Now let's ban fishing

[Colin Brett]

From the Letters page of the Cambridge News 4th September 2002.

Now let's ban fishing!!

from Teresa Thom

I had the considerable displeasure of witnessing an act of great cruelty on a visit to a popular fishing spot near your offices on Saturday.

A group of people were engaged in a fishing match.

I could not believe that this hideous and grotesquely cruel practise is still permitted under British law.

Now that we are banning hunting with dogsin this country I am sure that we must ban this evil practise as soon as possible.

Please tell your readers that if they ever see this evil practise they are to approach the fishermen and women and tell them to stop.

I shall be returning to your area at the end of the month and looking for people who will support a ban on fishing.

James Street,
London W1

Enough said??????????????????????

Colin

 

[Richard Baker]

What a tw*t!

 

[Kiwi Carper]

fish free forever "secure the right!"

except for a rod licence you do not pay for any fishing in new zealand and nearly everyone fishes in one discipline or another.

 

[Fish Nasty]

Hello, I'm new to your fishing forum. I am hired as a Biologist for the DNR office here in Ohio, U.S. When I read this post it made me smile as we have such idiots here as well. You can all assure such people that fish lack the cerebral lobes needed to have the feeling identified as pain. They have a reaction to stimulus but are unable to identify any stimulus as pain the way humans do. I could go much more in detail but you get the idea. Such people like the one mentioned in your article are simply misinformed. Did I also read that hunting is banned in your country??? If it ever comes to that you can always come here to fish and hunt, we can basically hunt any way we want with any gun we want here in Ohio. Just have to buy a liscense. Take it easy fellow fisherman

 

[john berry]

Did you read this article in The Accrington Observer??? .....If not, then the exact same "readers letter" appeared in it (my local rag). The reader said she was from London and would return to "recruit" anti-fishing protesters in the near future! Silly cow! It is obviously one of those snooty fox hunting persons ...... in which case she is going against her own beliefs .... but thinks we are to stupid to realise this fact!
"Dear Miss 'anti-fishing' - go back to the country and sulk - ALONE!!"

 

[john berry]

Hey Fish Nasty ...welcome ......fox hunting with dogs has been banned in this country(without special licence ..i think)- but i'd rather be shot than ripped to bits with dogs ...know what i mean!
But the likes of "miss anti-fishing" are trying to compare ripping a fox to bits with dogs to catching a fish on a small hook ....and then releasing it - relatively harm free. Indeed it has been proved that the same fish are caught time and time again. Plus in the process of catching one fish, you've probably given a dozen other fish a damn good meal!

 

[Farter McPhee]

I thoroughly agree that fishing is a cruel sport and that is part of its attraction.
It keeps people like me off the streets and away from people like Theresa Thom. What better way for lads to be occupied than out on a fishing trip. Does Theresa prefer them to be mugging grannies? Probably.

 

[Ryan Whalesby]

Wasnt this the letter that was a anti angling campaign sent out to loads of different local papers all over the country, reported in the Anglers Mail a while back.

I remember reading somthing about it.

Is it doing the rounds again.

Can Graham shed any light on it?

 

[James Wright]

I certianly hope fishing will not be banned!

 

[Phil Xuereb]

Ban fishing!? It makes me shudder just thinking about it,I think anti fishing people should concentrate on more serious issues such as child abuse,domestic violence and the like! Cruelty? they don't know the meaning of the word!!

 

[James Wright]

YEAH u're right phil! I totally agree with u on this

 

[Keith Hacking]

3. Angling and shooting next, says Labour MP
Until now, Labour opponents of the proposed hunting ban have been
restrained in their criticism of the Government. No longer, though.
Kate Hoey, the most prominent pro-hunting Labour MP, has written
a startling article for the next issue of the Field magazine,
in which she alleges that the Government is deliberately misleading
the public over the future of shooting and fishing.
Hoey says that Michael's so-called utility test, which determines
whether various forms of hunting are necessary for pest control,
is a precursor to future bans on shooting and fishing: "If the
utility test were to become law, then game shooting and coarse
fishing would be drawn in by the same the criteria. The zealots
who want to ban hunting will waste no time, if they are successful,
in turning their campaign to ban other sports."
The Government, while resolutely failing to address Hoey's specific
claims, none the less makes a manful attempt to pour cold water on
them. "There is nothing in the hunting Bill that has any
implications for shooting and fishing," insists a spokesman for
Mr Michael. "It's mischievous to suggest otherwise."

