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Typical bloody minded canoeist?

The welsh Assembly report, dated june 2010 ,states, "unless a public right of navigation exists, or the owner of the riverbed, and/or owner of the fishing rights where appropriate has given permission, then anyone who travels along the stretch of water is committing a trespass" and "we do not regard the legal position as being, in practice, at all ambiguous or uncertain".
The same report also makes a recommendation that anyone using an unpowered craft on inland waters should have to purchase a licence so that all the users of a river make a fair contribution to its wellbeing.
Sounds like the Welsh have at least got that right!!!!!!
peter
 
Re the title of this topic.... (reaching for the can opener....!)

I have been regularly fishing the Wye for the past 3 seasons...and yes the sheer volume of canoeisit throughout the summer can be a pain for us anglers....

BUT

I have honestly found the vast majority of them to be pleasant and polite, and try their best to avoid where I am fishing (not always possible!)

I usually smile, wave and exchange some sort of pleasantry and almost always get the same in return....

Sure, some canoeists are noisy ...but there again so are some anglers!!!!!

I think perhaps Karma has a hand in our relationship with the canoe fraternity!!!!

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

(I'll get my coat!!!!)
 
I have a similar philosophy to you Stuart. The Trent is a completely different river but we do get our fair share of boats, barges, water ski'ers etc. As I hear them I stand by my rods awaiting them & always wave. Consequently I have not had the misfortune of having to raise my blood pressure too much so far even though some occasionally do come close. I do think that once antagonised both parties will be worse off & so on...
 
The point is chaps , that the Trent and Wye stretches that you fish are navigable stretches, this particular part of the Wensum is strictly private and has no navigation rights attatched to it, so the canoeists have no right to be on there whatsoever.
 
I respectfully think you are missing the point here Graeme, have a look back at my post number 17 regarding "non-navigable".

If it is private and signed as such , the landowner should be encouraged to take action for trespass, it would probably be a very expensive waste of money though and most caoeists associated with clubs are fully aware of this..........

This will never be an easy one and I really, honestly think the only answer is to compromise and have all water users feel they can get on and respect each other, dispute only ever escalates.........
 
Ian Crook said:
I respectfully think you are missing the point here Graeme, have a look back at my post number 17 regarding "non-navigable".

If it is private and signed as such , the landowner should be encouraged to take action for trespass, it would probably be a very expensive waste of money though and most caoeists associated with clubs are fully aware of this..........

This will never be an easy one and I really, honestly think the only answer is to compromise and have all water users feel they can get on and respect each other, dispute only ever escalates.........
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The problem is that alongside the ongoing habitat restoration that is taking place at this spot and elsewhere along the Wensum, there is also some serious fisheries science going on with the EA having installed fish tracking aerials that span the river at various locations where electronically tagged barbel and roach have recently been stocked. Coincidentally these aerials also physically prevent canoeists getting past. Already they have been broken a couple of times at one location, very likely by canoeists, which I believe constitutes as criminal damage. Being a SSSI/SAC river, the Wensum is subject to various laws ascertaining to disturbing or damaging it and the canoeists could possibly find themselves falling fowl of this?
 
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Chris,

I really do sympathise, they are a pain in the aris on any small river..........

Talk to the EA about the possibility of establishing a few "large woody debris" projects where a large tree, 0.5 to 1m in diameter, tree can be felled right across the river and staked into place to create habitat improvement, bottom gouging and flow alteration, this can be done in such a way as to totally prevent canoe access.

If you combine them with barbed wire on the banks to prevent them getting out and carrying the canoe around them??

Weed rakes work well as a FDT acceptable blckage too generally..........
 
Ian Crook said:
Chris,

I really do sympathise, they are a pain in the aris on any small river..........

Talk to the EA about the possibility of establishing a few "large woody debris" projects where a large tree, 0.5 to 1m in diameter, tree can be felled right across the river and staked into place to create habitat improvement, bottom gouging and flow alteration, this can be done in such a way as to totally prevent canoe access.

If you combine them with barbed wire on the banks to prevent them getting out and carrying the canoe around them??

Weed rakes work well as a FDT acceptable blckage too generally..........
Click to expand...

Ian. Your woody debris idea is brilliant!

