How do we stop people taking fish?

Posts : 77 Join date : 2010-03-01 Location : Chiswick

Just got back from a Thames lure trip. 4 blokes were packing up and put their catch.... 4 pike, including a good twenty pounder, into a large plastic bag to take home. I voiced my disapproval but I was outnumbered and they just carried on. How do we discourage this sort of behaviour? I called the EA and was told "it's not illegal and isn't that the whole point of fishing anyway?" Mad

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:07 pm

Which bit of the river John??

Posts : 77 Join date : 2010-03-01 Location : Chiswick

The weir above Walton

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:27 pm

25"/65cm is the length of pike you can take home to eat, which is around 8Ib, ish, one per person a day,

15 small fish up to 8"/20cm per day, per person

if the pike was as big as you say, then this is braking the law

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/Fisheries_byelaws_Thames.pdf

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/recreation/fishing/119393.aspx

as you can see, you are not aloud to take a pike less then 60cm, but not bigger then 65cm

it get worse, but I will let you read the rules for national and local laws

happy reading pirat

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:35 pm

try this

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/Taking_Stock_-_web_-_English.pdf

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:53 pm

John the EA, response sounds plain wrong, I am happy to follow this with them through the river guardian scheme, pm me mate

Cheers

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:39 pm

if the EA were checking licences on the thames (i have never been asked on the river in the 24years since i've needed one) they might find those taking the fish don't have one.
is it too much to ask that a few officers patrol sections of the thames on a regular basis? plenty available to go round commercial fisheries, seems like they are looking for easy targets.
might discourage them from taking so many and will certainly discourage those without a licence if they end up paying couple of hundred quid for a days fishing.
come on EA what are anglers paying for????????????
bit of a bug bear with me as you might guess.

Posts : 2435 Join date : 2010-01-28

Time to get the Lower Thames syndicated. The banks need to be bailiffed. This can't go on.

Almost all of the Middle and Upper Thames is club, private or syndicated. Why is the Lower any different?

Just because of a clause on a piece of paper written in 1215 to allow the peasant man to feed himself - utterly irrelevant in modern times with a welfare system.

Our predecessors TAPs did it - all club funds went to bailiffing and restocking the Lower Thames.

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:10 pm

tottely disagree, the lower Thames should not be made into any form of syndicat or club, it is free, one of the few free main rivers left in our great land "ENGLAND", where the common man or woman/child can go fishing for free, I am a great believer in the Magna Carta 1215, I am one of them "Peasants" and pride of it and will not tolerate anyone running it down for their own personal agenders. To get it bailiffed, then we have to look at other means of doing it, i.e. become Voluntary Bailifs for the EA, get the rules sorted out about taking fish,

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 2:51 pm

i agree keef,i am also a peasant .
steve you are on another planet alien

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:21 pm

I have only recently taken up fishing again after a 25 year break. I sent away for my rod licence and when it arrived I walked down to the river with my son-in-law for his first session, the same as my father did for me. This would never have happened if our stretch of the Thames was syndicated. I may as well have taken up basket weaving as a hobby.

EDIT: I forget to mention - we would like to see our £27 in action though.

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:26 pm

Absolutely, without the free fishing nearby, I simply wouldn't be fishing.
You and I have a lot in common Andrew, I took it up again last Summer after a 30-year break!

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:39 pm

Ed Randall wrote:: I took it up again last Summer after a 30-year break!

And already 500 posts? I can see I've got a lot of catching up to do and not just on the angling front . . .

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 4:04 pm

Quote :: And already 500 posts?

I don't get out much Crying or Very sad

and I suffer from chronic internet addiction.

Posts : 2435 Join date : 2010-01-28

Keith Collett wrote:: I am a great believer in the Magna Carta 1215, I am one of them "Peasants" and pride of it and will not tolerate anyone running it down for their own personal agenders.

Keith...and Willie....only 3 clauses of the 1215 charter still exist in law today. Everything else in the 1215 charter has been repealed.

History and English law has judged it to be totally irrelevant to modern times.

How then can you be a "great believer" in it?

Posts : 2435 Join date : 2010-01-28

William Pettigrew wrote:: i agree keef,i am also a peasant .
steve you are on another planet

I'm a peasant too mate, one of the little people. But it doesn't stop me wishing things were better on the Thames.

