OFF THE HOOK?

The Government’s historic U-turn on ill-advised angling legislation feels good, but yet more battles lie ahead

Anglers relieved as government climbs down on Wild Fisheries Bill

The Wild Fisheries Bill has been abandoned. The Government’s effort to effectively nationalise sport angling, whilst privatising the risks, has foundered on realities both financial and human. Learning this lesson has cost many people in salmon and trout angling a vast amount of time, frustration and money.

Andrew Thin’s politically-slanted review has been exposed as inept. Management of Scottish anglers’ sport will now remain local, usually by a salmon district fishery board. These bodies formed 150 years ago remain safe. The money gathered from fishing owners to pay for management will be raised and spent locally. It will not, as Thin wanted, fund extra bureaucrats in Edinburgh.

There will be no rod license. Anglers will not need to pay government for notional services. Traditional water bailiffs, instead of being stripped of their powers and yet expected to be on-call to go anywhere, will work where they know the water and the people who use it.

There will be no attempt at all-species management. This is probably where the last wheel came off the reform chariot. Thin had proposed that new Fishery Management Organisations, welded from amalgamated boards, would handle not only the angler’s catch – salmon, sea-tout, brown trout, maybe grayling – but also all life-forms in the river. Crustacea were to become a novel responsibility. How were volunteers to be

persuaded to manage esoteric life-forms when there could be seriously nasty penalties for failing to get it right?

The fisheries review started out with the idea that flush river boards could be amalgamated and then serve government, whilst paying for the privilege. It transpired that some boards had minimal income and that numerous people volunteered their time to managing Scotland’s game fish. Doctrinaire reformists discovered that while Scotland struggled in a competitive fishing market-place, other countries like Russia and Iceland had stolen a march on them. Smart angling is no longer the preserve of Caledonia but a hard sell.

Fantasies about having the world’s best salmon fishing were modified. Where t hey imagined limitless funds there was something different – limitless enthusiasm from those passionate about the angling dream.

When the fisheries review was commissioned politicians seemed unaware that they were dealing with the country’s biggest participation sport. This changed when they received furious ripostes and reactions to ill-advised new regulations, such as on conservation grading, from angling clubs composed of hot-hearted locals. Had anyone in government actually been an angler it would have helped. But governance in Scotland is by the urban elite, starkly deficient in knowledge on-the-water.

Despite the climb-down, government still intends to adjudicate on some key matters, like catch and release. They reign in solitary splendour in admiring their flawed tool, the conservation grading system, and will probably go on using it. Obviously, they will represent Scottish angling at the international level.

No-one imagines there’s been a Damascene conversion. This is not about finding a better way of managing salmon and trout. On the same day they pulled the rug on the fisheries bill the Government announced that giant salmon farms were under consideration off Orkney and Shetland. SEPA’s rules on maximum tonnages of cage salmon per farm, which have already grossly exposed the environment, would need raising by three times. SEPA says the volume of effluent for one new mega-farm would be greater than the effluent outflow from Glasgow.

The Scottish Government has got anglers out of the mucky stuff with one hand and dumped them in it with the other. That said, abandoning the fisheries review is the first big climb-down in rural policy by the Nationalists.

Cynics might say that going to the polls in 2020 they did not want incensed rod anglers marching down Princes Street. Fishermen meantime have landed one fish they will not release. We have found a voice. It feels good!

‘ Politicians seemed unaware that they were dealing with the country’s biggest participation sport’