Angling Trust Ambassadors Briefing - October 2015

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25 key areas where Angling Trust & Fish Legal are working for fish and fishing

The Angling Trust & Fish Legal continue to make great progress on behalf of all anglers – the work we do benefits everyone who goes fishing or works in the angling industry but we need more members so that we can do even more to fight for fish and fishing. The Angling Trust has recently been successful in securing a major contract, funded by the EA rod licence, to continue to expand the work that it does, but all our campaigns and Fish Legal’s work depend on membership revenue alone.

In this document we list 25 of the areas in which we are working and highlight some of the successes we’ve had recently. Please use these to persuade as many people as possible to sign up at www.anglingtrust.net for just £25 a year or £2.50 a month to support the organisation that is dedicated to helping the sport we all love. We are also trying to recruit free subscribers to our e-newsletters. It would be a great help if you could include the following in your e-mail communications, on web sites or anywhere where anglers will see it:

Sign up for the FREE fortnightly e-newsletter from the Angling Trust and Fish Legal to get news from the world of fishing, top tips and special offers at www.anglingtrust.net/subscribe

The list on the pages which follow are things we have achieved for the good of the whole angling community, with support from less than 1% of all anglers as individual members. Imagine how much more could be done with 10% of anglers in membership!

You should have received a copy of our Annual Review “The Angler” in the past week. When you have finished with it, please pass it on to someone who is not a member and encourage them to join or at least sign up to our e-newsletters.

1. Fish Legal Successes

Fish Legal is a membership association that is united in a collaborative relationship with the Angling Trust and uses the law to protect fish stocks and the rights of its members throughout the UK. It is supported with funds from individual members of the Angling Trust & Fish Legal and from clubs and fishery members of Fish Legal.

In the last year Fish Legal has given legal advice to several hundred angling clubs and fisheries to help them continue providing a network of angling venues for anglers to get out and go fishing.

We had some major successes including:

➢ a ground-breaking case against Yorkshire Water Services Ltd, United Utilities Plc and the Information Commissioner which secured a change in the law - a new public/angler right of access to environmental information held by private water and sewerage industry. This is the successful culmination of a six year legal campaign, involving a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union, and is a step towards greater transparency, and higher environmental performance within the industry.

➢ winning an injunction to stop a hydropower turbine being built at Sawley Weir on the River Trent – protecting an angling club’s prime coarse fishing waters for future generations to enjoy;

➢ successfully taking environmental regulators in England and Wales to court for unlawful decisions adversely affecting fisheries. This was to protect the Arctic charr and their habitat at a lake in North Wales and also to ensure proper regulation of a polluting discharge damaging a fishery in the East Midlands.

➢ Securing further compensation for our members who have suffered pollution to restore and restock their waters. For example, our expert in-house legal team recovered £1,000s of compensation last year – including £10,000 for a Kent based coarse fishing club whose fishery was polluted with raw sewage. The coming year will not be any less busy.

Fish Legal’s services are so in-demand that they recently had to expand their team with another solicitor, a new paralegal and legal secretary. We need more members to help pay for this.

2. Influence in Britain and Europe

The Angling Trust has developed strong partnerships with many other recreational and environmental groups to enable us to better influence policies that affect fish and fishing. We are members of the Blueprint for Water Coalition and work alongside national organisations such the RSPB, WWF, The Wildlife Trusts, Salmon & Trout Association, The Rivers Trust and others on issues as diverse as water abstraction, chalk stream restoration, the Severn Barrage, EU habitats directives, dredging, water quality and habitat improvements.

We have built excellent relationships with MPs across both sides of politics and provide the secretariat and policy support for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Angling. These MPs are invaluable to us in raising issues directly with government ministers and in debates in Parliament. We have regular access to ministers and shadow ministers and hold an annual angling summit

with the fisheries minister at DEFRA. The Angling Trust has a joint presence with BASC at all the main political party conferences in order to keep fish and fishing on political agenda.

Ahead of the General Election we produced a Manifesto for Angling which was sent to all the major parties and received strong endorsement from both the Labour and Conservative spokespeople. The Angling Trust manifesto covered both salt and freshwater fishing and the political parties were invited to endorse the document and commit to:

“recognising the economic, environmental and recreational contribution made by angling to the community and to promise not just to protect but to take positive steps to enhance and promote Britain’s most popular pursuit.”

