The Angling Trust? Are you In or Out?

[theartist]

I've said it a hundred times before but the only way is to have all our compulsory licence fee going to a body that solely caters for angler's interests, be it the AT, Fish legal or a new organsiation. I know that's not likely to happen but as it stands the EA is not solely focused on angling and is not even close to doing so.

 

[Molehill]

Interesting read and points of view, I'm not a member but will come at this from a different perspective, that of someone with other interests but who cannot support everyone. So a few observations and questions.
Let's take BASC, 150,000 members at £82 a time (there are concessions to that, I'm an OAP so slightly less). How would AT fare if it increased the membership fee by £50 pa, would members leave in droves - I guess probably yes? So why do shooters pay so much more to protect their sport, because they realise it is under threat and attack from many sources and they need a strong political lobby, they are prepared to pay for this. They also have the Countryside Alliance and Game and Wildlife Trust (on scientific research) fighting their cause.
Angling is not there yet, they just muddle on thinking nothing will happen and maybe it won't? Anglers are not being attacked in the media on a daily basis with celebrities dangling dead swans caught in fishing line demanding bans and heaven knows what restrictions - this concentrates the mind more than percieved environmental issues that 95% of anglers neither see nor understand. If the fishing is rubbish in the rivers, go to a commercial for a day.
So I fork out my BASC membership each year, I hardly ever shoot now but that is how strongly I feel about it, wife sends some money to Countryside Alliance (which also have a fishery section) and she is a big supporter of moth and butterfly conservation as heavily into moth recording and about to start some butterfly recording for the local RSPB. I had many years of ACA, S&TA membership but pockets are only so deep and there are plenty of anglers to take up the slack.
Only when angling faces direct threats to the sport from the public do I think anglers will come together and pay up. We have to remember that angling is first and foremost a field sport so slightly different from other conservation bodies such as the butterflies, birds, badgers, mammals which all involve sitting and watching rather than catching or killing.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

I've said it a hundred times before but the only way is to have all our compulsory licence fee going to a body that solely caters for angler's interests, be it the AT, Fish legal or a new organsiation. I know that's not likely to happen but as it stands the EA is not solely focused on angling and is not even close to doing so.

That has been mooted many times in the past Rob but has been found to be not a legal approach. The licence fee is there for direct government sponsored actions.

The Trust already receive a portion of the licence fee in the guise of this "contract" that was linked to several KPI's for the Trust to work on, and only by that way did they get around the law.

In reality this was more along the lines of a grant, and I'd challenge any Trust member to give me a list of 3 other bodies who might have qualified to even get onto the "bidders list, let alone tender the work . . . . .

Remember only the Trust actually "bid" in the firs place . . . .

 

[108831]

It is no good being the only voice,that only whispers sweet nothings and doesn't confront visible issues for angling,why don't the trust organise a poll into what issues anglers think are crucial to the sport...or we could keep paying big rents for paddleboarders to get usage for nothing.....

 

[no-one in particular]

It is no good being the only voice,that only whispers sweet nothings and doesn't confront visible issues for angling,why don't the trust organise a poll into what issues anglers think are crucial to the sport...or we could keep paying big rents for paddleboarders to get usage for nothing.....

Very few anglers are troubled by paddle boarders or canoes, most are on the club lakes, commercials, piers or beaches, it is only river anglers that get troubled by them and there are not many of them and only at certain points of rivers. I have only been bothered in one place I fished last year, on a club stretch but I was the only one fishing there all 3 or 4 times I went. .
I don't think this is the thread to bring this subject up but I am just pointing it out because it is just another subject that the bread and butter angler is not bothered about and wont join the AT because of it even it did do something constructive.

 

[sam vimes]

Chris,if a person takes to the defence of an organisation in such a way it is difficult not to oppose that point of view,especially if you were a member and were disappointed by what obviously was a lacking in service,this is what I believe Peter and I have in common,I fortunately can afford to pay the thirty pounds,but it would foolhardy to give money to an organisation that doesn't give the service you paid for...

It wasn't simply being in opposition to Grayson's position that I was commenting on. I'm hardly an advocate for the AT myself. It was simply that the tone of some of the responses is closer to those that used to be directed at Ron Sturdy. Unlike Ron Sturdy, Grayson isn't a planted AT advocate and is a proper member of the forum.