**************************************************************
from the countryside alliance web site today

 

[Phil Xuereb]

Fox hunting involves the chasing and killing of an animal,hare coursing much the same thing,pheasant shooting consists of birds specifically bred to be released then shot at when paid individuals scare them into the path of waiting hunters,So how can somebody put the catching AND RELEASE of fish using barbless hooks,fish friendly nets,soft unhooking mats,non toxic weights etc in the same catergory? These people obviously do their homework,NOT!

 

[john berry]

Ok then ....... lets ban fishing! Then sit back and watch the fish numbers decline due to lack of food. Then we can watch the decline of birdlife and other waterside dwelling creatures because they aint got enough fish to eat. What a good idea ....NOT! Tossers!

 

[Colin Brett]

Ryan,
If you check the date on my original posting, you may find that it was around that time that Anglers Mail were running the story. As I don't take any of the Angling newspapers I can't confirm an answer to your question.

Colin

 

[Keith Hacking]

I agree. If it wasnt for anglers a lot of rivers and lakes etc.Wouldnt have any fish in them. We are the ones who see and report any pollution etc.As it is in the fishes and other wildlifes well being,That are hobby depends. Anglers do a great deal for conservation.And its positive things like this we shoud be pushing forward to the antis.Not falling out amongst other field sports groups. Who dont forget are just as passionate about there chosen field sport as we are.you might not agree with them but the antis are playing the old divide and concour game.they will find it a lot easier knocking us of one at a time than all together.

 

[Farter McPhee]

Most of the world's suffering is undergone by members of other species.
Humanity often behaves as if our power of speech gives us the moral right to treat all other creatures as though they are mere objects and commodities.
We presently keep hundreds of millions of sentient beings in unimaginably horrifying conditions. We do so for no better reason than to satisfy our culinary tastes. It has aptly been remarked that if animals had a conception of the Devil, he would surely have human form.
Humans deliberately incarcerate and butcher our fellow creatures in a vast state-sanctioned apparatus of concentration and extermination camps of incommunicable horror. In retrospect, our descendants may view them as a defining feature of our age in a way akin to our own conception of the Third Reich.
Analogously, the horror and even existence of the death-camps and factories is usually camouflaged behind a mass of blind euphemism. Fortunately for our peace of mind, we find it hard to properly conceive of what we're being spared. Conditions inside the camps and factories are actually so gruesome that members of the public have to be barred from watching the atrocities, which go on inside them.
For the most part, however, we are willing accomplices in our own ignorance. By our purchases we pay others to commit acts of extreme violence which might otherwise upset our squeamish sensibilities. Ironically, anybody who practices, or connives in, the maltreatment of a helpless and undeveloped infant of our own species is likely to be demonised and reviled. Ordinary decent people will find it inconceivable how such an inhuman monster could cause such suffering to the young, innocent and helpless. So (s)he will be prosecuted and locked up.
What we are doing in the death factories is so vile that a few lines of text can scarcely even hint at the atrocities.
Nevertheless, we are so passive to the notion of exploiting and killing other sentient beings to satisfy our palates that many people will find the starkness of expression of these paragraphs somehow sensationalistic; or perhaps emotive, as if the reality of such suffering could properly be otherwise.
Caring abut the plight of the non-human victims of our actions is not a case of sentimental 'bunny-hugging' or child-like anthropomorphism. Neither is it a matter of caring more about animals than humans; nor even, as is sometimes suggested with all appearance of seriousness, outright misanthropy. 'Tender-minded' people who worry about the torture of non-humans are on balance temperamentally more rather than less inclined to act in an effort to minimise human suffering too. Such contrasts and false antithesis are in any case unhelpful. Simply in abstaining from eating meat, for instance, one can still spend just as much time campaigning for exclusively human causes as one did as a practising carnivore.
The Dairy Industry
Over the last 30 years, dairy farming has become increasingly intensive: the number of cows in dairy herds has dropped from about 3.2 million to 2.7 million and yet their yield has increased from a national average of 3,000 litres a year in 1960 to now well over 5,000 litres.

 

[GrahamM]

Does all that mean you don't like fishing?

 

[Keith Hacking]

did i touch a nerve then.cant please everyone.we all hold strongly to our own opinions and beliefs.

 

[Farter McPhee]

Graham Marsden has completely missed the point. I love fishing, in fact I will be spending a few days on the Dee next week fishing for spring salmon on a very expensive and exclusive beat. Not for me sitting under a brolly by a polluted canal catching gudgeon in a competition for some tin-pot prize in the company of 100 other losers!