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- Feb 23, 2005
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Oooh I could go on and on about this but tbh the close season is ridiculous. If the intention is to give the system a break that can hardly be achieved by simply putting down a coarse rod and picking up a fly rod. If anything with the amount of walking the banks and wading involved with fly fishing I would suggest that it is the most ecological damaging branch of angling we have.
I won't even go into the ecological damage work party's do at a very sensitive time of the year.
The argument for spawning fish is so shot full of holes it is not worth repeating, What is worth mentioning however is the fact that spring does not happen in one big bang all across the country. This is obvious to anyone who travels from north to south or vice versa simply by looking at the colour of the hedges. It is generally reckoned that spring travels from south to north at walking speed, so the first green shoots will not appear in the hedges in John O Groats for three months after they show in Lands end. The brighter ones among you will have already worked out what that means for spawning times which it is suggested are controlled by temperature and light levels.
The other reason for reversing this ridiculous law is the fact that the only people who ever bother with it are the law abiding amongst us. I know of plenty of people who are dusting down their 'eel fishing' tackle as we speak, many of them have no qualms whatsoever of fishing for anything which swims with any bait they please, some are not even aware there is a close season, assuming it was abolished ten years ago when it was scrapped on the still waters, or that you need a licence to fish (don't get me started on that).
At least if the genuine law abiding types were allowed onto the river the poachers would have to look a bit further than the car park swims for their sport.
The fusty old traditionalists often cite the fact that we have always had a close season as a reason for keeping it,. Even if this were true which it is not (it was only brought into effect with the Mundella act of 1878) it is not a reason for retaining it. In the intervening 130 odd years we have gone from fishing primarily for the pot where everything was taken to a system of catch and release where everything is returned. The reasons for it's inception are long gone and if anything it is now counter productive to its original reason for being. Remember, when this law hit the statute books we still had child labour.
Another benefit from scrapping it would be the removal of the last minute desperate rush to catch something in the dying days of the season and the undignified stampede which accompanies the start of the new season, which in my experience has always been a disappointment as most of the fish are busy spawning.
I won't even go into the ecological damage work party's do at a very sensitive time of the year.
The argument for spawning fish is so shot full of holes it is not worth repeating, What is worth mentioning however is the fact that spring does not happen in one big bang all across the country. This is obvious to anyone who travels from north to south or vice versa simply by looking at the colour of the hedges. It is generally reckoned that spring travels from south to north at walking speed, so the first green shoots will not appear in the hedges in John O Groats for three months after they show in Lands end. The brighter ones among you will have already worked out what that means for spawning times which it is suggested are controlled by temperature and light levels.
The other reason for reversing this ridiculous law is the fact that the only people who ever bother with it are the law abiding amongst us. I know of plenty of people who are dusting down their 'eel fishing' tackle as we speak, many of them have no qualms whatsoever of fishing for anything which swims with any bait they please, some are not even aware there is a close season, assuming it was abolished ten years ago when it was scrapped on the still waters, or that you need a licence to fish (don't get me started on that).
At least if the genuine law abiding types were allowed onto the river the poachers would have to look a bit further than the car park swims for their sport.
The fusty old traditionalists often cite the fact that we have always had a close season as a reason for keeping it,. Even if this were true which it is not (it was only brought into effect with the Mundella act of 1878) it is not a reason for retaining it. In the intervening 130 odd years we have gone from fishing primarily for the pot where everything was taken to a system of catch and release where everything is returned. The reasons for it's inception are long gone and if anything it is now counter productive to its original reason for being. Remember, when this law hit the statute books we still had child labour.
Another benefit from scrapping it would be the removal of the last minute desperate rush to catch something in the dying days of the season and the undignified stampede which accompanies the start of the new season, which in my experience has always been a disappointment as most of the fish are busy spawning.
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