ROB HUGHES Our columnist’s latest opinion
SO, ANGLING is buzzing. Our day-ticket lakes are rammed, many clubs and syndicates are standing room only and rivers are seeing their fair share of action too.
Licence sales are up, and I’m hopeful that when the dust has settled and the beans are counted we will see a rise in numbers to those of four or five years ago. More money going into the kitty should result in more money going back into angling, but I have to ask the question: ‘Where was the EA during the angling hiatus?’ It effectively controls our sport, so should be right up at the coal face of anything angling-related.
The Angling Trust stepped up when we needed it most, and its well-coordinated lobbying got us back on the banks where we belong, yet it’s fair to say that the EA was pretty conspicuous by its absence during the whole Covid saga. Enforcement in particular has been questionable, because it was the police who were tasked with picking up the baton of keeping an eye on our waters during lockdown.
Was the EA’s glaring inactivity due to furlough schemes? Or was it instruction from above? Who knows, but now things are edging back to normality, I hope that we see it out and about again. With all these extra bums on boxes the whole issue of angling management, and in particular its enforcement and funding, needs completely revisiting. Here’s hoping that the extra cash that comes into the sport works its way into areas of angling that specifically, and quite often desperately, need it the most. I’m talking about pollution, predation and poaching. We’ll be watching with interest.
“The Angling Trust stepped up to the mark when we needed it”