Ex Sea Angler Editor Arrested for Poaching

[Hiram.A.Biff]

Ex Sea angler journalist, 79 yr old Pater Collins was apprehended Near Engine Farm Near Yaxley By an ex detective after a tip off.
He was nicked red handed throwing a line into a fen drain, baited with roach on a PENNEL ABERDEEN rig.FFS!!, bailiffs found two more stakelines and more in his car. He was taking Zander, and eating, or selling them to a local pub. He says he never took pike, but there were regular reports of Four 20plussers, that havent beeen caught for a while.

Can you ****in believe it...

[Danny]

Hiram,
we know he done wrong mate but he is 79yrs of age, i hope i can say i\'ve been poachin\' at his age.

[micky-quayle]

string the Bast**d up, i don\'t care how old he is. i am now primarily a pike angler more than sea angler and have seen the devastation this sort of activity can cause. be it a fen drain or lake it is a hell of a long time before they recover, and yes just one old man on his own in such a situation can devastate the predator fishing in an area, he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by the ea. however my understanding is the ea are reluctant to prosecute despite hundereds of e mails from pac members. the real anoying thing is they are prosecuting the informer (a pac member i understand) because he had his rods a few inces too far apart. the ea are a joke.
the use of long lines for pike and zander is more widespread than most people realise it must be stopped and the best way to do this is prosecute to the full extent of the law.
it makes my pi** boil.............
rant over

[Tat]

That sounds about right,.bust the good guy.let the baddie off

[ray]

i\'ll tell you what makes my **** boil pike anglers taking undersize coalies for dead baits off shields pier every summer. the coalie population will never recover either

[micky-quayle]

look at it logically ray, yes pike anglers take undersized coalies true but at the same time return all big ones that are over the size limit which they would be quite within their rights to keep. now it doesn\'t take an einstein to work out that the bigger the returned coalies are the more chance they have to go on to breed. as long as they are returning the larger ones they are doing less overall damage to the coalie population than if they kept the big ones and returned the small ones.
the bigger coalies could its true be cut in half and used as pike baits but these are less effective and as stated above if they took these bigger ones it would undoubtedly do more damage to the coalie population than taking the smaller ones.

[TC]

Sorry Micky, that sounds like a VERY poor argument to me, m8.

Is it not the fact that the phrase, “undersized�, means just that, and that they SHOULD be returned if caught.
The minimum size limits on ANY fish govern ALL anglers and that limit should be adhered to.
There’s NO justification I can see for ANY angler “adapting� the “rules� to suit their own ends. If there was, what’s the point in having them in the 1st place?

Just because you return “in size� fish, doesn’t therefore make it permissible to take “undersized fish�


[Edited on 10/3/2004 by TC]

[willywetegg]

I was just about to post the same thing as TC. If you are taking undersize fish you are breaking the law. Sorry Micky no iffs no butts that is how it is. I used to fish Roker pier amnd the amount of undersized fish that came off there was disgusting. No argument can explain taking an undersize fish. Sorry mate.

[TC]

Jim,
\"I used to fish Roker pier amnd the amount of undersized fish that came off there was disgusting. \"

Yep, I think we\'ve all witnessed similar, m8.

Over the years on NESA, there\'s been constant critiscism of \"anglers\" who, when they land an undersized fish, don\'t bother to return it, but just leave it lying where it\'s been unhooked.
To my mind, an angler flounting the rules on fish sizes in order to suit their own ends is just as bad and deserves the same level of critiscism.

NOTE:
There is NO WAY I will allow the advocating of retaining under sized fish on NESA.



[Edited on 10/3/2004 by TC]

[ray]

so what your saying is its all right to prosecute an old man but its all right for you and others to fish illegally by taking undersize coalies and mackeral bit of a double standard you say taking the small ones does no harm of course it does as people are taking the bigger ones legally there will be less fish to take there places to eventually spawn, im sure maff would have a field day on the pier in the summer i for one would love it if they did regular patrols as ritchie said in another post were have all the flounder gone we will be saying that about the shoals of coalie around shields pier shortly

[ray]

the einstien bits wrong aswell the reason the cod stocks are so low is the wholesale slaughter of immature fish getting caught and killed with the ones that are above the size limit this means if the big fish are being taken aswell as the small ones the fish stocks will never recoverif immature fish arent allowed to grow and breed

[micky-quayle]

i\'m in no way trying to say it is legal just trying to point out that it may not harm the stocks as much as you may think, i don\'t know the exact maths of it but i would think out of several hundered coalies at lets say 5\" maybe only 1 or 2 would reach 13.8\". therefor returning all coalies over this size (in reality most of the pike lads return them over about 8\") it is doing the stocks less harm than if they kept the larger ones only.
legally, yes it is a no no, and yes it would not stand up in court, i know that. all i\'m trying to do is make a differential between the two situations. pikers have thought about the morality of it and tried to think it through morally and logically, but i\'m afraid dead lines for apex predators are indescriminate and have neither any legal or moral ground only greed. dead lines in freshwater also kill many swans and geese each year they are the devils work.
both practises are illegal yes, but which is the greater transgression of the rules.
by the way ray, i\'ve always tried to keep answers on this forum \"on topic\" and not take cheap pops at people, which if you care to look back at any posts i\'ve made you\'ll to be the case. i knew my reply would cause some conrtoversy but i would rather explain my views than keep quiet. ray, do you really in your heart of hearts think the coalie population is been harmed more by a piker keeping 5\" coalies or the angler keeping the bigger ones, answer not on a legal stand point but from a reality point of view please, hypothetically so to speak.
ps. i\'ve tried to word my message and reply so that it can be legally posted and not deleted tony, i know its dodgy ground discussing such matters !

[Edited on 10/3/2004 by micky-quayle]

[ray]

i wasnt having a cheap pop at you micky alli did was speak my mind,
if you think it was specifically aimed at yourself then your wrong its aimed at anyone who takes undersize fish in my opinion its wrong and it gives groups like petra more ammunition to throw at us. and yes i do beleive that taking undersize coalies will have an effect on the local population around the pier

[Edited on 10/3/2004 by ray]

[micky-quayle]

apology accepted ray, i thought someone was having a pop specifically in my direction.the question i asked though ray, was although as soon as ANY fish is taken it has affected the fish population, i asked the question which would do the MOST long term damage to the coalie population the angler keeping only small coalies or the angler keeping only large coalies ?
last year there were some cracking coalies coming in around 2lb mark and loads of them, they were all returned safely surely fish of this size stand a much better chance to go on and procreate. personally i take a lot of time helping promote environmental issues, more so on the freshwater lochs of scotland now its true, off our own backs many lochs have been cleaned up both from pollution and general litter (in much the same way nesa members did last year on shields pier)etc. fish stocks issues both sea and freshwater are very close to my heart and if i believed for one minute that the taking of the size coalies mentioned was having a greater affect than the angler keeping the sizable ones i would condem it.

[Danny]

God! you easterners are cruel, have you seen anyone with Alzheimer\'s disease?...No???
are yer putting 2lb of sugar in yer tea cup instead of the caddy?...

are yer kissin\' yer next door neighbour goodbye instead of yer wife???.. (i am )

yers havent lived.