Key areas included:

• Angling participation and promotion

• Confirmation of anglers rights of access

• Action to create healthy fisheries and cleaner rivers

• Action on bass stocks and marine conservation

• Continuing to allow cormorant controls

• Protecting rod licence income for angling

The complete document can be found here…

http://anglingtrust.net/news.asp?section=29&sectionTitle=Angling+Trust+News&page=5&itemid=2510

This summer our Chief Executive, Mark Lloyd, and Head of Freshwater, Mark Owen, were in Norway giving presentations at a United Nations symposium organised by the European Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Advisory Commission (EIFAAC). More than 200 representatives from countries throughout Europe heard Mark's keynote speech about the ground-breaking work that the Angling Trust and Fish Legal have done to promote angling participation, to tackle poaching, pollution, predation and abstraction in rivers and commercial over-fishing at sea, as part of the National Angling Strategy. This work has only been possible because of the historic unification of angling bodies in 2009 that created the Angling Trust.

David Mitchell has held the secretariat of EAA’s Sea Sub-Group since 2010 during which time he has coordinated EAA members’ input into, amongst other things, the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, the work of the CFP’s Advisory Councils and most recently the EU package of emergency measures to protect seabass where EAA has achieved some very significant success in influencing policy. He was involved in helping to successfully set up the new EP Forum on Recreational Fisheries and Aquatic Environment. Next month he is giving evidence to the European Parliament’s Fisheries (PECH) Committee in Brussels on ‘multi-annual plans’ and is currently representing EAA on both the CFP’s North Sea and North West Waters Advisory Councils.

Representing all European anglers through our membership of the European Anglers Alliance, Mark Owen has recently been appointed to the European Commission’s working group on implementing the Invasive Alien Species Regulation to ensure that action is taken at a European level on species such as signal crayfish and to stop more unwanted species coming into Europe as a whole.

He is also appointed to the European Commission’s Strategic Co-ordination Group for the Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive working to ensure that these are properly implemented by all Member States to improve Freshwater fish stocks.

3. Junior Angling and Family Fishing

We realise just how important it is to get young people into angling and organising family fishing events is an important part of the process.

Evidence tells us that the majority of anglers were introduced to fishing by a family member or friend so in 2014 we launched a campaign around “Family fishing” in partnership with the angling Charity Get Hooked on Fishing.

Fourteen Family Fishing events were run during 2014 attracting 8,000 people with 1,000 trying angling for this first time, each one provided with support and advice on their next steps in angling and the need to buy a rod licence when fishing in freshwater.

Each event is designed as a family fun day offering varied children’s activities ranging from magicians to animal displays but always with angling participation as the core activity and message. The events are delivered by regional officers, local stakeholders and Get Hooked on Fishing project managers and offer introductory sessions, coached sessions from licensed coaches and opportunities to fish together as a family all in a fun, friendly and safe environment.

Family Fishing is bigger and brighter in 2015 with 27 events planned to get the whole Family Fishing. We’ve got a new web page up at www.anglingtrust.net/familyfishing where you can find all the Family Fishing events near you – bring your family along and get them fishing. We’ll even provide coaching and all the tackle and bait FREE!

4. Competitions

Our preliminary analysis shows a welcome increase in participation figures for angling competitions in 2015. The establishment of Dave Harrell’s highly acclaimed RiverFest in the Angling Trust match calendar, the addition of the Canal Pairs, the planned expansion of Fish O Mania for 2016, plus the introduction of a Shore National in 2016 and a review of existing competitions now gives us real optimism for the future of match fishing after many years of decline before the formation of the Angling Trust.

Team England continue to perform well on the International stage with 7 team gold, 2 team silver, 3 team bronze medals to date in 2015. Only 3 teams finished outside the medal position and 11 teams are yet to compete at World Championships.

The Angling Trust has teamed up with Preston Innovations and Greys to launch two new junior coarse and game competitions. The decline in opportunities for youngsters to compete is worrying and the Angling Trust has moved to address the issue by offering low cost and local access to both competitions.

The Preston Innovations National Junior Angling League features 9 regional leagues with each league consisting of a 4 match series. It’s only £1 per week to take part and all anglers can expect a Preston Innovations goody bag while the top 3 of each league will win product supplied by Preston Innovations and win a day’s fishing at a great venue.