Just on this thread, you can see a difference in tone in the way that people responded to Grayson compared to the way they responded to John Bailey. Both include the same basic message, one got more stick than the other.

 

[chevin4]

I think that some of the responses to Grayson in particular are unnecessary and disrespectful. Sadly it just illustrates what an disunited bunch we are as anglers. I am a member of the AT and it is unrealistic that everything they achieve will be to my liking. They pushed the Government hard for fishing to be allowed during the last lockdown although it was a sore point for me as travelling was not an option due to my waters either being closed or too far to travel. For those who did get out good luck to you I think it is recognised that fishing is good for the mental health. Jamie Cook has only been in his role a little over a year as John Bailey has alluded to give him a chance and see were we are in a couple of years time. In my opinion he has made a decent start. For those who are vehemently against the AT what do you suggest ? or indeed do you think we need a body to look after our interests.

 

[dorsetsteve]

At 35 I see Angling as something I have a lifetime of work to put into, hopefully, I believe that given enough effort the things that aren’t right can be righted. Whilst I’m not a member of the Trust Currently, purely really because I’ve not until recently seen them do anything, I assumed they existed to exist. So maybe it’s time to join the Trust and if there are areas I don’t agree or follow to pressure those issues.

 

[108831]

If by disrespecting the trust is disrespecting Grayson,I apologise to Grayson,but not to the trust whom I believe to be p!ss poor for anglers,my comments are open to all who laud the trust,but someone has to have an alternative view and on paper the trust looks the bees knees,until you taste the coffee imho,as per usual,that's my own,right or wrong...

 

[rayner]

I said I'm out!' I still am.
Here's where I am with my fishing, and it has always been so.
I buy my licence, I buy my bait and pay any fees that are required. I belong to no clubs or associations.
I fish alone, just as I have done for the last 23 years. I only fish commercials through circumstance, not a favourite place but I have grown to enjoy my fishing again, at least there's no shortage of bites.
I fail to see any worthwhile reason to join the AT, they can do nothing to aid my fishing not that I would accept any help I enjoy my fishing as it is.
They tout themselves as the voice of angling, I don't need a voice thank you very much. I am quite happy sitting in a corner keeping to myself.
OK the AT are self-appointed champions of fishing, I'm pleased for them. Personally, I don't need them. This may sound a little obnoxious I can't help that, stop shaking your head at people who don't want to know and concentrate on those that do.
Disclaimer.
To the AT write this down, if ever I'm in a position to need help stay away I want no assistance from you or your tribe.

 

[no-one in particular]

I am starting a new association up "The Association of U.K. Anglers", that will be the working title for now and when I have got some details sorted out I will publish them. Maybe I have turned into a ranter, I didn't think so but I suppose it is possible, I have been doing it since 2004 (the date is significant) and I have to listen to what is being said.
Maybe time to stop and fill this obvious big gap in what is needed, it is obvious no big change can be instigated by me or anyone else after 17 years, at least no one can accuse me of not trying; but I don't want to give too much away just yet, although I don't want to become the rival of the AT, just fill the big gap they have created. I might be busy for a few days or weeks. I have learned a lot in those 17 years and I think I have learned from all these debates so, now is the time to put it all to a good purpose. So, thank you to everyone who has contributed to my knowledge and understanding of a difficult contentious complicated subject. Anon...

 

[Molehill]

As a non member of the AT, for reasons I have given, I have nothing to say against them and I absolutely believe that angling needs and will need a powerfull organisation representing the sport. The AT is probably the best bet.
But only when there is an actual public threat to angling will it concentrate the minds for more anglers to come together.
For anglers on the Wye the canoes spoil their summer sport, me on the Severn I have the "hates" for gooseanders and cormorants, for others it is otters, chalk streams perhaps abstraction, or pollution, eastuary netting for salmon anglers, dredging threats, the list goes on but nothing threatens every angler.
If Packham or his like we're in the media trying to put stringent restrictions on angling - no more FEB culling licences (only a matter of time), reintroduce close season lasting 5 months, no impaling live worms or maggots on hooks, no unatural stocking of waters, all that sort of negativity; then anglers would want a political voice lobbying hard in parliament and join AT.
Currently all threats to angling are more an inconvenience, just move on and ignore.

 

[108831]

Perhaps the trust ought to offer free wills like other charities for donations after our deaths,might do well with anglere being of a certain age in the main....