The Agency and NE have been proposing the idea of increasing woody debris for some time, but in Norfolk, at least, they fallen short of actually doing something about it. In fact we have been gently trimming the rafting trees back for years on our fisheries in order to prevent the EA Flood Defense Team from ripping them out altogether. The idea of strapping a few trees out right across the river is something we have shied away from as the EA will certainly want to want to keep the access open for their weed cutting boat...... But as doing it would put a stop to the weed cutting as well as canoeists, I'm loving the thought of that!
 
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Chris,

If they take off the the smaller branches, etc they should be ok with FDT too.........
 
Chris Turnbull said:
I'll get on the case with it asap!
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I wish you all the luck in the world with this idea of Ian's Chris, if something so beautifully simple as this could actually work, it may just set a precedent and point to at least a temporary way forward....you never know, something like this might just be what we need to galvanize our apathetic selves into doing something at last :D

For what it is worth, my opinion on this is that we must somehow force a stalemate, we need to show the tiny but nastily aggressive minority within the canoeists union that we can be as bloody minded and childish as them, in the hope that it will eventually force the interested parties to the bargaining table, to thrash out something acceptable to all.

It is obviously a fact that we MUST share our rivers with other water users, we do not have some god given right to to keep this amenity to ourselves, much as we might like to. However, it is equally obvious that there are certain small rivers, and certain areas of all rivers, where the passage of water craft, even those the size of a canoe, can do huge damage. I have no doubt that the decent, moderate majority of the canoeists would quite readilly accept certain restrictions if we could demonstrate the need..... provided we could show equal measures of flexibillity on our part.

Surely there must be a way? I refuse to accept that we are not capable of doing this. I just hope that if...no WHEN we do reach the heady hights of the bargaining table (in this or any other important issue come to that), the Angling Trust has sorted itself out and is up to the job of representing us in the skilful manner required. Otherwise, I feel that eventually this thing will be settled for us by the government, via the EA or whatever....and we may not like the result of that at all.

Just my thoughts, and I may be well off course on this....but I felt like saying it anyway :D:D

Cheers, Dave.
 
David Gauntlett said:
we need to show the tiny but nastily aggressive minority within the canoeists union that we can be as bloody minded and childish as them
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Indeed. Or, better, to be above such stuff - and far more savvy.

When I comprehensively demolished in debate one the C.U.'s nominated media-screamers, a man named "Dave", on a flyfishing site several years ago, then, when he turned abusive, made him look desperate and shrill and a lot of people howl with laughter as I did so, he and his pals hit the search engines and tried to do a dirty on "Paul Boote" not merely on the fly site concerned but all over the Internut. What did they dredge up and plaster everywhere?

The online confessions of a notorious, 1980s Manchester gay-scene clubber.

As I posted, by way of response, at the time - http://www.palantir.net/2001/tma1/wav/cantdo.wav

Nasty, anarchic lot.
 
Will, in fact the Angling Trust are aware of and involved in what is going on here!
 
Chris Turnbull said:
Will, in fact the Angling Trust are aware of and involved in what is going on here!
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I know Chris, what I meant was, will they have the skills and determination to fight our case in a winning manner...we can only hope so. I just thought that if we had taken on the thugs in the cannoeists union and beaten them at their own game, thus forcing this to arbitration, we may just shorten the probable years of ignored begging which is the likely outcome when our sole representatives are a body as weak as the AT currently is.

I guess it all depends on whether the AT emerges phoenix like, stronger and wiser, from the inept, mis-managed farce of it's birth :rolleyes:

I truly hope so.

Cheers, Dave.
 
I like the very 'prominent' signs on the banks of the Wensum at Costessey warning canoeists of the cross river wires. Also the wires are at the perfect height above the water to do some serious damage to those who choose to trespass.

All very well the Angling Trust saying what it will do/would do with more funding, it/they seem to be blind to the fact that it/they blew almost £100k (assets of NAFAC/SAA/ACA/NFAS etc...your money, my money) on wages and expenses, the big problem is that 'pot of gold' wont be there in the 2nd financial year. It will need an extra 9000+ new members on top of the current membership numbers just to make the same loss as last year.
 
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Does anybody on here know where to find a copy of the video that started this thread (which has now been removed from YouTube) or the name of the person in the video or any other identifying details? Cheers.
 
Will, I assume that the video features the poster known as Andy Youngs on FishingMagic

Some of his other videos are still up, example here
also posts on canoeing web sites as here
 
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