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All members
After the last winter league finished and with the sad loss of 3 North East Anglers in one season we now have to consider club members and competitors safety as a part of our terms and conditions with regard to club insurance through the Angling Trust. In a nutshell we have to do a risk assessment and sign that off 8 hours before a competition starts after final checks on the weather. So the club has decided that we require some personal details of members such as mobile phone number, a person to contact in case of an emergency and an e-mail address if you have one, this alone will enable us to contact you and keep you in touch with club business and events at virtually no cost, so watch this space for the renewal and new members application form.
Information
from
Recreational Sea Angling
Co-ordination Group
April 30 2010
Tide is running out on struggle to find sea life sanctuaries
Government
plans to designate large areas in the North and Irish seas and the English
Channel as marine conservation zones (MCZs) where many activities may be
restricted or barred, are running out of time.
Sea anglers on four regional project teams covering the areas say
there is only six weeks in which to study and then recommend which areas should
initially be zoned.
They have set up a 40-strong group to harmonise their concerns by
exchanging and co-coordinating details of the proposals as they emerge. The
group - full name the Recreational Sea Angling Conservation Zone Co-ordination
Group - includes anglers on local committees covering counties bordering the
proposed zones set up by the regional projects. Some of the proposed
conservation zones may be close to the shore,
The first bulletin from the group states: “The timeline is of
great concern. We have until June 11 to make regional recommendations so that
the overall plans of each project can to be submitted to a scientific advisory
panel by June 30.
The first of the four groups, named Finding Sanctuary and
covering the western English Channel was started in 2007. However, the three
other groups for the North Sea, the eastern English Channel and the Irish Sea
have existed for less than a year.
One of them only managed to hold its first meeting on April 22.
The bulletin says there has been too little time for anglers to
study the areas in the sea proposed to become MCZs. The anglers need time to
consult with clubs and others in the four areas where there are hundreds of
thousands of individual sea anglers so that their views can been heard.
“There is, therefore, a high degree of risk that mistakes may be
made,” the bulletin states. “This initiative is too important to be rushed and
there are genuine fears that stakeholders are being driven to a predestined
objective.”
The government’s plan is that once the zones have been designated
they will not be reviewed for six years.
The bulletin calls for more transparent engagement by the four
project teams with their stakeholders. Discussion papers were being presented
at the start of meetings giving no time to study them and prepare constructive
analyses.
“The lack of adequate information is fuelling the suspicions
held by many sea anglers that their sport is going to be subject of massive
restrictions. This lack of information needs to be reversed.”
Please contact me with any concerns
Les
2nd
April 2010
Just an update
on the process, I attended the first hub meeting on the formation of MTZ in our
hub region, Berwick to Hartlepool. There is very little to report as the guidelines have not been
published from DEFRA and cascaded down to NE and JNCC and then to netgain, these
should be out in the next few days and may give us some idea as to what is going
on. The meeting was very much a sign up to hub protocol and admin along with
discussing mapping tools that we will require later. The only significant news
is I asked for more RSA representation on the Next level (Stakeholder advisory
panel) and this is being considered.
The next
meeting is on the 10th &11th May if any of you have locations or species that
you believe needs protecting I would be happy to put it to the hub and it will
be considered. I still believe that for shore anglers we will be affected on the
bait collection and digging front so we must keep up to speed and make sure it
does not happen without us putting up our arguments. There are many well funded
and organised groups on our hub such as Northumberland Wildlife Trust, heritage
groups, RSPB, and Commercial fishermen many of there arguments are evidenced and
documented by their Barrister. If any of you require more information just
e-mail me.
I have spoken
to Alan Charlton about how I get this information out to all RSA in
Northumberland, any ideas? This will all be over by next June! So not much time
to get organised if we require it.
Les
Net
Gain: Large Group Meeting Hull 11th February 2010.
Basically the
main objective of the meeting was to consider “What a MCZ should involve and the
Priorities to make it a Success”
The “netgain”
area of the North Sea is from Berwick down to Suffolk almost to Clacton on Sea
and will be spit into four hubs, North East, East of England, Yorkshire & Humber
and Lincolnshire, our regional hub being North East, Berwick down to just south
of Hartlepool.
