The Alternative Angler

Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can.

In all the excitement of Xmas and the New Year, you may not have noticed EEC regulation 443/04-7a (Generic Nomenclature with Specific Reference to the Marking of Goods and Services) slipping onto the statute books as of Jan 01 2004. So what? you say. Well the point is that we now have to call a ‘spade a spade’ and specifically name things for what they are, and not what they might do.

For example, do you call yourself a Carp, Barbel, Chub, Tench, Pike, Roach, Bream, Trout Salmon, Cod or Conger Angler? Not any more you can’t. What happens if you blank? You have then made a false declaration and leave yourself open to prosecution. Same thing applies if you go fishing for Tench and catch a Carp, false declaration.

Right, you say, we will beat those snail eating, garlic perfumed bureaucrats and get round this by just calling ourselves ‘Anglers’ or ‘Fishermen’ Except that if you blank, those generic terms have implied you are going equipped to catch fish. If you don’t catch you have falsely labelled yourself, and therefore rendered yourself liable to prosecution….

Speaking of labels, the EA are in the early stages of consultation with the various interested bodies over their latest idea to issue a lifetime rod license at a heavily discounted rate. The only stipulation to obtaining this bargain is that you have your licence number encrypted into a barcode and this will then be tattooed onto the back of your neck. This will allow the officials to just laser scan you as they pass and will save you having to get up to rummage through your pockets, tackle box, run back to the car, left it at home scenario that usually ensues after a ‘visit’ by the enforcers.

Back to names; the tackle industry is in for a right old shake up. No mention of any specific species, venues or ‘names’ will be allowed. So using a ‘John Wilson Avon Barbel Quiver’ would probably land the owner in the High Court, unless it really was being used by someone actually called John Wilson, and he was fishing on one of the many Avons, and he was playing a Barbel at the time of the alleged offence. If he wasn’t actually catching a fish, but all the other points were correct, he might still be in breach of the regulations if the top of his rod wasn’t all a ‘Quiver’ as it says on the label.

As for other items of tackle, the banned list is almost endless.

Anything labelled as ‘Carp’ bait, ‘Carp’ bed, ‘Carp’ barrow, ‘Carp’ sack etc, etc, are all out the window straight away.

‘Pike’ floats – not a chance. (Although Pike do float belly up if they have expired..).

‘Trout’ rod, of course not.

‘Salmon’ reel, not likely.

‘Bream’ groundbait, don’t think so.

‘Avon’ float, can’t be used on the Ouse or Thames or Severn.

The names given to some poles will require a whole enforcement department to themselves, I fear. ‘Grim Reaper, ‘Zoo Creature’ and others of that ilk will have great difficulty in justifying the use of those names to the members of the committee.

And what of the ‘Jurassic’ poles, are they really 70 million years old? Or are the makers drawing a tenuous link to a time past when the material the poles were made of was ‘laid down’. But that was surely the Carboniferous period, (Paleontologists amongst our readers – please discuss) so yet again a wrongly named product

As for sea fishing, ‘Mackerel’ spinners, ‘Cod’ and ‘Conger’ hooks, ‘Flattie’ spoons, even ‘Crab’ hand lines will all have to be cleared off the shelves for re-labelling. My old ‘Moonraker’ rod certainly wasn’t anywhere near long enough to reach the Moon, nor did it have some form of forked tine arrangement on the end to enable it to perform any sort of scarifying action.

Charter boats with names such as ‘Bass Catcher’ will be have to be straight into the paint shop for obliteration of markings on prow and stern.

Droves of Fishery owners will be on the phone to signwriters and stationery suppliers to get name boards and letterheads changed pronto to comply. Some of the more imaginatively named premises could be up on several breaches if they’re not careful. The owner of ‘Sunny View Carp Paradise’ will probably be facing a ten stretch in Parkhurst for such a flagrant bunch of deliberately false and misleading descriptions. The corrected nomenclature for this property would be: “Pleasingly positioned estate with south facing aspect, generally enjoying clement weather, encompassing angling facilities that may contain cyprinids, and the usage of these facilities has been warmly enjoyed and favourably commented on by previous visitors and sworn testimonials to this fact are available for inspection”.

Going to be one hell of a size business card, and lets hope the fishery is far enough away from the road to be able get all the wording of the sign in. Welsh train stations will be but a distant memory in the ‘Longest Names’ section of the Guinness Book of Records!

All a bit over the top? Judging by the way some of this legislation goes, correct labelling may be even worse than this in the not too distant future. A recent visit to a hotel bathroom had stickers telling guests that ‘The hot tap contains hot water’ (I bloody hope so, don’t like washing in cold water!) and that the heated towel rail ‘May become hot with use’ Still haven’t worked that one out. How do you ‘use’ a towel rail to make it become hot, some form of rubbing action to produce friction, perhaps? Answers on a postcard to…