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The 35th Amble Greys Open shore Championship
A
crisp white frosty winter’s morning saw Amble SAC along with local tackle
manufacturer Greys of Alnwick supported by MKN building supplies and Amble
Angling Centre turn out for its 35th Open Shore Championship.
Bright sunshine and below freezing temperatures saw the 558 anglers fishing
from 10am until 3pm on a calm sea with no wind. We had high hopes for the Cod
anglers after seeing some good seas running on the Friday leaving a fair amount
of colour in the water however on the day the conditions favoured the flounder
and the anglers that targeted them. Low water was at 1.05pm a 1.5m dropping from
4.9m tide, 132 anglers weighed in at the Radcliffe Club Amble, with 391 fish for
a total of 402lb, mainly flounders. They then enjoyed the hospitality of the
Radcliffe club whilst looking at an amazing prize and raffle table. Prize money,
cups, and the latest Greys rods were presented to the winners by Steve Peterson,
Marketing manager for Greys of Alnwick. The overall winner was Matthew Holdroyd,
who incidentally came second last year, with a bag of 14 flounders for 14lb
5.5oz. The heaviest fish went to Willy Emery, a cod of 7lb 5.75 oz. Heaviest
flatfish went to Steven Ayling a fine turbot of 2lb.9oz. The ladies winner was
Pauline Ferry with 4lb 9oz. The junior winner this year was Daniel Tait with a
fine bag of 6lb 0.25 oz. Well done also to second placed Calum Bartlett, and
special mention to 4 year old Kyle Whellans who finished third.
All junior entrants who attended the weigh in received a Greys goodie bag.
Full results can be seen at open comp page. Once again a big thank you from
Amble SAC to all our entrants who support us every year, coming from far and
wide to fish.
ASAC
has a policy of returning flounders alive, well over 300 were returned to the
sea this year.
Final Netgain
meeting
Two days in Hull, driven as usual, no questions unless they
appeared on sticky notes. The first day could have been stripped down to an hour
or two mainly re visiting the work done over the 550 man hours of consultation
in the past 15 months along with the feedback received from several groups, some
of it made very interesting reading, including the French fishing interest, they
quoted COM 2010 771 “the catching sector needs flexible access in order to
respond to changes in distribution patterns of fish stocks” what can you say
(fish swim and we want to chase) they are strongly against most if not all
sites. The RSPB and Wildlife Trust needless to say these two organisations want
more and perhaps we will hear from them again next summer no doubt in the public
consultation with them shouting, add birds and what about the ecology forget
Socio economics. Never the less some form of consensus has been met and the
lines drawn in the last iteration stand with a few comments from the SAP about
gaps (connectivity) in the Northern North Sea and a former proposed MCZ NG14
south and NG 14 in the NNS that will go in the annex. Most of the ENG
requirements have been met but not all including replication and adequacy with
the exception of mud. Meetings will be held this summer over the impact
assessments on each individual site, not sure who with, hopefully I will be
updated on any contact with my IFCA and will keep up to date? All MHZs will now
be known as RMCZ, recommended.
Day 2 was centred on management measures and driven group work
with a NG member allocated to each group, again a very emotive subject
especially for the commercial fishermen with very little time after 15 months of
work to get one day, albeit non consultative work has already been done with the
NGO s on this subject hence the driven group consultation!
Central to the management was the fact that a feature or site was
set to recover or maintain and by default RAs would be to recover. So to simply
if they had been designated as favourable it would be to maintain and
unfavourable to recover over 18 sites and 100 features they are all set to
maintain except for 16, 6, 7, 9,12 & 14 and most of the management measures
would be zoned .To maintain should require no management just public awareness
of the site.
It was emphasized that that any status was not set in stone and
new evidence now and in the future could change the objectives, remember we are
committed to have everything in a favourable condition by 2020 not sure who or
how they will know this but I was told NE have money to start surveying very
soon this will be contracted out to start with but hope to bring it in house.
Regarding management it will be IFCA up to 6 miles, MMO to 12 and
CFP from there on to the meridian??. We are still waiting on advice about how to
Ban, reduce, restrict, or allow. Sec 125 and 126 of the 2009 Act give some
guidance but we await answers from DEFRA. No one seems to know the answer to
the byelaw question and how or indeed if it would go out to public consultation
as it would have to be absolute in other words the public would not be able to
overrule it on consultation? Some sites mainly around aggregate abstraction
would have a 0.5k buffer zone. The one single thing that made my hair stand on
end was the discussion around management through licensing being the best tool
for the job and will be used on licensed activity and management measure
will be added to the conditions of the Licence. Makes you think,
especially around the new data collection project Sea Angling 2012 and the fact
each individual IFCA could licence RSA. It was said that no restrictive
management measure would be required on recreational activity I reminded them
via a sticky note about the reference area in Marshalls Meadows on the Berwick
coast, I was told ah, yes, no, yes, no you can’t fish there. I then asked the
question could I walk on it as it is a thin intertidal strip, when the tide was
out of course and go fishing as my gear would be out of the reference area at
mean low water only my feet would be in it. Don’t know was the answer but if by
walking on it I damaged or made a significant impact on the site I would be in
breach. A retired solicitor on my table thought it was great as he could see
some mileage in potential future litigation.
