Barrie Rickards’ Angling

Professor Barrie Rickards is President of the Lure Angling Society, and President of the National Association of Specialist Anglers as well as a very experienced and successful specialist angler with a considerable tally of big fish to his credit.

He is author of several fishing books, including the classic work ‘Fishing For Big Pike’, co-authored with the late Ray Webb and only recently his first novel, ‘Fishers On The Green Roads’ was published. He has been an angling writer in newspapers and magazines for nigh on four decades. Barrie takes a keen interest in angling politics.

Away from angling Barrie is a Professor in Palaeontology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a curator of the Sedgwick Museum of Geology.

Unprofessional and amateurish, says Martin Salter
The first thing I want to talk about cropped up some weeks ago, but I wanted to let it lie fallow for a while to see if others responded. It’s that man Martin Salter MP again. Recently, he described the angling organising bodies as unprofessional and amateurish. Well, they are certainly that, as hardly anyone is paid. By definition therefore….. Of course, he was being rude, not factual. He was trying, as I understand him, to explain Sport England’s decision to put angling into a second league as far as fund support was concerned (Sport England would rather support failed sports like soccer, rather than internationally successful ones like angling).

But hang on a minute, is Martin claiming that the authorities running soccer are better organised? Really? Ask the England soccer team. Almost all the chosen 20 sports (which will receive 80% of the available funding) are no better organised than angling. And angling is a very diverse sport unlike some of the twenty; badminton, canoeing, gymnastics, judo and swimming, for example. The 20 sports were chosen it seems after assessing participation figures and importance to the public. I should have thought angling was important to around 4 million or so. All this is hogwash of course. Bodies of all nature always come up with half-baked or non-reasons for beating the hell out of angling. It doesn’t matter if it’s the BBC, the RSPB, or Sport England. There’s always a cake, and they’ll never let angling have a slice of it. In the end we’ll have to take it.

The subject will not go away I’m afraid. The January 14th issue of Angler’s Mail gave a review of the various leading bodies in angling – supposedly running angling – and their relationships to one another. They also reported that the National Federation of Anglers (NFA) was possibly pulling out of the National Angling Alliance (NAA) – at least, there’s a proposal from John Wright of the eastern region of the NFA that they do so. I know John a little and have been very impressed with his go-ahead style within the NFA (I used to attend the Eastern Region NF meetings regularly until I was kicked out for some reason: criticising one of the officers I shouldn’t wonder). But this time John is off the mark. We have almost everyone in angling pleading for unity, and John trying to pull things apart. For a start he considers that angling only has three governing bodies the NFA, the NF(Sea)A, and the Salmon and Trout Association. He belittles what he calls smaller organisations such as the Specialist Anglers’ Association (SAA) despite the enormous input to angling of the latter in recent decades.

Well, let’s try to put things in perspective. The NFA does not represent all match anglers or ‘pleasure’ anglers by a long chalk, and its membership is in trouble as well we know. The NFSA does not represent all sea anglers by any criterion used. The S&TA is better at representing game anglers but even here it could not claim to be fully representative. None of the angling bodes, small or large, represent a large proportion of their potential constituents. This is because all these bodies are run by enthusiastic amateurs, often very skilful and knowledgeable, BUT, the ordinary Joe Soap is not required, by any kind of rule, to belong (unlike, say, karate). So he doesn’t bother: let others do the work, why not.

The NAA has most of the serious angling bodies involved, including the trade and the association of angling consultatives. Some may be smaller than others, but that will always be the case in any kind of federation. And does it matter anyway. The main thing is that they all put angling as a whole first, and pull together. The NAA did show signs of doing so, and amongst angling organisations must be considered to at least have a reasonable spread and coverage of the sport of angling. (I don’t recall a big game component, but possibly they are part of the NFSA?). There is a whole host of issues that such a body could formulate procedures and protocols on: e.g. bass, shark, cod, eels, licences, etc, etc, and we would know that the NAA had the experts on board to tackle the issues.

Another body we hear a lot about is the Moran Committee. The NAA works with the Moran Committee and the latter seeks to guide other organisations about the needs of angling and fisheries. But if the NAA was fully functional, would we need the Moran Committee? Or ask the question another way: if the Moran truly looked after the interests of all anglers, why would we need an NAA? What we don’t need is the NFA constantly threatening to pull the rug out from under everybody else. Of course, if they did so, they might just have shot themselves in the foot – or worse.

And then there’s the Joint Angling Governing Bodies. As the Anglers’ Mail implied last week, it is hardly surprising that people are confused. The JAGB seems to comprise fewer organisations than the NAA and is, therefore, (as I indicated earlier) not as representative of anglers.

And finally (I think) we have the angling component of the Countryside Alliance run by Bob James and Charles Jardine. Now, I have not always been overly impressed with the public utterances of these two in times of minor crisis, but the C.A. is in there fighting, with a slightly different stance from some of the other bodies and it cannot, or should not, be ignored – whether or not you agree with all it does. It is part of a complex equation that is angling.

There is one other matter, which, for diplomatic reasons, is often ignored. This is the ego trip that many of these angling stalwarts are involved in. Every meeting I go to I see little hope of progress because official A in organisation 1, spends half his time slagging off official B in organisation 2. There is so much of it going on as they all jostle for position that it really is pathetic. What is put on the back burner by these people is angling and its future. Given the experience and expertise within angling administration at the moment it ought not to be impossible to put together an over-arching body of officials representing the whole of angling. These officials should change office regularly so that everyone could have a go, and new people and ideas should come through. Each person who has done one stint can then go back to swim in his own little pond, be that the NFA or whatever. Can you see these people putting angling before themselves? I cant.

Now we hear that there is, in fact, a new body in the offing! Another one! Will it do what I ask for above? Will egos be placated or held in abeyance for a while? I hope so, but I doubt it. Is this ‘new’ body to be the ACA – certainly this is being mooted in some quarters. I can see that going down like a lead balloon with the NFA. Now, I am not 100% happy with the ACA, even though I’m a life member, but should be involved, as a body, with angling administration. And, if it has the clout and resources to run angling, well fine by me. I used to say the same thing about the NFA, but all it wants to do from time to time is pick up its bat and go home. A little maturity is needed as much as a brain or two!

It may be that a new body entirely is being mooted. If so, it should be fully inclusive, not exclusive. And given all the simmering bad temper around, it might help if new people were involved and some power given to the body. Are we expecting, perhaps, the resurrection of the National Anglers’ Council? Please God, no! I can see the ghost of Peter Tombleson as I sit here!