To find out more about the competition and to download an entry form visit www.anglingtrust.net/junioranglingleague

The England Talent Pathway continues to evolve and produce positive results with over 80 anglers engaged in a high performance training programme in game, coarse and sea angling. Nineteen of those anglers have gone on to represent England at Home Nations and World Championships in 2015 and has produced 2 team gold medals so far with the Junior Shore World Championships scheduled for October 2015.

More info at: www.anglingtrust.net/talentpathway

5. FishingInfo – www.fishinginfo.co.uk

Earlier this year we launched a brilliant new website for anglers – www.fishinginfo.co.uk – promoted by the comedian and Angling Trust Ambassador Paul Whitehouse. Fishing Info provides venue, weather, river level, coach and tackle shop details to help you plan your trip. It’s free to use and will work on your phone and tablet too. Watch out as more venues are added over the next year near where you want to wet a line. Please encourage clubs and fisheries to check that their entry is up to date – they can edit it on the site.

6. Rod Licence Review

The Angling Trust has encouraged the Environment Agency that it’s time to review what many anglers believe is an out dated approach to the way rod licences are issued – many of us question whether carp and specimen anglers should have to buy two full rod licences to fish with only 3 rods and that current arrangements need to change as they don’t seem fair to carp and other specimen anglers. We’ve also recommended that juniors should fish for free. We’ll be keeping anglers up to speed on this so watch out for more news in the next few months…

7. Voluntary Bailiff Service

We have continued to develop our Voluntary Bailiff Service (VBS) so we now have over 90 trained Volunteer Bailiffs to support the Environment Agency’s Fishery Enforcement team in the South East of England. We have many more on the waiting list. The VBS has already found illegal angling equipment, drugs, guns and money stashed along the waterways. If we can secure more rod licence funding we hope to be able to roll out this service nationwide in 2016.

Many anglers have welcomed the fact that at long last the police are taking wildlife crime, fish theft and poaching a lot more seriously thanks to the Rural Crime Strategy which has enabled the Angling Trust to engage with the Association of Chief Police Officers and UK National Wildlife Crime Unit to raise awareness of poaching and fish theft, and work with an ever-increasing number of police forces (latest count 15) to initiate high profile and ongoing initiatives such as Operations LEVIATHAN, TRAVERSE, and CLAMP DOWN. This is a massive change as a result of the Angling Trust taking the initiative to tackle poaching, with support from the Environment Agency.

8. Cormorant Advisors

We fought a long drawn-out campaign to negotiate on behalf of anglers for new measures to tackle predation of fish by cormorants and goosanders. Fish eating birds not only take small fish, they can damage large specimens too, leaving them exposed to disease. This campaign helped secure funding to employ 3 new Fishery Management Advisors who help clubs and fisheries with the issues around fish eating birds and advise those encountering other predation problems.

We will continue to keep up the pressure on making the protection of our valuable and unique fish stocks a top priority in 2015, and we’re highlighting the impact that fish-eating birds have on dwindling salmon stocks to try and increase the number of birds that can be shot.

9. Angling Improvement Fund

Our Angling Improvement Fund is themed to help ‘protect fish stocks from predation’ and ‘get kids into fishing’. We’ve made £110k of Environment Agency rod licence income available for projects directly benefiting anglers. For example, Deeping St James Angling Club used the fund to erect otter-proof fencing and gates after losses from otter predation.

In the next year we will make sure that even more of anglers’ money is spent on improving fishing and getting more people into the sport we all love. Please see http://www.anglingtrust.net/page.asp?section=1095&sectionTitle=Angling+Improvement+Fund%3A+Fund+Winning+Projects for the latest awards.

10. Bass Conservation

The Angling Trust has kept up the pressure to see the long overdue introduction of a 42cm (minimum landing size) – as a first step towards 45 or 48cms - for both recreational and commercial bass fishing in order to allow the fish an opportunity to spawn successfully before harvesting.

The EU Council of Ministers has at last agreed to introduce catch limits for commercial boats fishing for bass, as a direct result of our pressure. The new limits, which will require monthly catch reports, range from 1000kg per month for drift, fixed and trammel nets to 3000kg per month for purse seines and are estimated to represent a 30% reduction in commercial catches.

This is one more step in a package of measures for 2015 aimed at reducing bass fishing ‘mortality’ and preventing a collapse of bass stocks across Europe. The package includes sea anglers being

subject to a three fish-per-day bag limit, which was introduced in April, and the introduction of a new higher minimum legal size of 42cm. The Trust helped ensure that this was not a one fish-per-day limit, as originally proposed.