Those hubs
will have a panel of representatives from the local stakeholder groups, this may
include large corporate groups such as offshore wind farmers, gas and oil,
commercial fishermen and associated industries, Conservation such as
Northumberland Wildlife Trust then the recreational sector, anglers, divers,
canoeist, walkers We then had a brain storming session to see what groups we
felt should be on this panel. The four hubs will then be overseen by another
panel called “stakeholder advisory panel” (StAP) again a similar exercise was
undertaken within the 24 groups in the room made up of tables of four or five
all from different user groups, I had wind farmers, commercial fisherman,
Seafish (food industry), Wildlife trust. Then the finale, which consisted of
each delegate putting coloured stickers on a matrix of stakeholder groups, Sea
Angling, Commercial Fishing and Conservation predominated. We should know if we
are represented on our local hub and by whom soon as the first NE hub meeting
will be at Cullercoats in mid March. The NE was well represented with Mike
Edwards (Northern Fed) Sam Harris (Angling Trust) and myself. If any of you have
any ideas about areas you think should be in a MCZ this can include intertidal
waters up to spring high tide point and tidal rivers up to the fresh water point
please let me know. I will keep you updated as the process unfolds.
Netgain
MCZ meeting Cullercoats11th January.
I attended the 3pm meeting along with Alan Charlton (Northern Fed) Sam Harris
(Angling Trust) The meeting was facilitated by a professional independent
company along with netgain staff and gave an overview of netgain and time lines.
You must remember the law is already in place to implement any MCZ in the form
of the Marine & Coastal access Act, you have already had an opportunity to have
your say on that during the consultation period and many of you did individually
and at the meeting in Newbiggin. netgain based in Hull, is aiming to work with
as many sea user and interest groups as possible to plan new Marine Conservation
Zones throughout their project area, which runs from the Scottish border to
Felixstowe out to 200 miles and up all rivers to fresh water and I believe the
mean high tide mark and it will be Stakeholder led. This massive area will be
formed into 4 hubs our hub being North East Just South of Hartlepool to Berwick,
the 3 others being Yorkshire& Humber, Lincolnshire and finally East of England.
The hubs will have a stakeholder advisory panel, speak to the liaison officer if
you require more info on how to get on one if you were not at the meeting.
Our area liaison officer is Gary Tinsley based at Cullercoats, so for those of
you that were unable to attend and require information for your club or
yourselves he can be contacted on 0191 222 3061 they have produced an
information pack. The Website is up and running and they will be adding a web
based GIS mapping system by April
http://www.netgainmcz.org/index.php
The project in the South West Finding Sanctuary has been going for several years
and is the model for the other projects. The below link is worth reading
regarding sea anglers and how things are likely to develop up here.
Sea Anglers My Stakeholder Group Get Involved Finding Sanctuary
This process will take place over the next 18 months or longer, about June 2011
when I believe the project is handed back to Natural England
I believe they are working on a questionnaire for sea Anglers.
I made enquiries with the Stakeholder manager about talking to clubs and
individuals I would be prepared to organise this if enough interest was shown.
As I said at Newbiggin the licence issue was but just one, there might be more
to come, I suspect around bait digging and possible problems for boat anglers.
It is important that some organisation club or national association represents
us.
There was a diverse collection of interest at the meeting from wind farmers, NT,
RSPB, commercial fisherman, EA and others. An interest on the stakeholder
advisory panel would be good. None of this is bad news for us as yet, but we
must be part of the process. I can be contacted via the Amble Sea angling Club
web site.
Amble Sea Angling Club
33rd
Amble Open January 3rd 2010
What a morning
as the committee dragged itself into the Radcliffe Club for 6.30am from across
snow covered Northumberland with reports of road closures and severe weather
conditions. The first words you hear “is it on”, Jimmy the match secretary
replies “of course it is only a bit of snaw” well he was right the competition
went ahead with competitors coming from as far away as Whitby that morning. The
President and Vice (Jock & Tony) did the registration a worrying job until about
8.30am when the vast majority turned up to register with tales of their
hazardous journeys. Colin the treasurer along with Jimmy, Darkie and others set
up the prize table. The interesting bit was to come, counting the money along
with the pre booked tickets, sponsorship and monies laid out in prizes to see if
once again the club would survive, this sadly is a common tale for many clubs
these days, numbers dwindling on open competitions and club finances having to
embrace the deficit and soldier on, it is always the bottom line that counts no
matter how much work and enthusiasm the club puts in, we are financially down on
the comp but not downhearted with plans for a summer competition this year, more
about that later.
