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Set lines on the Wye

Can I just say that the exaggeration that blows up is incredible,mere snippets of info get exploded on forums.
I am involved with loads of stuff,night and day ,including weekends and we catch plenty of folk,not all Easterns,and we do not just visit Commercials and Ponds.

Just be aware ,we do our best to deal with the problems on the budgets and restraints imposed on us by government,we care,but cannot be everywhere at once.

The problems are nationwide,and clubs must be more pro active to police their own waters .
These are my personal opinions and not the official views of the EA,I am just a humble servant involved with patrolling the waterways.
 
Hi Chris,

I am not 100% certain what you are trying to say here mate. Do you in fact work for the EA, or are you saying you are a club bailiff or something? Also, what are the 'exaggerations' you mention that are blown out of proportion on forums? I can think of many :D....just not sure which ones you are specifically on about.


Cheers, Dave.
 
I would guess that one of the "exaggerations" is the idea that EE's have suddenly created a boom in poaching. From my experience set lines and nettings are lower than the were twenty or thirty years ago on rivers I fish. This is mainly due to the lower number of Salmon in the river rather than anything else.

Organised poaching on the Wye has always been a big business, although it is far less now as selling wild salmon is so much harder. Prosecuting hotels and restaurants who buy salmon from poachers is now a pretty easy thing to do as all legally caught salmon are chipped, so the market has reduced considerably.

Illegal elver netting on the Severn continues, but the EA have caught many and prosecuted.

Setting lines for coarse fish in rivers would seem a pretty desperate thing to bother to do. Little to no market for coarse fish other than Carp and commercially breed carp are available in fish markets for prices that would be cheaper than the cost of petrol and time taken to poach them. Illegally removing them for overstocked stew ponds is another matter entirely and it is up to the owners to take action to prevent theft in these cases.

Illegal taking of coarse fish by some people for there own consumption and illegal fishing without licence or club membership continues as it has always done. The people doing this on rivers are much the same as they where 20 or 30 years ago.

What has changed is the policing of the banks by clubs themselves. 20 or 30 years ago your where far more likely to be challenged by club bailiffs and other members than you are these days. I have only ever been challenged by EA and before them River Authority bailiffs when salmon fishing in the coarse close season and never on the river bank outside of that in 40 years of fishing rivers (I have been challenged on canals and lakes). But 20 or 30 years ago I was regularly challenged by club bailiffs or other members.

The problems of illegal fishing and poaching have always been with us. EE's have become a convenient scapegoat for something that is far more wide spread. The EA are no substitute for self policing on rivers and never will be.

You can read what the Wye Gillies think about all this on their site here
 
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Yes, as I said earlier here, the home-grown poaching product used to be really something (and will be again if the fish return in numbers to certain rivers). I can remember being phoned at home in the early hours one mid-1970s winter by a very successful salmon-angler I knew from the local riverbanks, a man who also poached salmon out of season and who dealed in salmon and sea-trout, buying both legally caught and illegally caught fish then sending them to Billingsgate.

"Get over the to back room of The XXXX XXXXXXXXXX [name of a riverside pub several miles away], Paul, and see the biggest fish you will ever see. One of the boys has just brought it in...".

I did get over to the pub.

60-pound salmon. Fresh-run winter or very early spring fish.
 
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Back in the day, I had a few Glasgow climbing mates who funded their trips to the highlands with the odd Salmon and quite a few sea trout. A gill net across certain rivers would pay for a weeks climbing and drinking and took some of the largest sea trout I have ever seen. The morality of it all was questionable even then, but I tended to side with a load of working class lads against the big landowners who benefited from the salmon and sea trout at the time.

I do see it a little differently these days as the destruction of sea trout and salmon fishing on the West Coast by the Salmon farming industry has thrown a lot of ordinary working people out of work, whilst the rich folks have just moved where they fish. The same has happened on the Wye. The poachers have suffered a loss of income and the gillies, hotels etc seen their businesses go down the pan, whilst the rich salmon anglers just go fishing on the East Coast of Scotland, Norway, Canada etc.

If rivers are in such a state that taking the odd fish for the pot causes such a problem then we must do something about the rivers themselves. Poachers and anglers taking fish are not responsible for the decline in Salmon or for that matter Barbel populations.

I would rather see the EA spending money on defending and improving the river environment from abstraction, inappropriate farming, pollution etc. than spending it on policing the banks.