11. Netting Reform

The current regulations regarding inshore netting are nothing short of farcical. Unpowered vessels can set nets and sell their catches without a commercial licence. ‘Recreational netting’ is allowed but the catches should not be sold. Netting can take place in designated bass nursery areas for other species such as mullet, bream and flounder even though bass will be ‘accidently’ caught as a by catch. The public are unable to report illegal fishing when it is unclear what species are being targeted by the netters.

The Angling Trust and our colleagues at the Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society (B.A.S.S.) are calling for a complete overhaul of the outdated rules covering netting and we will shortly be publishing a full paper outlining the case for the reform of inshore netting regulations.

12. Tidal Lagoons

The Angling Trust & Fish Legal have launched an appeal to raise funds to protect marine and migratory fish from hydropower tidal lagoons, which are now being proposed in the Severn Estuary, Colwyn Bay and the Solway Firth, with the potential for many more around our coastline. This so-far untested technology could have serious impacts on sea angling and on migratory fish that pass through inshore waters (primarily salmon, sea trout and eels), almost anywhere around the British coastline.

Generating power from tidal lagoons is a new technology and there is a lot of uncertainty about the impact on fish, but there could be significant damage to local and regional populations of fish which are already under threat such as bass, flounder, cod, eels, lamprey, shad, salmon and sea trout which spend a lot of time in the estuaries where these lagoons will be located. Juvenile and adult fish will pass through the turbines which will put them at risk of being killed, damaged or delayed from migrating up or down river, and their life-cycles will be disrupted to an unknown extent by the massive changes to tidal flows and aquatic ecology.

13. Save our Salmon - www.anglingtrust.net/sos

Recently published government figures show that in 2014 salmon numbers in England and Wales reached their lowest level ever, with 60 out of 64 main salmon rivers failing to meet their conservation targets. This follows a very poor year for salmon in 2013. In the face of this apparent collapse in salmon stocks, the Angling Trust along with all the main angling and fisheries NGOs have written to Environment Secretary Liz Truss urging the Government to join with conservationists, fisheries interests and anglers in taking action to avert a further fall in salmon numbers. In particular, they stress that it is essential that forthcoming cuts in Government spending do not make the situation worse by reducing further the capacity of the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales to regulate and monitor salmon fisheries. They have also written to George Eustice urging him to ban netting of salmon, which was responsible for 70% of mortality last year.

The Angling Trust has been chosen by readers of Trout & Salmon magazine to lead the magazine’s 60 year anniversary Save Our Salmon campaign. The campaign will focus on tackling salmon netting, agricultural pollution and cormorant & goosander predation throughout the UK, which will also benefit other freshwater and marine species. The Trust is helping to organise a salmon summit in the autumn which will be attended by the Fisheries Minister and the new CEO of the Environment Agency. Donations to support the campaign can be made via our web site. Please encourage all salmon anglers to join us and/or make a donation to this important campaign.

14. Climate Lobby

Thousands of people came together in Westminster recently to ask that their MPs take a stand in the global fight against climate change. The Angling Trust played its part in the biggest ever climate change lobby that brought together Britons from every walk of life – including anglers, bee keepers, snowboarders, surfers, doctors, wildlife enthusiasts, grandparents, nuns, priests and farmers. All are passionate about different things, but are united in their concern that climate change now poses a grave risk to the things they love. They met with their constituency MPs face-to-face on the embankment outside Westminster to explain why they want the new Parliament to support national and global efforts to hold back CO2 emissions and build a cleaner economy.

Representatives from the angling community were joined at the Westminster lobby by Martin Salter, National Campaigns Coordinator for the Angling Trust and by angling MPs Richard Benyon (Con) and Jon Cruddas (Lab) who are both members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Angling.

Climate Change is an issue for everyone but of particular concern to those of us who spend time by the water. Warming sea temperatures are acknowledged as a big factor in the worrying decline in salmon numbers and the likely increases in drought incidents puts further pressure on fragile river systems many of which are already suffering from low flows due to over abstraction. The Angling Trust is pleased to play its part in the Climate Coalition and to ensure that the voices of anglers are added to thousands of others seeking to get our politicians to act now to limit the damage that is occurring to our environment and wildlife.

15. Crucian Conservation - www.anglingtrust.net/crucian

Working with angling artist Chris Turnbull the Angling Trust has been the driving force behind the widely acclaimed National Crucian Conservation Project (NCCP).

