Barrie Rickards is a reader in Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a curator of the Sedgwick Museum of Geology.
He is President of the Lure Angling Society, Chairman of the Pike Anglers’ Club of Great Britain and President of the National Association of Specialist Anglers.
Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! What a debate!
The word debate actually means that there is a subject with more than one way of looking at it. It would have been rather nice if the close season debate re rivers (the close season debate on stillwaters being now dead) had been conducted in a rational fashion, the pros and cons weighed up and the Fishery review people given either a nod or a shake of the head from the bulk of the angling world. No such luck. The arguments have been personalised, abuse has been thrown, and beneath this morass of ill feeling the truth is slowly submerging.
Can we resurrect it? Possibly not, because MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) may now be close to decision on the Review Committee recommendation (to scrap the closed season on rivers) and MAFF has had its ear bent! If they do decide against the Review Committee it will be rather interesting because that body was set up by government to be a balanced body, to represent a rational view. It will also mean that letter writing campaign of the pro close season lobby has been successful.
Like quite a number of angling writers I do not stand to gain whichever way the decision goes. I myself have a traditionalist viewpoint and I adhere to the old close season (on stillwaters too, I might add) because I want to. There is no commonsense in this decision, merely emotion. I cannot rationalise it because it cannot be rationalised. In my view there is no case to be made for having a close season at all, and I have no objection whatever to anybody fishing in March to June. I choose to fish for Nile perch, to sea fish, and to trout fish. This year I began coarse fishing on 16th June. The stillwater I fished is now open all the year, but its banks were not trampled down and the water had far less hacking of the vegetation than when the season began on 16th June. The growth had, in fact, grown around the anglers’ needs and looked quite natural. In fact it made my own opening rather nice! I did not have to fish on a water that had just had a bad haircut.
I like the offbeat writing of Colin McHardy (McMad as some call him) but we see him trotting out this hoary old story of worn banks, in Coarse Fisherman, for June 2000. As I said in the previous paragraph – it really is a complete nonsense and I do suggest Colin visits a few all-season waters to have a good look at them.
And it is completely irrelevant to the well-being of fish!
In fact, most of the points made in this ‘debate’ are irrelevant to the well-being of the fish or fishery. And yet that, surely, is the only point at issue. Several people have said ‘Look at the reputation anglers will get with the RSPB/RSPCA Conservations (take your pick) if they scrap the closed season on rivers.’ 
Well, pardon me, it is not the anglers who are asking for the close season to be scrapped, it’s the Review Committee and probably the EA! I think it would be better for fish and fisheries if the close season were scrapped, but I have not asked anybody to do this. Nor have most anglers. However, if I believe that fish would benefit from scrapping the close season, what the hell has this got to do with the RSPB? They want anglers off the water, full stop. If conservationists don’t like the scrapping of the close season then it is our duty to educate them, not run for cover with our tails between our legs.
What about this question of personal abuse? I recently took umbrage at the holier-than-thou writings of three writers in Waterlog magazine.
[Here follows an excerpt from what Barrie wrote to Waterlog: “…..it (Barrie’s letter) will be a good deal shorter than the 2m of sanctimonious claptrap written by mssrs Allum, Paxman and Langridge ……. Mr Allum I am not ‘tarnished by greed’; I do not have a ‘total lack of concern for the environment’; nor for the sport’s public image. People who have worked with me on angling matters for 40 years know this. I find your remarks deeply offensive: people with an opposite viewpoint to yours it seems must be not only wrong, but denigrated……If I believe the close season to be wrong then it is equally wrong to pander to an ignorant (and uncaring) public to pretend that it isn’t. Education is the key to all things in the long term……And finally…….you do not have to fish for chub and barbel in April and May Mr Allum. I have my own March to June close season, so I do not see why you should not do so too. So can any club if they think it best, as one of mine does.”]
The three writers contrasted with the Waterlog editor (Jon Ward-Allan) in that although he and I differ on the close season issue we actually have a good debate on it, neither of us feeling it necessary to be abusive. But to hear some pro-close seasoners talk the anti close seasoners are the personification of evil! I have not seen any abusive stuff the other way, by the way, possibly because the pro-close seasoners feel on the defensive, having a weak case not supported by the Review Committee. So they lash out with unhelpful stuff.