Perhaps arming all club bailiffs and giving them an 007 type license for dealing with poachers would be a better solution.:D
 
Hi Pete,

I think the differences in the way I may see poaching and the way you view it come about because of the very different types of water we routinely fish. Poaching on the large rivers that used to be prime salmon and sea trout waters may well have gone down, in line with the decline in the salmon and sea trout population of those rivers.

However, there is little similarity between those rivers and small to medium waters running through/near high population urban areas that have not had either of those species present since Noah was a boy (if they ever did) and so have not had a poaching industry based on high value, very saleable species being present in numbers.

In those types of rivers, poaching was always very low key, restricted to the odd local taking 'one for the pot', and it therefore had negligible effect on stocks. Now however, those rivers do have a very real poaching problem. Our club water for instance has suddenly gone from virtually no poachers caught taking fish at all (and it has always been fished 24/7....so it is not just that they weren't being noticed before) to a constant need to eject poachers and would be poachers, day and night. They have been caught with carrier bags of mixed coarse fish of all sizes, set lines, and....well, you get the picture.

Finally...now, how can I put this...those caught or warned off invariably have trouble understanding why they can't continue to do what they do...because their grasp of English is not good enough.

Make of that what you will...but it is a fact.

Cheers, Dave.
 
Each wave of immigrants to Britain brought its culinary preferences and customs, causing outrage in the indigenous community. European Jews in London, for example, got it in the neck in the 19th Century for eating all the eels and virtually anything that still swam the Thames, not to mention needing carp** for their Passover feast...

http://www.pie-and-mash.com/history.shtml

It's going to take a while yet - plus some fines, some education and some slow but sure social integration - before the latest wave twig on to what we Brits are about and that in Rome you do as the Romans do. Till then, we locals will be griping and snarling, as we've always done.


** I remember reading somewhere that barbel were considered an okay substitute if the real thing wasn't available.
 
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I see that you're in Feltham, Middlesex, Jeff, and got to thinking "No, the firm can't still be there ... the one Dad took me to visit as a kid ... where we saw tanks full of live eels ... how were given a live one to take home ... how Mum told us to put it in the bath, refusing to cook the poor thing ... how the following morning Dad drove me and eel in a bucket a short distance to the River Colne to release it...".

Still there - Bradley's http://www.frozenfishdirect.co.uk/buy/eels.html
 
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Paul Boote said:
Each wave of immigrants to Britain brought its culinary preferences and customs, causing outrage in the indigenous community. European Jews in London, for example, got it in the neck in the 19th Century for eating all the eels and virtually anything that still swam the Thames, not to mention needing carp** for their Passover feast...

http://www.pie-and-mash.com/history.shtml

It's going to take a while yet - plus some fines, some education and some slow but sure social integration - before the latest wave twig on to what we Brits are about and that in Rome you do as the Romans do. Till then, we locals will be griping and snarling, as we've always done.


** I remember reading somewhere that barbel were considered an okay substitute if the real thing wasn't available.
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Hi Paul,

I don't doubt the accuracy of what you are saying whatsoever, rarely do, because your facts are invariably spot on. However, I am intrigued as to your motives...the logic behind your unwavering stance of jumping down the throat of anyone daring to even hint at standing up and being counted on issues that affect them.

It appears that anyone complaining about or criticising virtually anything is to you like a red rag to a bull. Consequently, we end up with the bizarre situation
whereby most of your posts consist of you complaining about and criticising others....for complaining about and criticising others :D:D (And I am aware of the unavoidable irony of that statement, so don't bother going there :p)

I think we all understand that a certain amount of tolerance and compassion is required in all things, that a generous helping of understanding is the basis of humanity. However, there are some very real issues out there that do need addressing, yet the merest squeak of dissent amongst the ranks on almost any subject, however justifiable it may be.... seems to result in the same unvarying dose of 'Booteen Bollicking' :D:D...and I am genuinely interested as to why that is so.

Should we REALLY be expected to turn the other cheek EVERY time, no matter the provocation? Do you truly believe that Paul? Or am I missing something here?

Oh yes...nearly forgot..."I remember reading somewhere that barbel were considered an okay substitute if the real thing wasn't available". Well, I remember reading somewhere that the roe of barbel, and possibly the surrounding flesh at that time, is actually poisonous for some reason. Probably not true, but I can't help feeling a mischievous "serves the blighter's right" if it should be so :D:D

Cheers, Dave.
 