The primary objectives are to:-

• Promote the conservation of the species and its habitat;

• Encourage the development of well managed crucian fisheries.

The resulting benefits will include: improved understanding and protection of ‘wild’ or ‘pure’ crucian stocks; habitat restoration; creation of ‘community waters’; more angling opportunities; increased resources for young anglers and better sharing of information on lake and pond conservation.

You can view the first two NCCP videos here:

http://youtu.be/358-acPW4q0

http://youtu.be/XAWOzJ6SF-0

16. Fracking

The Angling Trust has been part of a coalition of organisations calling for tough environmental protection from the risks associated with fracking for shale gas and oil. Last year we co-authored the Fit to Frack report and successfully secured a commitment from government to keep fracking out of protected areas and national parks and to toughen up the regulation governing this controversial practice.

The Government is expected to publish shortly more details on how it will fulfil a promise to ban fracking from Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks, World Heritage Sites and the Norfolk Broads. We and our coalition partners believe that this list does not go far enough, and that it should cover all protected areas, including Sites of Special Scientific Interest. We are also pressing to see more work carried out on the impact of fracking in areas containing highly permeable chalk aquifers.

Our campaigns chief Martin Salter was one of the keynote speakers at a recent water and energy industry conference in London. Martin set out the case for much stronger regulation to ensure that rivers and groundwater sources are protected from damage and depletion as a result of nearby hydraulic fracking for shale gas. You can find out more about our work on fracking here http://bit.ly/1Hadmgb

17. Angling Club Accreditation

The Angling Trust has launched its new version of the Sport England club accreditation, Fishmark, which replaces the national Clubmark award and sees the accreditation come more in line with the needs of angling. The aim is to modernise clubs and make them safe and welcoming places for youngsters to learn how to fish.

The identified benefits of Fishmark accreditation are:

• Evidence of robust safeguarding measures

• Support to develop a modern quality assured club

• Easier access to Sport England funding

• Improved ability and quality of licensed coaches and coaching

• Increased membership

• Recognition from and integration with Local Authorities, schools and County Sports Partnerships

• Professional club management standards

Accreditation is only accessible to Angling Trust club members and is FREE of charge. Please encourage clubs to apply for accreditation by contacting your Regional Officer or Dave Evans at dave.evans@anglingtrust.net

18. Invasive Species

Emily Smith has started work as the Angling Trust’s Invasive Non-Native Species Manager. Emily joins the Freshwater team while studying for her PhD at University College London (UCL). Emily's thesis is “Conduits of Invasive Aquatic Species: The Angling Route” and will investigate the risk of anglers inadvertently bringing invasive species to the UK.

As a first step we have launched an anglers survey for all anglers on the places they fish and the methods used. It is available at www.anglingtrust.net/invasivesurvey and please do urge your contacts to complete it as the results will contribute to a better understanding of the measures required to limit these real threats to our angling environment and biodiversity. Emily can be contacted at: emily.smith@anglingtrust.net

Emily will also be helping us push the biosecurity message: Check Clean Dry which all anglers should follow to help stop invasive non-native species getting into our waters. Please help us spread the word!

19. Coach Development

In 2014/15 the Angling Trust has developed a series of products to support AT Licensed Coaches develop their own skills and that of learners. Three ‘Coaching Specialisms’ have been established which have gone down incredibly well with all participating coaches; Pike Angling, Coaching Children and Mental Health specialisms are now available for licensed coaches to access and use to promote their work in coaching. A series of progressive and developmental awards are now available for AT Licensed Coaches to use to reward the skills of new and developing anglers. Levels 1-3 have previously been launched with Levels 4-6 launched earlier in 2015.

The AT has been supporting a number of anglers from our national teams to work through their coaching qualifications which will hopefully lead to them becoming qualified and licensed. They will then provide invaluable support to young anglers working through the AT Talent Pathway.

Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Angling

The AT Coach Licence continues to be the AT mechanism to promote minimum standards for coaches ensuring they meet industry standards for coaching and also the highest standards of safeguarding children as developed with NSPCC and Child Protection in Sport Unit. This continues to remain a challenge for the AT as so many coaches choose to work either unqualified, unlicensed or both. The ability of the AT to manage this in the long term is key to ensuring we are able to promote the highest standards of safeguarding children across angling. Many coaches who are not able to evidence these standards may be putting children or themselves at risk and we welcome support in promoting this going forward.

