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Foam, gnash, froth, go cross-eyed etc

Kill them!




I beat Hugo to it sweet!
 
Hi men ,

Paul, for someone who throws a hissy fit when people dont agree with your point of view on this subject , keep saying that you will not post on the subject when it gets heated , why ???:D.

Hatter
 
Hi men ,

Paul ,ever thought of ever posting anything positive , perhaps to help fellow anglers you seem to like to bait up?

How about a few words on bait , tackle , even participate in river reports ?.

hatter
 
You are so miserable and ungracious in anything like debating defeat, aren't you? I post a lot about tackle and tactics when I feel it relevant and unlikely to cause trouble - only yesterday advising people on about centrepins and tarts tarts on another forum. I was pretty free with barbel fishing advice on the old BFW, and we saw what that generated and where that got us, didn't we?
 
Hi men ,

Debating defeat , you ****ing drama queen . Its not for winning or losing , its for people to put their point of view , look at others views , then debate the subject . From that you can form your own opinions , and thoughts on a subject . This is how you can change your views , by looking at others more informed knowledge .

If you think you have to come on here to "win " a debate , then you need to get out more , not sitting down behind a screen googling / linking things .

Hatter
 
Paul Boote said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/12043150

Comments by ElRaffles and Paul6611, the latter not myself.
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I did enjoy this response to the usual misinformed nonsense about otters returning to rivers because they have supposedly been released from captivity

Utter rubbish! Where is this giant, shadowy, state-owned otter factory-reproduction unit, so well funded that it can release numerous otters at multiple locations throughout the UK?
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always a good question...unfortunately we wouldn't want reality to get in the way of the urban myths about otters being released all over the place by animal rights people would we?
 
Paul Boote said:
You are so miserable and ungracious in anything like debating defeat, aren't you? I post a lot about tackle and tactics when I feel it relevant and unlikely to cause trouble - only yesterday advising people on about centrepins and tarts tarts on another forum. I was pretty free with barbel fishing advice on the old BFW, and we saw what that generated and where that got us, didn't we?
Click to expand...

I'm also miserable and ungracious, but then so are you Paul, most definitely so are you!

You talk of "defeat" but defeat of who or what?

Personally I'd be more than happy about the return of otters to our rivers if it really meant they're in a better state than 10, 20 or 30 years earlier but in the case of the whole Thames valley, they are not!!
Sorry that's not quite true, in Oxfordshire the river Ock has been improved, even if the Thames, Thame, Cherwell, Windrush and Evenlode have all deteriorated...........etc......
I'm not talking just a fall in fish stocks either, no a collapse of biodiversity as a whole; water voles and white clawed crayfish all but gone, mayfly hatches are a shadow of yesteryear, all bottom dwelling invertebrates in serious decline.

So who is winning, because it certainly isn't biodiversity or anyone who cares about the environment as a whole..
 
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Colin Gordon said:
I'm also miserable and ungracious, but then so are you Paul, most definitely so are you!

You talk of "defeat" but defeat of who or what?

Personally I'd be more than happy about the return of otters to our rivers if it really meant they're in a better state than 10, 20 or 30 years earlier but in the case of the whole Thames valley, they are not!!
Sorry that's not quite true, in Oxfordshire the river Ock has been improved, even if the Thames, Thame, Cherwell, Windrush and Evenlode have all deteriorated...........etc......
I'm not talking just a fall in fish stocks either, no a collapse of biodiversity as a whole; water voles and white clawed crayfish all but gone, mayfly hatches are a shadow of yesteryear, all bottom dwelling invertebrates in serious decline.

So who is winning, because it certainly isn't biodiversity or anyone who cares about the environment as a whole..
Click to expand...



