Booklet advising against culling pike

Fishery managers across the UK are being urged to think twice before culling pike.

Five hundred of them are being sent a booklet called Pike In Your Waters, which sets out the scientific case against culls.

The report was compiled by the Pike Anglers Club, which has campaigned to preserve the pike and pike fishing for 30 years.

It explains the vital role pike play in a vibrant, balanced fishery and why all culls usually achieve is an explosion of small pike and an even bigger problem.

Copies are being sent to every member of NAFAC – the National Association of Fisheries and Angling Consultatives – with their Winter Newsletter, which also features an article on pike conservation.

The club stepped up its campaign after details of a number of pike culls emerged.

‘We’re sorry to find that even in this day and age pike are still being killed because they are a convenient scapegoat, ‘ A Person said.

‘We’re hoping fishery managers will read the booklet, weigh up the evidence for themselves and think twice before culling.’

The PAC is meeting with Hadlow College, the Kent Fisheries Consultative and the Environment Agency to seek a more positive outcome for the River Darent, where a cull was carried out this season.

The action has won the backing of the Specialist Anglers Alliance (SAA) and NAFAC.

SAA secretary Michael Heylin said: “SAA and PAC have worked together for many years to protect pike in our waters. The natural balance of waters is disturbed by man’s intervention, generally to the detriment of ecological balance.

‘There is little point in all of us working towards stopping the illegal removal of fish from rivers when fishery managers themselves take short sighted views on predator populations and the results are then widely published on websites.”

NAFAC executive chairman Martin Read said: ‘Fisheries management activities are difficult to carry out in isolation, particularly on river systems.

‘Hopefully a dialogue between all the interested will go a long way to achieve a better understanding and outcome in future.’

Copies of Pike In Your Waters can be downloaded for free from the PAC website. Just go to www.pacgb.com and click on publications.

Record Year for PAC Events

Predator anglers won’t be forgetting 2007 in a hurry.

For as well as the 30th anniversary of the Pike Anglers Club and a record-breaking convention, it was the PAC’s most successful year ever for catches on its events.

Two 30lbs fish – topped by a 39lbs 8oz monster – and more than 35 twenties were caught by members on fish-ins arranged by the club.

Event’s organiser Mark Skinner said: ‘Members told us they enjoyed events so we’ve done our best to put on more of them.

‘We can’t guarantee the fish, of course, but it’s been an exceptional year for us, in which an awful lot of members have caught new PBs.

‘Many more have enjoyed the chance to fish some special waters, renew aquaintances and forge new friendships with pike anglers from all over.’

Those catching new PBs included Lyn Baker, whose 39lbs 8oz Lake of Menteith pike is the biggest ever caught by a female angler.

PAC events also upped PBs for Dave Ross, with a 30lbs 2oz, Jack Culpin, 28lbs, and disabled angler Darren Bragg, 18lbs 8oz.

Thirty-six twenties and well over 100 doubles were also caught.

Next year, the club has even more events on offer and any member of the PAC can apply to fish them.

For more information on events and the work of the club, go to www.pacgb.com.

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