If you spend time instructing young people, please become a coach who is licensed by the Angling Trust. It’s important that our Ambassadors support our standards in this area. If you’re already a

licensed coach then please help us by getting involved in delivering the CAST skills awards. Contact ben.snook@anglingtrust.net and please include your licence number. You will then be sent the information on how to purchase your delivery materials.

20. Round the Regions

Right round the country the Angling Trust runs Regional Forum meetings which act as a communication toll between anglers, The Environment Agency and The Angling Trust. It’s a great chance to hear how the Agency is spending your rod licence money, latest updates on Angling Trust campaigns and a chance to air your views about issues and opportunities. Also, there are often guest speakers from Rivers Trusts or other organisations involved with helping to restore fish stocks and improve our fisheries.

The meetings are free to attend and open to all, but you do need to register via the AT website

http://www.anglingtrust.net/page.asp?section=929&sectionTitle=Freshwater+Regions+Diary&preview=1

Please promote these to anglers, fisheries, tackle shops and clubs; the more people we can have at them the better.

21. Spreading the Word

Social Media:We have successfully grown our presence on social media in the last 4 years and now have a really active presence on Facebook and Twitter with a large audience that wants to hear from you – our Ambassador. If you use Facebook and Twitter please like and follow us and share and retweet our posts – this really does have a measurable effect on our reach into the angling community because as a well-known, liked and influential angler, your audience trusts what you endorse. If you aren’t on Facebook or Twitter yet, we are always keen to hear snippets of exclusive news from you and will help promote your latest activities or commercial endeavours. Just email our Marketing & Communications Manager will.smith@anglingtrust.net and he will get your news out there.

Like us at www.facebook.com/AnglingTrustFollow us at www.twitter.com/AnglingTrust

Printed Publications:Bauer Media have generously “donated” a half-page column in the Angling Times which enables us to get a weekly update on our activities fighting for fish and fishing and getting more people fishing in front of a regular readership of 30k+ avid anglers. We’d love to include news from you, our Ambassador, too if it highlights our joint activities or shared goals. Please e-mail any snippets to our Head of Marketing & Communications david.brookes@anglingtrust.net

Our Marine Campaigns manager David Mitchell also writes monthly columns for Sea Angler and other publications.

Video:We have a growing presence on YouTube and are really keen to host your videos on our YouTube

Channel. Please let us know if you have DVD or video content that we can upload to the channel. As well as YouTube, Martin Salter highlights Angling Trust issues and campaigns as the new presenter on Fishing Britain which can be found on the Fieldsports Channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/fieldsportschannel

Blogs:We’ve got three great blogs available for anglers to read and comment on. Our Chief Executive Mark Lloyd posts on Inside Angle, Martin Salter produces Fighting for Fishing (which you can also find on Fishing Magic) while the guys in the Freshwater Team write their regular Lines on the Water column. You can find them all at www.anglingtrust.net/blogs

22. Major Events

The Angling Trust plays a key role in helping to organise some major events around the country to promote fishing. These include:

National Fishing Month and Take a Friend Fishing

The Angling Trust is a partner in delivery of National Fishing Month and Take a Friend Fishing with the Angling Trades Association. With effect from September 2015, the Environment Agency funding for these initiatives will come via the Angling Trust and we will be seeking to give them a refresh and look at ways they can have a bigger impact on participation numbers. Please help by promoting these initiatives.

Bexhill Angling Festival

The fourth annual Bexhill Angling Festival, sponsored by the Angling Trust, was held on September 5th 2015 in Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex – bigger and better than ever with more stalls on the festival weekend and a month of angling competitions including a Junior pegged beach match, a five day specimen hunt and a popular kayak match and bass hunt. The private boat species hunt is on the 13th and the Pegged beach match finishes off the festival on the 20th. The lawns event at Bexhill, which last year attracted 35,000 visitors, will feature lots of sea food and preparation demonstrations. There are presentations from the Marine Conservation Society and lots of angling content including rig tying with the England Juniors, a fishing simulator and much more.

Details and competition entry forms can be found at www.bexhillseafestival.co.uk or by emailing enquiries@anglingtrustsussexmarine.net

Tidefest

As well as organising a prestige angling match in aid of Get Hooked on Fishing, the Angling Trust promoted the new TideFest website which contained all the details of the events planned for last month on the tidal Thames at Kew. It proved a great day out for everyone who loves the river and wants to see a cleaner Thames with more recreational activities for all.

