For months I've been grabbing snatch glimpses at FM and see some great articles, I relish a chance to add anything that may be of any use in what start out to be really sensible debates...only to get to the same old trite.
Here's one, why doesn't FM have any young posters?
Seriously, enough is enough. I've been watching this unfold for long enough to have formed an opinion and I'm sorry but Fred, if you love the ATr so much (as i do) then FFS stop banging on the way you are, i'm not convinced you're that bothered, it's just something you can use as an excuse to wind the others up, taunting until they bite and then claiming total ignorance as to why they are getting back.
It really is embarrassing and has now ended with people who I meet on the bank that ask if I'm an FM member commenting on such ridiculousness.
Just let it go man...or maybe you like being the one that ruins it all.
Now, I just wanted to chip in with some of my own observations, being that I'm only a young to middling fart and have ears to the ground with participation.
There are some brilliant organisations out there that that offer some form of angling activity, usually these are charity based that obtain funding to deliver certain things by tapping into the needs of schools (usually non mainstream) and charitable organisations, or indeed public sector funded groups like young offenders institutes.
Even with various projects I've worked with, I've had the pleasure of introducing over 1000 kids and their families to fishing, much of that through Reading and District, that's just me and a small group of wonderful coaches so expect the national annual number of kids sampling fishing to be in the region of 5-8000
One of my current projects at Thames Waters Walthamstow reservoirs has surpassed my expectations, the numbers wanting to come and fish are amazing and that's 5 minutes from central London, sessions here often incorporate learning about the natural environment and learning about water itself so the wider message about angling is getting out there.
BUT....
That's where it stops.
We're really quite good in the uk now at providing these introductory days but it's the step afterward that I'm stumped on but I'll keep going till I find a solution.
Now, it seems that coming to try fishing is to be logged with a day at the zoo or the beach and maybe a return will occur next year.
It's the next steps, the continual engagement that needs to be created.
I guess I'm not unique in my first outings as a 9 year old fisher, the whole day was spent in the wilderness with pals, within the light of that long summers day, my life changed, I doubt it would've had it only been a 4 hour snapshot.
What more can we do then?
I've investigated the barriers in my region and here are the top 5, these are from the kids and the parents themselves
1. Mum/dad don't want to get up early on saturday morning in order to drop child off.
2. Mum/dad won't let child cycle or walk to the venue because the daily mail reckons there's a perv behind every bush big enough to hide a perv
3. Mum/dad don't want their child out, at least if they are in their room, they know where they are
4. Dad used to take child fishing with him but now leaves him at home so he can enjoy what little free time he gets nowadays (WTF!!)
5. Child used to go fishing (on club waters) but felt a bit uncomfortable when older members used to tell him to move swims, sneer etc.
Some in recent times have chided the fact that we have such stringent health and safety laws now, crb checks etc but there is a reason for this.
For angling to have had a chance in recent years to be even looked at with anything other than a lazy fat mans sport, the ATr and the then Angling development board had to do a few things to bring angling in to line with other mainstream recognized sports, in doing so they had to show complete parity with safeguarding, professional development and of course promoting participation. Like it or not, we have to conform to safeguarding checks and risk assessments and the like, it's as much to keep the coaching individuals safe as it is for the participants
Anyway, the ADB did well and now we have a great number of level one and level two coaches out there who now help to deliver the yearly request from Sport England, which, in my opinion is a good thing, though challenging.
This year for example, sport England want to see more continual participation from anglers aged 25 to 50 (or there abouts) They have obviously looked at recent participation stats and see that in conjunction with what the EA support at a local council and club level (internal funding for that drops year on year) and what the ATr do, the figures for juniors TRYING angling are really quite good, obviously it's easy to see from licence sales that the 50 and over age bracket covers angling very well, so, Sport England are pushing for us to get the 25+ out angling on a regular basis, hopefully just in time for them to really get into it before having kids and champing at the bit to get them going out with them when old enough.
Again though, doing all this usually relies on volunteers and I suppose, I ask, how far can we push the boundaries of what we can physically do?
Hire mini buses and collect and drop off?
One to one (buddy system) full days out?
Quite correctly, a few on here have asked about what the industry is doing about this....not much, apart from the contributors who help support national fishing month through the angling trades association which is minimal...not much at all though some do supply a few groups with the odd bit of tackle.
It amazes me that they are the ones who will feel the decline the greatest but refuse or fail to look at the possible long term solutions to what will ultimately be their end.
As for tackle shops, as far as I'm aware, the only big player doing anything of note is Glasgow Angling center in conjunction with Get Hooked on fishing which is great, we can't expect the smaller shops to do too much in all honesty but most round here will give a bit of dead stock or some maggots to the cause.
Quite telling, recently, at RDAA, we had a break in to the container that holds...or rather held about 2-3k of fishing gear for the juniors, individually, none of it was of any particular worth. Anyway, they took the lot and I announced it on twitter, now, we are followed by a number of big companies and retailers....not one took the opportunity to offer anything in order to keep our sessions going, not even to make a big public cynical gesture in front of thousands of twitter users.
I did however get some private messages from kind hearted individuals, some sponsored anglers who offered some bits of kit.
I think I may have lost the plot at some points through this....it's the cracking roast (and subsequent steam treacle sponge) cooked by Mrs B that's done something to my metabolism.
Anyone interested in helping out in their region but don't know who to ask or how, please feel free to drop me a pm and I'll willingly help.