I look to defeat nobody in debate, whether in Angling or in life - I have long walked away from any sort of unnecessary nonsense, leaving the grabbers, the graspers, the truth-lite loud boys and the plain downright dangerous and seriously confused to sound off and to run with whatever they want to run with until they're rumbled by everyone else and are seen for what they are, which they always are eventually - but I have, nevertheless, gone strong on the otter matter in recent years, for I knew from the outset (and I believe that events have proved me right) that a few selfish, name anglers and the politicking, sales- and power-hungry papers in which they appear demanding the culling of otters and claiming at the same time that they speak for all of Angling would backfire on Angling and its many and varied participants catastrophically, would be a public relations disaster that we as Anglers would never be able to make go away, to disclaim or to live down, put us right up (or down) there with kitten and puppy starvers and torturers, in the public's eyes. So I nailed the Otter Rotters.

That's all.
 
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Egos aside, culling of inland cormorants and dealing with the american signal crayfish might get more support in the public domain, yet I noticed on the cormorant watch petition how relatively few had actually bothered to sign it. We do have some power so let's use it rather than argue or claim higher ground.
 
Pete Marshall said:
I did enjoy this response to the usual misinformed nonsense about otters returning to rivers because they have supposedly been released from captivity

always a good question...unfortunately we wouldn't want reality to get in the way of the urban myths about otters being released all over the place by animal rights people would we?
Click to expand...

Whilst I bow to your undoubted superior knowledge of many aspects of riverine ecology etc. Pete, and would not suggest for one moment that reintroduction was the major factor in the return of otters.....are you seriously trying to claim here that it didn't happen?

Cheers, Dave.
 
There were a few legal releases, by wildlife groups in the eighties and nineties. I would have thought that these on the whole failed to survive.

Certainly one of the first releases was in fact by the otter hunters themselves in order to demonstrate this point. At the time, in the seventies, and I see even now according to the BBC the otter hunt was blamed for the decline. These reintroductions failed to achieve anything as the environment couldn't support the otters.

As with any animal that is in decline, you can't solve the problem just by introducing more of them. The solutions were improvements to habitat and removal of pesticides, not re introductions by well meaning publicity seeking groups.

As for the supposed animal rights idiots their fantasy of releasing otters were just that, complete fantasy on their part and anyone who believed them.

Presently a few wildlife groups have re released otters found injured on the roads etc. This makes nice TV on Springwatch or whatever, but again usually results in those animals being killed pretty quickly by the otters who are in residence, unless they kill the resident otters and take there place.

Personally I am happy that Otters have spread back to their rightful place as part of the UK countryside and would not want to see their habitat destroyed or the reintroduction of pesticides which caused their decline.

This is a little like the mass release year after year into the Severn and the Wye of salmon parr. This has had little or no impact on the number of Salmon returning to spawn as the problems for Salmon survival do not lay in the number of fry being produced, but the numbers able to actually return.

In my view re stocking, be it with fish or mammals is only of value once the environment is correct for the survival of the species in decline. With otters they fortunately were not entirely wiped out despite mans best efforts. Once the environment was corrected they recovered. It has been done with otters and it can be done with Salmon, Roach and the other fish species presently threatened by environmental decline.

I would point out that some of the reports in the press I have seen on this have only featured anglers in a negative light as being against otters. Anglers should, in my opinion at least, be publicly welcoming the return of the otter but at the same time pointing out strongly that this is in no way an indication that our rivers are somehow now all healthy. The governments own figures, produced by the EA as part of the water directive show that nearly all our rivers fall well short of even basic environmental standards. I would agree with Paul here that the obsession of a small group of celebrity anglers with otters is causing harm to the image of anglers as guardians of the river environment.
 
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There is also a lot of escaped and settled mink about. Certainly on the Kennet and Loddon... less 'tarka factor' for sure. I saw a Little Egret at Throop about a month ago. They eat fish too but what a sight! We both quietly watched a noisy bloke chuck in 3kg of pellets into a shallow gravelly run; the Egret from above and me from the other bank where I was before he arrived.

He kept walking about and standing over where the bait was going with his arms on his hips like, demanding fish appear to be caught. He blanked, I blanked, the Egret blanked. But I'd rather the Egret had caught than he had for sure and I didn't mind... it was a nice day to be there and all the better for seeing the bird and the worse for seeing the idiot.
 
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