So armed with a
bacon sandwich and the knowledge that the Club would survive Darkie, Jock, Tony
and myself went out to steward the comp, we had already heard that the ladies,
Norma and Elaine had caught and rumours of a cod from the Saltpans, water was
collected for the flatfish and Tony and I had a chat with some of the anglers.
We had given the competitors an extra half an hour to get to the weigh in so it
was back to the hut to get the generator on and laptop plugged in. At the start
we were unsure about the catch rate on the day and to my surprise some very good
fish were seen at the scales. Elaine Scott weighed her 3 flounders in first and
said Norma Urwin had four flounders but Elaine’s best fish was 1lb 5.75oz
flounder, so we knew it would be close for the two ASAC ladies, Norma then
arrived and confirmed she had won and just beaten Elaine by just 12.5 oz, well
done ladies. Norma walked away with the ladies cup and prize money along with
Elaine winning the heaviest flatfish the only two ASAC members to win comp
categories along with Ryan Pringle who won the club cup with 2 fish for 5lb
12.5, well done Ryan. A special mention to our club Treasurer Colin who came 64th
and picked up a prize. 64 people weighed in (ah so he was last) so our chairmen
gave a prize to all that had caught. All in all a magnificent day, reflected in
the thanks that our chairmen (Jock) mentioned in his speech to all concerned
especially Amble Boat Company, Amble Angling centre, Greys (John Henderson) and
SONIK Sports (Tony Anderson)
Sizzlers for
their donation and fantastic food.
A very special
thanks to those of you that turned up on the day despite the weather.
I will end this
now with a another thank you to Tony & Norma not only the local tackle shop
owners but fantastic club and committee members. Norma we wish to thank you as
you have often stepped in and helped at the last minute such as the food after
the Christmas fare selling raffle tickets and opening early for registration and
bait along with your generous help with the prize table.
So it ended
with the same old faces clearing up, more about that later.
Well done to
all involved.
Members please come to
our monthly meetings, we need your ideas and help along with your moans.
Tight lines
Happy New
Year
Les
The
Marine Bill.
The
attached newsletter speaks for itself but as usual the devil is in the detail
and there is a long way to go yet, Marine Protected Area’s
www.netgainmcz.org for our region, the
implementation of the new Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Authorities with we
hope RSA (Recreational Sea Anglers) representation on that authority. As you may
know article 47 will not affect shore anglers but may have an impact on RSA boat
anglers up in the North East. If you have any questions on the above do not
hesitate to get in touch with me or you have an issue you think should be raised
on your behalf with the Northumberland Sea Fisheries Committee. I will endeavour
to keep you updated on the above issues.
Issue 12 - 01 December 2009 published (PDF 396KB)
Finally
have you considered joining the Angling Trust?
I
believe £20 well spent to have one voice for angling.
www.anglingtrust.net
.
A
victory for perseverance and commonsense
Collecting peeler crab
The
Crown V Gavin Hall
The
Facts
South Shields
Magistrates Court 7th December 2009-12-08
Mr Hall was seen back in April of this year throwing 11 tyres into
the river Tyne / river Don with the intention of laying them out alongside his
other tyre’s as crab shelters (it is not PC to call them traps as they don’t
trap or fish if they did we could be regulated) Unfortunately it was high tide
at the time and the passing off duty Police Officer walking his dog took a
different view of the young lad throwing tyres into the river at high water from
a van, anyway the off duty officer intervenes and is not happy with the story
and calls his on duty colleagues, Mr Hall is interviewed and his story remains
the same as to his intention to place the tyres at low water as crab shelters to
collect peeler crab.
Northumbria Constabulary latter summons Mr Hall under sec 2(1)
Amenity Act 2009 (the abandonment of cars or parts of) Mr Hall after initially
pleading guilty, as he knew no different and on advice changed his plea to not
guilty and after various adjournments and an 8 month wait along with an
alternative charge of littering put on him at the last minute a final trial date
was set for Monday 7th December 2009. After evidence from 3
prosecution witness’s and one defence witness Mr Hall was found not guilty on
both counts and most importantly was given cost as he had funded the defence
solicitor from his own pocket.
The magistrates commented that they had no criticism of the Police
but there was no evidence of intention to abandon or litter as per Mr Hall’s
defence.
Tight Lines
Les
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