very worrying reading !!!!

[willywetegg]

Sorry Red5 but as long as you treat this subject as lightly as you do we will continue to be in trouble. The anti\'s must be laughing there heads off at that post mate. If you think that we have nothing to worry about then all I can say is watch this space. Just my humble opinion but I think you have got it oh so wrong. These people will take it as far as they possibly can. Just ask them, if they have the bottle they will answer.
Not on here though as they would much rather do it surreptitiously. Or are they going to prove me wrong. I would love to see at least one of them have the guts to sign in here and have their say.

Jim.

[Red5]

About the topics Silvers, you singled me out for comments I made in the past about a ban on hunting, not the other 70% of members who also seemed to be against a ban.
I have my views and so does everyone else anti\'s can laugh at my comments as Willy said or others may think I have a point.

[micky-quayle]

fishing as a sport over the coming months and years is going to be in the firing line from many sides, whilst i think an outright ban on angling is extreemly unlikely i think a slow errosion of our rights as anglers could make angling a lot more difficult.
some of the antis have had success at getting livebaiting banned in several areas of the country for pike anglers, believe me this is only the thin end of the wedge, we must on no account concede ANY ground to the antis, the antis will never be satisfied until we\'re all lentil eating, longhaired, unwashed layabouts. the scary thing is these groups such as PETA were once only minority organisatios but now they are very much mainstream organisations, with jubious recruitment techniques trying to recruit active members at schools etc by giving a one sided biased point of view to youngsters at a very impresionable age.
believe me we have a long hard fight ahead of us to preserve the rights we have today and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to wake up quikly.
if you doubt what these people are about visit one of their websites
http://www.fishinghurts.com/
see what i mean !!!!

[Edited on 21/12/2004 by micky-quayle]

[Davyred]

Totally agree Mickey. These people will not be happy until they stop any sport which they think involve cruelty. I, for one, would love one of them to come up to me - I\'m sure I could find a new home for my rod stand!

[Chippy]

The antis will, IMHO, turn on angling as soon as fox hunting is completely out of the way. A major problem with these people is that they only see things in black and white, this is bad and that is good. I would expect (but don\'t want) a ban on using live baits (except worms) before my four month old son is old enough to come fishing with me, they have a similar ban in The Netherlands already. Personally, I could live with that although I agree with Mickey that not one inch should be given.

What seriously worries me is the attitudes of some, not all, anglers , from leaving litter and gutted fish behind to the mis-treatment of catches, we\'ve all seen it and this counts against all of us. However with a little thought, the misgivings of the public could be lessened, I\'ve lost count of the number of times I\'ve seen anglers killing their catch in front of non-anglers, or had a dozen dead fish displayed for all to see. Some anglers think that the antis will never come to angling in the same way they did to hunting with dogs, make no mistake about it, they will.
Who remembers the study \'proving\' that fish feel pain by injecting them with bee venom? As a scientist myself, I believe that this was a flawed piece of research, but by shouting louder than anyone else the antis made useful political capital out of it.
The animal rights people, or some of them, apparently value an aminal\'s life as more important, not equal, but more important than that of a human. As people who often enjoy our sport in quiet, out of the way locations such as rock marks or the end of Shields Pier, this worries me.