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 5:03 pm

Steve Holmes wrote:: Time to get the Lower Thames syndicated. The banks need to be bailiffed.

while i agree with you to a certain extent i too think the lower thames should remain "FREE".
by free i mean £27 a season(probably be 30 quid soon), but that money should go back into the maintenance and care of the river.
maybe some sort of postcode related thing whereby licences sold in those postcodes goes into the bailiffing and upkeep of the relevant section.
because at the moment i can't see where our fee is going.

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:07 pm

Steve whilst i kinda empathise it`s getting enough bodies on the bank to bailiff even if something is a club water which most are on my bits but the only ones moving on EEs tends to be the lockies when they push there luck on the boat waiting as the poor old bailiff is always outnumbered .
I moved some on a couple of years ago at a lake i was Piking right next to the Kennet but they only went coz i had 2 big hairy scary dogs with me .
The rod licence will go up but not as much as Boat reg will again ...EA short of funding hence the rernt out lockys houses and not much chance of any extra patrols .....

Posts : 2435 Join date : 2010-01-28

Steve Appleford wrote:: I moved some on a couple of years ago at a lake i was Piking right next to the Kennet but they only went coz i had 2 big hairy scary dogs with me .

Good point Steve mate you've got me thinking. Elmbridge council's dog patrol don't mess about - no nonsense attitude backed up by working in pairs with big hairy dogs.

They rule Albany Reach and Cigarette Island with a rod of iron, booting off anyone without a licence Smile

I wonder if we could convince the council to get the dog unit to patrol more parts of the bank... Idea

Posts : 95 Join date : 2011-01-16 Location : DEEPEST SURREY

theres only one wy of stopping people taking our fish , tighten the laws on who we let in !!!!!!!
now before i am accused of being a little englander , up until we let loads of people in from other parts of europe we never had a problem .
the ea cannot or will not do anything about it - hands are tied - sorry to be a pessimist it will not stop Rolling Eyes

Subject: How do we stop people taking fish Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:54 pm

Well said Simon, The people who call people little englanders are spineless idiots who would love nothing more than to see this country on its knees, confront one of these do-gooders face to face and you will see who the little englander is.

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:01 pm

Steve Holmes wrote:

Steve Appleford wrote:: I moved some on a couple of years ago at a lake i was Piking right next to the Kennet but they only went coz i had 2 big hairy scary dogs with me .

Good point Steve mate you've got me thinking. Elmbridge council's dog patrol don't mess about - no nonsense attitude backed up by working in pairs with big hairy dogs.

They rule Albany Reach and Cigarette Island with a rod of iron, booting off anyone without a licence Smile

I wonder if we could convince the council to get the dog unit to patrol more parts of the bank... Idea

Steve you have got nothing to lose by asking mate , Simon the last lot let loads in and the new custodians are doing nothing to stem the flow sadly,We are all part of the new super federal European super state dontcha know Steve.

Posts : 95 Join date : 2011-01-16 Location : DEEPEST SURREY

steve , this lot are as bad as the last lot - just lie from a diffrent angle !!! the trouble is no one will stand up and say anything - if you do you are portrayed as some form of tattoed fascist racist , the plain fact of the matter is apart from the people who love and fish the thames not one person gives a monkeys t*** what happens !!!!!
Can you imagine the fuss if a thames regular who happened to be english took the law in to his own hands , there would be uproar - i dispair of what we happen in years to come Crying or Very sad

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:52 pm

At Bushy Park this morning someone was telling me of several instances when he and other people he knows were dog walking:

- Seeing people bent low and systematically netting the carp from the channel between the Leg and the Heron at night
- Finding loads of scales on the bank and dead Bream in the channel in the morning
- Seeing people wading in the Leg with large nets at night
- A foreigner tapped him on the shoulder as he was returning a carp and offered him money for it

The above was all this year apparently. He said that the parks police were disinterested in doing anything other than working normal hours and driving around in a car with headlights on. He also felt that fishing the Leg had become more difficult through the year. (We blanked and didn't see anyone else catch this morning in this reputedly garden-pond water, though there were definitely fish there)

Subject: Re: How do we stop people taking fish? Wed Nov 02, 2011 12:29 pm

Only really one way i can see that may help reduce the amount of fish taken because we need to realize that this will never stop completely but can be reduced and that is simply to educate people that it is wrong to take fish.

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