Time
to renew licences
If you go fishing anywhere in England from April 1 you will need a new
rod licence.
It seems a strange date to start a new issue of licenses because it has
no connection at all to the start of a new season for either game fish
or coarse fish.
If you read one of the weekly angling ‘comics’ you will have
seen a feature written by a well-known competition angler and writer who
is advocating a boycott on buying a new rod licence for a time, and even
ceasing to go fishing for a couple of weeks, not that that will do anyone
any good at all.
I do sympathise with the man’s reasons for protesting, however,
because the Environment Agency, which issues rod licences, and DEFRA too,
admit they cannot do anything to effectively stop the predation of our
inland waters by immigrants who are in a number of recorded cases stealing
coarse fish from fisheries, presumably to eat.
Of course, some fish including grayling and eels and perch are good to
eat, but if these people are eating fish like roach and bream then they
must be really hard up for a meal.
I always own and carry on fishing trips a current rod licence because
I have no desire to be prosecuted even though I doubt that the EA does
much to help the owners of any of the fisheries that I visit.
Actually being caught fishing without a licence is a pretty remote possibility
despite the recent disqualification of two anglers who fished in, and
would have won, a big pike fishing competition.
Over 50 years ago, when I often used to fish on the River Manifold in
Derbyshire, a charming old chap called John Bonsall, an honorary bailiff,
always asked to see my licence, and by the end of the season you could
hardly read the document because he had written on it numerous times ‘checked
by John Bonsall’.
In the 50 odd years since that time I have fished thousands of times on
many different waters and only been asked to show my licence on three
occasions.
I calculate that I have had to show my rod licence just once for each
2,000 days that I have fished!
Of course any holder of a rod licence is entitled to ask any other angler
to produce his licence but I cannot imagine doing so myself. I go fishing
to enjoy myself, not to seek confrontation.