Check out the website at www.thamestidefest.net

23. Major Shows

Angling Trust staff and volunteers have attended nearly all the major angling shows over the past five years but with limited resources we are concentrating now on having a high profile presence at the biggest shows:

The Carp Society Winter Show (28/29 Nov 15) and The Big One (19/20 March 2016)This year we will have rising-star and angling artist “Dusto” with us at these shows, producing paintings highlighting our campaigns and participation projects, as well as demos, celebrity anglers and talks on our stand which combined with a great offer for new members will help us sign up a couple of hundred new members. Shows like these are our “Flagship” membership events and we compete with other commercial exhibitors for footfall around our stand. If you could come and help draw the crowds, speak to anglers and convince them why they should follow your example and join us too, we’d love to host you. Perhaps this would coincide with your own venture such as the launch of a new product or book…

The CLA Game FairWe had a great weekend on the Angling Trust stand at the CLA Game Fair at Harewood House in Yorkshire this July, with staff from the Angling Trust Participation, England Ladies Fly Fishing, Environmental Campaigns and Membership Teams joining forces with GAIA and Get Hooked on Fishing to sign-up nearly 100 new members. Over 600 junior and novice anglers had a go at fishing on our stand at the centre of the Fishing Village. Angling artist ‘Dusto’ drew the crowds with his great spray paintings of bass, salmon and crucian carp and there were lessons by top instructors for novice fly casters, drop shot and lure demos from Gary and Sam Edmonds as well as the Get Hooked on Fishing Funfair.

24. Building Bridges

Working with migrant anglers has been challenging but very rewarding. We have managed to build very strong bridges with Polish angling communities which has resulted in a very visible change of attitude towards them from local anglers. More and more local Polish Angling Clubs are being established in the UK, and help from the Building Bridges project manager Radoslaw Papiewski is available to all of them. Some of them have joined the Angling Trust – others are still developing their clubs and thinking about joining in the near future. We managed to recruit several angling volunteers from within the migrant community – 4 of them went through our coaching training and are now licensed by the Angling Trust.

Local angling clubs showed interest in the activities of the project and they recognise the potential of young migrant anglers as well as the potential extra income to the clubs. Multilingual signs and leaflets are still proving to be very popular with Environment Agency staff, the Police, local club officers and fishery owners. Multilingual “responsible fishing guide” videos have been produced and we are starting to circulate them in the UK and Poland.

Challenges come from reaching other communities, in particular Lithuania. We identified the problem getting our message across in this country, but co-operation from their government with Dilip Sarkar, our National Enforcement Manager, resulted in a recent visit to Lithuania where the Vice-Minister of the Environment promised to get things moving in a very short time. We are planning to get some help from the Lithuanian Embassy as well as employing a Lithuanian speaking project officer.

25. Environment Agency Contract

The Environment Agency recently gave the Angling Trust a huge vote of confidence by appointing us, through a formal competitive tendering process, to be the delivery organisation for a major new contract delivering angling services over the next 2 - 4 years, funded by rod licence income, building on work we have been carrying out in partnership with the Agency over the past few years.

The work will involve an expansion of our programmes to get more people fishing and buying rod licences, particularly through our Family Fishing initiative. We will be developing the angling forums we hold in each of 8 regions, to give anglers the opportunity to have their say, and to get involved in initiatives to improve fishing. We will be expanding the Angling Improvement Fund to support clubs and fisheries, improve facilities and protect fish stocks, and offering expert advice about other funding. We will be rolling out the highly successful Voluntary Bailiff Service across the country from its initial pilot area of South East England and expanding our Building Bridges programme for migrant anglers. We will continue to develop our relationship with the Police to fight illegal fishing and fish theft and our projects to deal with angling litter and invasive species like signal crayfish. This new contract allows rod licence funds to go further, because the Angling Trust has unique access to match funding from organisations like Sport England and a huge network of volunteers.

Despite this new contract, we still need much more membership income to pay for representation, campaigns and legal action, which cannot be funded from rod licence funds. While Fish Legal made a substantial surplus in 2014-15, the Angling Trust had a corresponding loss. Just a few thousand more members would give us much greater financial security. Please help us with this recruitment.

We are also now offering anyone the chance to receive our fortnightly e-mail updates free of charge so they can read about all the good work we are doing for fish and fishing. It’s easy to sign up here: www.anglingtrust.net/subscribe

ENDS