Barrie Rickards’ Angling – April 06

Professor Barrie Rickards is President of the Specialist Anglers Association (SAA) and President of the Lure Angling Society (LAS), 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.

Plans to establish the Burbot in the UK

I WAS INTRIGUED to read of plans to establish the burbot in the UK. In the 1960s I tried quite hard to trap burbot, and failed and it may well be that they had already gone extinct even though one was reported in the 1950s (and an unconfirmed report in the 1970s).

Early in the 1950s I saw one myself, a fish caught in the Yorkshire Derwent near Cottingwith, as they were occasionally. According to one ex-fisheries officer, now consultant, Ian Welby, “with the eel we left it twenty years too late to realise there was a problem….” Quite. The point is who left it twenty years? It was, in fact, the Environment Agency’s predecessors, because they were warned by serious and experienced anglers.

I can remember serious discussions taking place with professional eel fishermen and the supposed protectors of our aquatic environment, and the discussions came to nothing because, in my view, not enough pressure was put on commercial fishers to curb their activities. Too many of them simply seemed keen on extracting all the eels from a section of river and then moving on. Let me give you an actual example.

On one river where I advise the owner, we were approached by some eel anglers for permission to trap eels. We agreed provided they stopped trapping the moment the catch rate started to fall. The catches were considerable and the eelers were pleased, but after three nights (with 300m of fyke nets out) the catch rate dropped significantly so we stopped the activities. They were then the opposite of pleased I can tell you. They wanted to continue until the catch rate became commercially non-viable: in other words when there was practically nothing left. I’m not saying all eel fishermen were like this, but far too many were. And the Water Authorities connived in this in that to restrict the activities would mean a loss of licence income. Now we have a situation where eels are in serious decline in many waters and a good food supply for others and some other predators does not now exist. I realise, of course, that eels have also had health problems – but the damage to stocks was done long before that happened. Nowadays bodies such as the Specialist Anglers’ Association (SAA) keep an effective eye on all commercial fish catches, freshwater and sea.

Why don’t more specialist anglers support the SAA?

Talking of the SAA, I have just mentioned one of the good jobs they do, but there are many more positive things they get up to, to help anglers. So why don’t more people support them? The clubs are very good, as you might imagine, and they get good support from ECHO, the Carp Society, PAC, and others too, but a bigger individual support would give it much more clout, and at £ 10 a year it can hardly be called expensive. Yet when Mick Brown and I gave a pro-SAA spiel at a recent gathering of around 80 anglers, we couldn’t raise a single individual member! Angling gets exactly what it deserves, no more and no less. But it is tiring at times, I can tell you!

Masterclass in (lack of) angling ‘cruelty’

Keith Arthur in Angling Times and on his TV show ‘Tight Lines’ (and radio) gets a fair panning from time to time, but his recent piece on angling ‘cruelty’ or, rather, the lack of it, was a bit of a masterpiece. It was in his Angling Times 7th February column, and it’s well worth cutting out and using to help angling from time to time. I suggest anglers cut it out and keep it – or, failing that, write to me and I’ll send you a Xerox copy.

Pike rig to avoid dropped runs?

I saw a piece recently about a pike expert on the River Swale in Yorkshire who has devised a rig to avoid dropped runs. It involves a large single in the bait and a free-swinging treble above it. I’m sure this works, but I’m far from sure about his reason for using it.

He is quoted as saying “one of the biggest problems I’ve found with standard pike rigs is that having the hooks embedded in the deadbait reduces the effect of the strike.”

Well it doesn’t Brian Stott, so you must be doing something wrong. And what has this got to do with dropped runs? These are extremely rare in my experience, and usually caused by very small pike. I can’t explain why he’s “hardly had a dropped pick-up” on the new rig, because I wouldn’t expect many on a standard snap tackle. Is there really a problem here? Maybe Brian can be invited to write it up for us, because all I have seen is a very brief report.

That Fishing Test

The recent debate on a fishing test for would-be licence holders is interesting isn’t it? But if some of the questions waved in front of us in one journal are anything to go by the written test could be a waste of time. All sorts of questions arise – apart from the ones on any question paper that is – such as who sets the questions? Who judges them? Who is going to manage a test for millions of anglers? Who will pay for it (The cost of the licence?). What about beginners, who can now fish with help from their friends? Fish handling by many is not as good as it could be – but it never has been and yet fisheries have improved whilst anglers have been in control. Some of the bodies involved in fish handling, such as some fisheries staff in the Environment Agency, handle fish far too badly as far as I am concerned. Who is going to train them? My early thoughts are that this is a non-runner really. Angling Clubs and associations can sort this sort of thing out, and experienced individuals too. A formal test will just be jobs for the usual boys, and a sledgehammer approach to what may not be a serious problem considered nationally.

Pike of the year on Pollack

I noticed that one of the biggest pike of the year was caught on a tail end of Pollack deadbait and that this was regarded as unusual. It may be, but I can tell you from my own experiences that Pollack works well and I have had a considerable number of good pike on small, whole Pollack and tail end pieces – even, once, on a chunk of Pollack. And yet I have never done much good with a similar fish, namely cod (despite prebaiting with them) and I’ve only had a few pike on another similar fish, the coalfish. Another deadbait worth exploring, although they are usually rather small, is the anchovy. Last year I got some anchovies as big as sprats, and they worked quite well. I got the feeling that the pike really liked them.

Independent Poll

It seems the Independent poll on angling produced a 99% result in favour of angling. It may be that anglers acted after having their attention drawn to the poll – I certainly acted after the SAA, through Mike Heylin, alerted us. So whilst one could get over optimistic in viewing such a result, it is at least positive that anglers have acted and voted. They do not normally act for angling. And one would hardly expect the Independent to be pro-angling. I guess they were hoping for a more sensational negative poll result – indeed, their reaction to the result tends to confirm that. The poll may not have picked up the enemy – but they are out there, believe me.

Bird Flu

The angling bodies such as NAFAC and SAA have been alerting anglers to the nature of the bird flu scare in as much as it may affect anglers, angling, and the fisheries. And they had done a good job. Would that that were true of DEFRA!

When a pigeon dropped dead in strange circumstances close to a pond of mine I rang the emergency bird flu number at DEFRA. Guess what? It’s out of action from midday on Fridays until 10 a.m. on Mondays! It takes some believing that they do not expect bird flu to strike in the UK over the weekend. OK, you say, why didn’t I ring the police? I did. I rang the desk officer at the Cambridge City Police HQ on the Sunday, just after the bird death. He told me to put it in the family deep freeze! I suggested that the evidence deep freeze at the police station was the best place, surely. His reply – and this is an exact quote – “That’s not going to happen.” In other words “I’m not going near a dead bird.” So, if you find a dead bird when you are fishing, my advice is not to see it at all. Imagine it ain’t there, and go far away from it. Or, if you like, ring the DEFRA helpline.

Water shortage in the south

You may have seen in the national presses and TV the plan to introduce metering to the water-lacking south of England. On the face of it this seems like good sense, but in some ways it is not. For example, the very idea of households having to be metered carries the clear implications that householders are responsible for water shortages. But they are not. The people responsible for water shortages in general in the UK – and this is exacerbated during drought conditions – are the bodies responsible for water drainage and capture, currently the Environment Agency (but before that body the various predecessors including the Water Authorities). Of course, you can see why they want to introduce metering: it will save some water; but more importantly, it will hep to hide the inadequacies of the authorities who are supposed to be managing the country’s water resources.