Good News From The North East

[Rob Brownfield]

It is great that the river is indeed improving, but you must cull those pesky Salmon and Trout. Before you know it, your ticket prices will be ?30 a day and you will only be allowed to fly fish. All pike will be slaughtered and chub, roach and dace slung up the bank to die! Is this just me, or could it happen? Unfortuantly i am surronded by game rivers, and this is the scenario here.

Obviously I am joking about killing the game fish, but watch your backs!

 

[Davy North]

I'm sorry to say it's already started, a local club has already changed its rules to allow pike to be killed. The reason stated was to protect the lower river stocks from "damage". However the club is very game orientated and the truth came out that they're worried about pike taking salmom smolts on their way back down river. A to the point letter was sent to the club, and their last meeting was addressed by the EA's chief fisheries officer for the Tees (who is very pro-coarse). After a word in his ear he put them right about the role of pike. I hope they take note.
I just wish some people could accept these improvements as the good thing they are. I'm not a game fisherman but I'm delighted to see the return of salmon.

 

[sam oddy]

Rob

You're right about coarse fish being thrown up the bank. Thanks to these far seeing louts (I still can't call them anglers) I lost a well loved dog some 5 years ago.

The dog in question found a discarded chub in a hot mid May and took a bite before we could stop him. He died at the vet's some 3 days later through bottulism(spelling?)which is an horrendous infection that attacks the brain.

If you follow the FM email list you will notice that I regularly have a rant about N Cumbrian game anglers for the way the local river is tied up apart from the a*** end of the year, the impositions placed on coarse anglers generally - no ground bait, loose feed etc. Add to that the loss of a great la'al dog and perhaps my position becomes a bit clearer. End of another rant.

 

[Rob Brownfield]

Davy and Sam...I have this problem daily in Aberdeen. Although neither the Dee or the Don support a big head of coarse fish (Dee, Pike, maybe Perch, Don, Pike gudgeon, possibly bleak) I still find the odd pike cut in half laying on the bank. I also got into trouble for returning a Salmon!!!! So I left all the clubs I was a memeber with.

I have a local Loch that has a KILL ALL PIKE policy, which, of course, I ignore, although a 35 pounder was killed 3 years ago by some local pratt!.

The Tay system is getting better, grayling and roach fishing in the winter is no problem really, and there are monster pike in there, but I can wobble deadbaits etc as this is an illegal method. Its funny having a Salmon smash into a Jitterbig on the surface though...hehe

As time marches on, perhaps game anglers will realise the damage they are doing to angling (killing everything) and to the countryside (shooting seals, trapping otters, herons etc) as this all goes on in NE Scotland!! I remember seeing a group of people surronding a dying seal in the estury of the Don. When I got there, it was apparent that it had been shot in the side with a rifle. It must have been one of the gillies further upstream. I was fumming and so were the walkers. I tried to explain why a Gillie would do this, but, like me, they were very upset.

Did u know that pike will eat alllll the trout and salmon in a river?? Thats why they have co-exhisted for tens of thousands of years!!!!...Bloody ill-informed plonkers.
(sorry, not all game anglers think this way)

 

[Davy North]

After all my moaning that the North East doesn't get any national publicity, the AT (25/4/01) have just run a large article on Andy Burden a very successful specialist from Sunderland. Well that's shut me up. So I don't get the chance to say this very often but well done Angling Times.
The bit about Bernard Venables was nice too.