“Do not go gentle into that good night.”
Well what a few weeks it has been weather wise! Temperatures into low double figures all of a sudden crashed to below zero, followed by snow in varying amounts. Hence the reason for the late appearance of my December diary – I’ve been trying to catch something!
The result? All in all it has been a complete waste of time angling for anything much and not being blessed with the most amenable coldwater feeding species fish here in Fenland, such as grayling or trout (in anything other than tiny pockets here and there), and not huge numbers of chub either – it’s been pike or bust and though I have caught a few they have all been small. Such is the fine line between success and failure. However, if my angling world has been quiet the angling world in general hasn’t!
Probably top of the agenda has been the appearance in the River Severn of ‘Keith’ the seal. This unwanted intruder has made its way up the river in the floods and is now causing carnage amongst the fish population of what is a renowned stretch of the river at Bewdley. Now I consider myself pretty well able to comment on this situation because it’s a far from rare event in my part of the world. I would think there is anything up to ten seals swimming about the fen waterways at the moment; in fact on YouTube one was spotted entering Fen Drayton lakes! We have also seen just what happens with every scenario now being touted about as a solution and make no bones about it there is only one solution and I’m afraid it’s not good news for Keith!
Anyone who has seen a common seal up close and personal would be excused for thinking that this is a pretty unlikely killing machine, but their portly appearance belies an animal that is extremely swift and agile in water and can easily catch, kill and eat any of our coarse fish species, regardless of size. The idea of capturing one of these alive is just a complete non-starter and the idea of playing the sound of a killer whale to scare it off is also probably not going to work as how many killer whales would a UK common seal have ever heard?
No, sadly there is but one way to get rid of Keith permanently and that’s for it to be killed. I can already hear a million and one hands being thrown up in the air in disgust, but what other option is there? If you leave the seal where it is make no mistake there won’t be much left to fish for when it has finally gone. The latest I have seen from our ‘voice’ the Angling Trust is if it’s still there in two months’ time then it will be killed.
Great, by that time it will have eaten up to 10 kilos of fish per day. In sixty days that means some 600lb of fish could have gone down its throat, that is in addition to what has already gone. It wouldn’t be too dramatic to say that potentially in the time it has been in the river 1,000lb of fish will have disappeared as seal fodder.
In real terms that’s fifty twenty pound pike, 100 double figure barbel, need I go on? No water in this country can sustain that kind of damage, you are talking about an event that is catastrophic in significance and will see the fishery damaged for at least a decade. Why should we put up with that? It’s not like these are stocked carp that are easily replaced when ottered. Okay, it may not be Bertie the fat, oft caught favourite but any carp is easily replaced, these wild fish populations are far more fragile, far more important and should be protected NOW, not in two months’ time.
Sadly this ineffective, namby pamby politicking is nothing more than I have come to expect from the Angling Trust. Like so many others I was solidly behind the idea of one voice stridently standing up for anglers on the matters that count, the reality though is that we have an organisation far too keen to only fight the battles that are politically correct or that they know they will win.
Keith the seal is a prime example of the ATr taking a half-arsed approach to things, the revamp of the new laws on taking fish another. Why was it that there was still a limit applied to the taking of pike, yet nearly all other fish had a no take policy applied?
Then there was the whole issue of catfish and zander being left out completely, allowing a free for all on both species. To take on the authorities would have meant a delay to the new bylaws but rather than do the job properly the ATr decided to capitulate and again we have a half-arsed set of laws that are no more effective than those previously, because the problem was never in the laws, rather in the non-existent police force (EA bailiffs) to police them.
The truth is that we have an unbelievably weak ‘governing body’ because the body will only ever reflect those that are at the top steering the ship. I have had the misfortune to have dealt quite a lot in the past with one of those individuals on a only slightly controversial subject, but when opinion seemed to be against his ideas he folded like an Argos bedchair, this on an issue of fish welfare versus a large income stream for his own organisation. He chose to go with keeping money pouring in, to what wasn’t a poor institution (the ACA) and has since gone on to be one of the leading lights of the Angling Trust – take a bow Mark Lloyd.
And now we have a further ‘addition’ to the ATr with the much trumpeted arrival of Martin Salter, ex MP. The former bin man turned politician has been heralded as the perfect man to campaign for anglers because he once walked the corridors of power. I guess that there would be some kind of logic in that assumption were it not for the fact that if you asked 100 anglers I bet they couldn’t name a single benefit to angling that Mr Salter instigated whilst in power, I certainly can’t!
The only thing that does stand vividly in my mind was Mr Salter being amongst the first to get his mug on the telly to give a sound bite as to how he was going to be voting to take away other mens’ sport when he voted to ban hunting with dogs. Personally I have always believed in live and let live. I was never likely to go fox hunting but saw no harm in others doing so. Make no bones about it the banning of fox hunting saved no foxes, because whilst many a fox was smart enough to out run or out manoeuvre a pack of dogs, there’s not a fox alive that can outrun a .22 rifle.
I could go on and on about the Trust but it would be just a waste of time as there will be many more that lead the clarion call to join blindly but, as a certain Dylan Thomas urged, “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
See you next time, when hopefully there will be a few more fish to write about!
