Harsh
lessons in cruelty
I see in the national press that more schools are including lessons on
angling for pupils.
I approve of the idea, though I think that encouraging a competitive approach
to the sport before the basics have been learned is not the best approach.
We should remember that some people think that our sport is cruel. Of
course, we anglers know this to be untrue. We prevent cruelty by opposing
water pollution, and we speak up about the filling in or drying up of
waters for building purposes without rescuing the fish first.
We kill trout for the table humanely, which does not happen to fish sold
by supermarkets and the like, and we try to prevent harm to those fish
that we are going to put back in the water.
Note that I say put back and not throw back, because no sane person should
ever throw a fish.
Because our sport involves attempts to catch living creatures we must,
however, instil in youngsters, and all novices, the need to take steps
to avoid cruelty. This should be done before a hook and line is ever cast.
Readers may have seen the simply awful true story and photographs that
appeared in a national newspaper recently as well as in some of the specialist
angling papers and magazines.
It seems that some evil person had been fishing for pike using a dead
fish bait on a ‘snap tackle’. This terminal tackle has two
treble hooks mounted on a wire trace so there are no less than six hook
points to cause trouble.
The angler had discarded the still-baited tackle when he went home and
the result was a horrible injury that happened to a young dog that was
being taken for a riverside walk by its lady owner.
The unfortunate animal swallowed the fish-baited hooks and was in great
distress. It cost the owner £2,000 for an operation by the vet to
save the life of the dog.
All litter leaving is bad, though it is unfortunatly an English malaise,
and anglers are as guilty of it as other people, sadly.
But keep a sense of proportion and realise that responsible anglers avoid
cruelty even though the sport can be done in a cruel way.