with anything less than 5-10lb carp.

And if some people want to catch them who is anyone to dictate what they can and can't do?

I didn't answer the question because whoever framed the question limited the answers to a degree that rendered any statistics gained from the questiuon irrelevant.

Either they did so because they were ignorant or they did so because they wanted to influence the outcome of the survey.

Brings to mind Mark Twain's famous declaration, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics"

Any statistic coming from a site that cariies out research in such a slap-dash fashion is worth zip and should be treated with utter contempt.

That public funding is supporting the site and that the results might be used for anything at all is worrying.

Perhaps the SAA/NAA/CA/NFA/JCB/RSJ or whoever are supposed to be representing anglers this week ought to refer such a obvious waste of public funds to the National Audit Office.

I think Mr Nellist has just saved me a lot of typing, that just about sums it up for me too.

Crap survey - but I voted yes. So long as there are other types of water, and the fish are in good health, then I thing they promote the sport. My son loves them, but I know one day he will go onto "better" things.

Absolutely right, Stuart. It's difficult to keep youngsters interested unless there's regular action. When they've got the bug, they can move on to better/more traditional venues/styles.

At this point in time I don't have a problem with the site or the poles, OK so I'm siting on the fence, but sometimes I realy don't have a fixed opinion and I do change my mind from time to time.

I got this reply when I asked the validity of the poll and what use would be made of the results.
'Thank you for your considered question as to the value of the latest polling question on www.anglerssay.com
The purpose of the initial question on any of our polls is to elicit a quantative response from anglers as regard to their views on a specific statement. This is traditionally, why such a question is set as a positive (should stay) rather than a negative (should go). Therefore, the purpose of our surveys such as our initial polls is to set a baseline from which to build a qualitative questionnaire.
When we have completed this type of survey the result will be enshrined into an Executive Summary. This summary will indicate the result by number of the vote and the age and geographical spread of the contributors. see previous report
I would hope that we will be asked by, in this case, the Environment Agency to produce some qualitative data from our initial poll which may mean that we would question a smaller sub-section of the initial vote in greater detail to establish their views.
If you wish to take part in more detailed questionnaires you will find this link on the members homepage.
Thank you for your input and I look forward to sending you the Executive Summary on our 'Live Bait Poll' toward the end of February.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any further questions relating to www.anglerssay.com
kind regards.'

My reaction to this is that the E.A./Government will not or have no desire to conduct polls of their own.In this day and age when we are all accountable in public office the E.A.need to be able to say 'we asked anglers and did this that or the other because this is what we were told they wanted,it must be true, we have these poll results'.
There is no way every angler could be polled , too many people too expensive.
Make no mistake Bob Clark is not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Like Bob Wooster (MORI)he hopes to make a living from polling us.I am not against that so I intend to make absoloutley sure that I answer the poll questions as I do not wish to sit here moaning when the E.A makes a decision that I could have influenced.
I do not like the questions I have seen so far , some are plainly set to generate interest in the site,but they will only get better if we make enough noise. I do not think this idea is going away,there is money in it.

There is a way for the EA to get a representative view from anglers now. It calls for anglers to be members of clubs and to go to meeting nights and make certain that the Committee of the club are carrying out the wishes of their members.

Then those clubs should be members of the local fisheries consultatives to which fishery officers should be invited to their meetings to hear these views expressed. Then, when Mr Clark wants to know how anglers feel on specific topic, he need go no further than his own fishery officers.

Well, that's the theory at least, but it never works out that way because anglers don't go to meetings. We now have John Sutton (EA Fisheries and Biodiversity Manager for the Thames Area) coming to our association meetings and he listens and knows how we feel.

"Anglers should want to catch natural species that are of this land. Not overgrown imported goldfish that in time will be the demise of angling in this country."

so you're for getting rid of rainbow trout too ron.

Oooooohhhhh Jason, you've caught a tiger by the tail there right enough. Ron would never have thought of that one!