One of worst ones I have read is by Mick Woods, who it seems is Chairman of the Barbel Catchers. He had a disgraceful go at Des Taylor because Des has an opposing viewpoint and, like me, can see no rationale at all in a close season. Mick has the gall to imply that Des is against the close season because he (Des) is a professional angler who will financially benefit from the scrapping of the close season. Des Taylor has proved over decades that he has the fish’s welfare first and foremost in his mind, always. He has done, and does now, an enormous amount of work for fish, fisheries and angling, and to suggest some mean-minded motive of him on this issue is very small-minded of Mick Woods (See Coarse Fisherman, Letters, June 2000 for Mick Woods’ remarks).
Mick Woods is not alone however. There have been others slinging mud too – and I genuinely have forgotten his name as I write – went so far as to suggest that if the close season were scrapped you’d get the wrong kind of angler on the banks. Now that’s an interesting remark. It suggests a most astonishing arrogance. It also implies that if the close season were scrapped only for him then that would be okay! It’s the noddies we don’t want on the bank chaps. How low can you sink?
In the same vein, though this time a serious and proper remark, was the comment from Tony Miles that spawning barbel might be subject to bad angling from a certain kind of extremist specimen hunter. This is a valid point I feel, and having thought about it a great deal I reckon that, as always, education and enforcement of codes of conduct is the answer.
I recall, many years ago in East Yorkshire, some ‘anglers’ trying to foul-hook, with big treble hooks, spawning bream. They were reported to the club bailiff and banned for two years.
You cannot penalise the majority for the potential sins of the few. Or, to quote Thomas Jefferson: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”
So let us cease this abuse, and recognise that there are out there many genuine anglers, including this writer, who believe that the close season, whether on still or moving water, serves no useful benefit to fish or fisheries. And there are people who believe the opposite.
What are the relevant points? Well, for starters, the pro-close seasoners would do well to look at other countries, including Ireland, where the absence of a close season has had no deleterious effects on the fish or the fisheries. Even in the UK it is quite clear that in areas which for most of the last century had no close season on stillwaters, the fish and fisheries have not been adversely affected. Some of these stillwaters have had close scientific scrutiny and it has been shown that the cereal groundbaits widely used by anglers actually benefit the fish at a time when they are approaching spawning.
This last point could be important on rivers, for we now know that our river systems are suffering. They are increasingly ‘clear’ but the biodiversity and productivity are decreasing. The reasons are unknown. In this scenario angler’s groundbaits are valuable food supplements at a time when fish really do need them. To withdraw such supplements suddenly may well be detrimental to the fisheries’ welfare.
The actual spawning periods of fish do fall within the 15th March to 16th June, broadly. But from year to year this varies. Pike commonly spawn before 15th March, and tench and carp very commonly after 16th June. Individual shoals may spawn at different times on the same water, and I know one water where the carp spawn up to four times, twice out of season. Spawning areas soon become well-defined, or are easily detected, so any club (or individual) can put them out of bounds temporarily. This is probably the best way of all to protect fish, and far, far better than a broad brush scheme which the old one was.
Most species of coarse fish do not feed during spawning, and for some time before and after spawning (varies with the species). Pike seem to be the more vulnerable in this respect and they may feed hard within an hour of spawning. Bream also feed very well just before spawning, at least on some waters, but their spawning livery is distinctive, and once donned would enable a club to put a temporary closure on the water.
As angling ethics improve – and they have done so dramatically in the last century – I anticipate that peer pressure will stop anglers fishing for ‘unclean’ fish. It already happens: my friends and I in the fens always stop piking when the fish show serious signs of spawning.
All in all I have to say that the close season as it is on rivers serves no purpose that helps fish or fisheries. It would be better if it was scrapped and the clubs allowed to decide for themselves how to deal with spawning fish, if necessary.
Let us end by yet another example of double-speak, the kind of thing we’d like to see out of the debate altogether. One famous angler – I’ll not name him here in the hope that he will come forward and explain himself, was strongly in favour of the old close season on stillwaters. Then he went close season fishing, explaining in an article that he would not have been able to fish that water had he not done so in the close season. Isn’t this hypocrisy? Now I see that he has signed up to the rivers pro-close season lobby. Does that mean he is now about to fish a river in the close season?
Come on, let’s have some straightforwardness on this matter.
What do you think about this debate? Check out the Forum and tell us what you think: The Rivers’ Close Season Debate
