“They must do something about it”. It’s the recreational sea anglers’ favourite lament about poor catches, a too common, everyday event. By they, is meant the NFSA, and the something the NFSA must do is tell the government about our bad and declining sea angling and get something done about it.

We have quietly been doing that elusive something. The upshot is that the government is listening, listening to what sea anglers are telling it. After two years of intensive lobbying ministers and civil servants at Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the sponsoring department for the fishing industry, agrees sea angling is a vital part of the industry. They acknowledge, because we have told them time and again, that there is a core of a million sea anglers in Britain who spend £1 billion a year on their sport. They know that those one million want and deserve, better fishing from their beaches, boats, harbours and piers.

Two years ago they didn’t know what a sea angler looked like or what they did. Or where, why, when or even how they did what they did. Since then recreational sea angling has, in motoring terms, gone roaring from 0 to 100 mph down the corridors and through the offices of Defra. They now see our angling in the same economic league as the commercial food-fish business, and promise our interests will be considered with those of the commercial industry.

Two significant things have happened. In March last year a report to which the NFSA contributed, told the prime minister that a million men, women and youngsters had spawned an industry which his government didn’t even know was there - the recreational sea angling industry. That’s US, everyone reading this and many more out there who have not yet joined the NFSA. Government and civil servants have historically disregarded sea fishing, making all the rules for the benefit of the commercial sector. Now it’s changing, they were astonished there were a million sea anglers. We won that one. Recent estimates have put the numbers even higher. Certainly they will be in the future if the government sticks to its promises. The NFSA will make sure the government does that. This will not be another “government initiative” announced with a fanfare and then forgotten.

Our second win was getting people from the sea angling community appointed to each of the sea fisheries committees. That happened in July 2005 and sea anglers are now accepted by other members of the committees and are making their presence felt.

Next on the list to have something done about it, are bass stocks. Ben Bradshaw the fisheries minister likes the bass management plan produced by the Bass Anglers’ Sportfishing Society (BASS). He ordered his officials to draw up rules to increase the minimum landing size with minimum allowable net meshes to match, so that the smaller fish slip through and live to love and spawn and grow. By the end of the year those proposals will have gone out to all in the industry for consultation. It is vital that ever sea angler writes in to their local sea fishery committee and to Defra to support his plan. It will mean more and bigger bass will begin to appear soon after the rules go into force.

Defra has also set up a team dealing specifically with inshore fisheries, introducing an environment which will encourage recreational sea angling to expand is a direct responsibility of this team, a huge step forward. Two years ago they hadn’t heard of sea angling, all their thoughts and ideas were about the commercial industry. In October 2005 Defra said they would increase their focus on sea angling, continue to maintain and restore depleted fish stocks, that will benefit anglers and commercial fishermen alike. They promised by the end of the year to update management of inshore waters, this is now done by the 12 sea fisheries committees set up by parliament nearly 120 years ago; ancient laws for commercial fishing, surely inadequate for today when angling is so important. They promised better policing by concentrating where there is illegal fishing and where the most vulnerable stocks live, to find ways to stop the terrible waste of immature fish by reducing discards from commercial vessels.

This is all evidence the government is listening, it has all happened because a few volunteers on the NFSA access and conservation group, worked unpaid, burned the midnight oil, and often received no money for travelling across the country to meetings. We can’t let up now. Much, much more of that something waits to be done and sea anglers have to keep up the pressure. The NFSA has clear list of what actions it wants to benefit sea angling:

• A “golden mile”- no trawling, no gill nets within a mile of the shore, that will benefit more than half all sea anglers because 54 per cent fish from the shore.
• A “right to fish” charter. Stop developers swallowing up fishing spots, denying access to beaches and piers.
• Increased minimum landing sizes to allow stocks to recover and grow.
• The setting up of recreational sea fisheries where only sea anglers may fish.
• Reserving some fish mainly for anglers - conger, bass, dabs, flounder, sharks, rays, mullet, and wrasse for example.
• Reducing commercial discards to improve fish stocks.
• Better representation on sea fisheries committees to include charter boat skippers and tackle shops owners.

Anglers must play their part in all of this, the most valuable thing that you can do is to join the NFSA. All anglers are benefiting from what the NFSA is doing on their behalf, at present, only a small minority is paying for it. That’s rather unjust, please turn to the membership section of this website and join there NOW. If you do the NFSA can employ paid help to move forward faster with the complex negotiations needed to bring about successful and enjoyable recreational sea angling in the future.

Some of us went to Gateshead in October to tell members of the North East Division about the work that is going on, and after the presentations the meeting was opened up to a questions and answer session. During that session we heard from one North East sea angler who told us that two years ago he went to a constituency surgery held by his MP to complain about the state of sea angling only to find that his MP didn’t know anything about the subject. Earlier this year he tried again and was pleasantly surprised to find that his MP was far more aware of the issues and the problems that sea angling faces. That sea angler lives within the constituency of Sedgefield, his MP is Tony Blair – don’t say that the message isn’t getting through!

Click on our membership section. NOW.