| PROFESSOR BARRIE RICKARDS | |
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 reader in Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a curator of the Sedgwick Museum of Geology. |
THE GOVERNMENT’S ATTITUDE TO ANGLING
So the truth is out at last about this government’s attitude to angling. In an article in ‘Field’ magazine, the ex-sport’s Minister Kate Hoey, a proven friend of angling, alleges that “the government is deliberately misleading the public over the future of shooting and fishing.” (Daily Telegraph, Sat Jan 19th 03). She refers to posed pictures of Alun Michael (Minister for Rural Affairs) shooting, and others fishing, saying “These images were part of a carefully crafted campaign to convince the public that the sports of shooting and angling will be safe under Labour”.
Now why should a carefully crafted campaign be necessary? It is because the government has a ‘utility test’ on the hunting bill which means that hunting has to prove it is necessary for pest control. Now shooting and fishing cannot pass this utility test, and thus both are opened up to anti-shooting people and anti-fishing people as soon as they have got rid of hunting (if they get rid of hunting).
Why the government has excluded any economic or social arguments, alongside its so-called utility factor, is best known to itself. But it is interesting that they have failed to answer Kate Hoey’s remarks directly. They have studiously ignored them. Why? I have no doubt that there are several pro-angling Labour politicians (Lord Mason for one) but there are also considerable numbers opposed to angling who are quite simply keeping quiet until hunting has gone. When it has gone, if it goes, then they will open up the attack on coarse fishing (first).
Alun Michael’s office, although declining to answer Kate Hoey’s charges, did say “There is nothing in the hunting Bill that has any implications for shooting and fishing. It’s mischievous to suggest otherwise.” As we have seen, there is something hidden in the woodwork. And no person of Hoey’s stature would make such remarks if there was nothing to hide. Finally on this, I see that the Telegraph’s leader of Jan 26 supports Kate Hoey’s remarks, pointing out that Mr. Blair needs his Labour Party support rather desperately at the moment, so Alun Michael has had to toe the line on the Hunting Bill to appease Labour back benchers. In consequence shooting and angling have been exposed to danger and will continue to be so. As I have said often, angling is not an island, isolated from other interests. Support a ban on one country sport and you expose the rest to the clowns. I see a report in Jan 29th’s Angler’s Mail still claims angling is safe, on account of some word changes in the Hunting Bill! I do not believe it, despite MP Martin Salter’s apparent enthusiasm: for a start the new phraseology has not been approved yet, like the rest of the bill in fact. And on Jan 28th a letter appeared from the so-called League Against Cruel Sports which made it quite clear that angling is far from safe given all the red herrings raised by the Hunting Bill.
I’ve just read a report asking you to pick up dropped bait that lands on the bank rather than the water. Why? I have always made a point of leaving bait on the bank – bread, sweetcorn, etc, as a meal for the birds and small mammals, especially in winter – and the report was issued in winter. Birds and other creatures welcome an addition to their diet. In fact, when anglers stop fishing the rivers in March each year I’ll bet a lot of creatures go short of a useful crumb or two – including those fish which also welcome a boost as they approach spawning. I don’t feel quite the same about unused deadbaits, feeling disinclined to leave them for the gulls. And nor can I understand pikers who leave unwanted deadbaits in the shallows. Why not throw them into deeper water where the pike will grow fat on them, get used to your baits at the same time – and avoid feeding those damned shitehawks!
PIKING
My midweek fishing trips last winter always seemed to coincide with dreadful weather or adverse weather changes so I have struggled a bit. My bait trip was during the severe gales at the end of January. I had to sit on the brolly pole and hang on with both hands realising that if I got a run on one of my deadbaits I’d have to brave the rain, put the brolly down – and that’s what happened, but fortunately the heavy rain stopped just as the pike took! That was 20lbs and the only bite of the day. It happens so often that the only bite of the day is a big fish, it really makes one wonder about big fish having a different routine to lesser specimens. And it’s interesting too that after just over a year without a twenty pound pike I get three in three trips, and only one of them under ‘nice’ conditions. Like a lot of anglers I’ve slowly realised that a big lead is a help – and not just in piking. Long gone are the days when, because of the influence of Richard Walker, we daren’t use more than a couple of swan shots for weights. Two of my three winter twenty pounders came under strong flow, strong colour conditions. One fell to kipper, a good bait in any circumstances, but maybe especially good in coloured water – the pong of it must reach the estuary!
Talking about hanging on to brolly poles let me mention a real aversion I have: brollies where the pole hinges so that you can angle the brolly itself and / or the pole. They only work in calm conditions. A lusty fart is enough to set them spinning. I reckon they are more or less useless, and certainly prone to snapping at the hinge. Furthermore, if you use the pole in the straight position, with the hinge supposedly locked up, it constantly works loose and hence the whole brolly becomes a liability in the wind. As a lot of my fenland fishing is done in strong winds I’ll give them a miss in the future. And the ones I have I’m converting to rigid poles.