David Gauntlett said:
Hi Paul,

I don't doubt the accuracy of what you are saying whatsoever, rarely do, because your facts are invariably spot on. However, I am intrigued as to your motives...the logic behind your unwavering stance of jumping down the throat of anyone daring to even hint at standing up and being counted on issues that affect them.

It appears that anyone complaining about or criticising virtually anything is to you like a red rag to a bull. Consequently, we end up with the bizarre situation
whereby most of your posts consist of you complaining about and criticising others....for complaining about and criticising others :D:D (And I am aware of the unavoidable irony of that statement, so don't bother going there :p)

I think we all understand that a certain amount of tolerance and compassion is required in all things, that a generous helping of understanding is the basis of humanity. However, there are some very real issues out there that do need addressing, yet the merest squeak of dissent amongst the ranks on almost any subject, however justifiable it may be.... seems to result in the same unvarying dose of 'Booteen Bollicking' :D:D...and I am genuinely interested as to why that is so.

Should we REALLY be expected to turn the other cheek EVERY time, no matter the provocation? Do you truly believe that Paul? Or am I missing something here?

Oh yes...nearly forgot..."I remember reading somewhere that barbel were considered an okay substitute if the real thing wasn't available". Well, I remember reading somewhere that the roe of barbel, and possibly the surrounding flesh at that time, is actually poisonous for some reason. Probably not true, but I can't help feeling a mischievous "serves the blighter's right" if it should be so :D:D

Cheers, Dave.
Click to expand...



Jumping down the throat?

Never. Merely offering a historical perspective. Otherwise we can fall prey to the sort of stuff that is parodied in a Steve Bell cartoon this morning...


26.07.11-Steve-Bell-carto-004.jpg
 
Sometimes a picture is better than a thousand words, a far more eloquent answer to those who, for whatever reason, wish to hold The Boote to account.
 
Paul Boote said:
Sometimes a picture is better than a thousand words, a far more eloquent answer to those who, for whatever reason, wish to hold The Boote to account.
Click to expand...

The cartoon is indeed an eloquent answer to the more rabid press monsters out there who are following their own agenda in all of this...but I think you are well aware that those extremists are hardly what I was referring to. Apart from that, the fact that you apparently feel that 'The Boote' is above being held to account is....perhaps a little worrying, don't you think?

Whatever. My original post was not written to start an argument, it was a genuine enquiry (being nosey if you like) as to what it is that drives you fella...hell, I might even find I am totally in agreement with your thoughts if I fully understood what they are :D No matter, perhaps it is more my fault than yours that I don't.

Cheers, Dave.
 
Take a look at this to see what some fisheries officers have to put up with, and I can assure you that the attackers in NI are not "EE's" (very much WE's) or whatever is this months scapegoats; just bog standard poachers trying to make some cash.
 
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Pete Marshall said:
Take a look at this to see what some fisheries officers have to put up with, and I can assure you that the attackers in NI are not "EE's" (very much WE's) or whatever is this months scapegoats; just bog standard poachers trying to make some cash.
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Hi Pete,

I have already explained that I accept that poaching of high value fish such as salmon and sea trout has always...and will always gone on. Where very large amounts of money can be made relatively easily, then there will always be people willing to exploit that source of income. Sadly, in these times of economic hardship I can only see that getting worse....and the risks taken and levels of violence they are prepared to use will go up correspondingly.

However, what I am talking about is the massive increase in the taking of general coarse fish for the pot. Fish like roach, chub, bream, barbel and the like....the sort of fish that have never been popular as table fish to us Brits. These types of fish are now being taken in relatively large numbers for the table, as they always have been in certain European countries.

So, to reiterate...(1) Coarse fish, of a type not particularly favoured as eating fish by Brits, but popular in certain European countries...are suddenly being poached in fairly large numbers. (2) This sudden increase of such fish being stolen has occurred at the same time as the massive influx of EE's to this country. (3) Rivers which have NO high value fish present (such as salmon) and which previously had NO poaching for that very reason....now have quite a serious problem of poaching for the table....which again started at the approximately the same time (4) Virtually all of the poachers now being apprehended or sent packing by local club bailiffs for poaching and retaining coarse fish are peoples from the areas being discussed.

Can you explain all this to me in a way which allows a conclusion to be reached which differs to the obvious one?

Cheers, Dave.
 
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