We talked about voluntary
agreements, codes of conduct, signage, byelaw, interim byelaw, Defra prohibition
order, Defra fisheries licence conditions &CFP each site was visited by the
various groups who listed suggested management measures, signage in the NNS was
popular. Most went with voluntary agreement and codes of conduct unless the
management would
be against commercial fisherman, most said byelaw or licence and all said CFP
over 12 miles. Other than the RAs in my region and NG 14 Farne Deeps very little
management was required the commercial fleet will be affected on NG 14 with a
zoned management measure covering demersal fishing.
So what next, the timetable is 31st August the work
goes to NE & JNCC impact assessments will be done in 2 parts and handed over
late October early November with a final deadline of 16th Jan 2012,
public consultation to take place during the Olympics.
Latest M.C.Z News (March 11th)
I know it
is a long document
http://www.netgainmcz.org/docs/Net%2...l%20report.pdf
For most of you pages 111 to 107 (PDF) 101 to 105 (report) this is the proposed
area for a MCZ from Amble to St Mary's Lighthouse. I need constructive feedback
from you and I will write a report and submit it to Netgain for the next round.
I can be contacted via PM or e-mail if you wish to discuss the report. I do not
have much time as usual in these things I only received it today and they need
it back for the 18th and I have to be in London for the 16th to Meet Richard
Benyon MP and then again on the 21st at the National Angling Summit I do need
feedback from you out there. Any messages for Mr Benyon that wont get me
arrested.
e-mail
loopyles5@btinternet.com
Latest MCZ news
Ok
I have attended the last round of Net Gain hub meetings at South Shields . Once
again I will try and be brief. We will probably have 5 MCZ in our region, all
north of the Tyne with 3, possibly 4 reference site's (no human activity
whatsoever) 4 of the MCZ are out in the North North Sea from around the Farne
Deeps and east out to the limit these will include 3 reference zones and will
effect commercial fishermen to some degree. Regarding shore anglers the MCZ that
is likely to occur will run South from Alnmouth to just past St Mary’s
lighthouse and will not at this time include the river estuaries up to the tidal
limit, having fought that one off for the time being but the EA are determined
to get them in so we live to fight another day. Regarding the reference area
they wanted to put around St Mary’s lighthouse again I believe we have been
successful and have managed to get that somewhere else, this is to be confirmed
at the next round but I have put up a sound argument that met with support by
many at the meeting. The River Aln Estuary is also likely to become an MCZ but
with an overriding caveat that RSA activity is allowed to continue again this
was agreed.
Any one wanting more detail please e-mail me. The consultation has been given a
time extension so I will probably attend 2 more rounds of meetings the next
being the most important as it is on management tools regarding the above.
Incidentally we managed to greatly reduce this size of the proposed MCZ on this
round.
Still lots to fight for but so far so good. Remember this is not set in stone
and the process allows another public consultation period after the stakeholder
led process goes back to government via JNCC & NE
The 34th Amble Open 2011
A
much better day than last year but with tide and conditions less than favorable
with a flat sea, cod were in short supply with just 14 weighed in. 451 fished
with 89 weighing in 230 fish, mainly flounders, for 243lb 7oz. Stephen Atkinson
landed two cod for 8lb 13oz from the Dunstanburgh area to win ahead of Matthew
Holdroyd who targeted the flatties at Warkworth and landed eight flounders at
7lb 9oz. Third placed Anthony Whellans also at Warkworth with a bag of nine
flounders weighing 7lb 7oz. Craig Ogilvie took the heaviest fish prize with a
cod of 7¼lb from Fluke Hole. Runner-up Stephen Atkinson had the second heaviest
of 5lb 5oz and C. France had one of 5¼lb to take third. D. Ferry had the
heaviest flatfish of 1lb 14oz one ounce ahead of second placed Martin Pygall.
Dave Bullock took third spot with a fish of 1lb 10oz. Our own Norma Urwin won
the ladies with 4lb 4oz, in second again Elaine Scott weighed in 3lb 15oz
followed by Pauline Ferry on 1lb 9oz. Best junior Ross Taylor put some of the
adults to shame with a bag weighing 7lb 1oz and also won the club trophy. Jack
Punton took second junior place with 2lb 5oz and Lliam Smith finished third with
2lb 4oz. In all a good turn out, disappointing on the cod front but once again a
very high percentage of flounders where returned alive ant the conclusion of the
weigh in, thanks Craig and Colin. Thanks once again to Alan Charlton our
official photographer as usual and to Jimmy and the rest of the committee and
helpers for organizing and running the event.
Net Gain, two day Marine
Conservation Zone meeting Blyth. 21/22/10/10.
I attended the
meeting on both days. The anglers that have answered questionaires or have been
interviewed by the Net Gain team contributed to the work of the first day by
supplying a data map of RSA activity again unfortunately we did not have enough,
so some of the coast shows no RSA activity at all but the other data sets we had
from commercial fishermen and conservation agency where full on with the
exception of some inshore commercial fishermen, perhaps this is where RSA needed
to be informed about the what happens if you don’t give information. Needless
to say the wind farms, Oil and Crown Estates sent there best young brains from
London. So to give you a feel for the process at the last meeting we refused
basically to draw lines that could be made public because the data was non
existent this time we had much more data and we had to put pen to paper. The NE
hub has now drawn lines in the sea and along the seashore all having caveats to
them on control/ management measures regarding activities within those areas
also our degree of confidence in the area as defined. The whole group was put
into three tables mine having Natural England, Crown Estates, RSPB, Friends of
the Earth, inshore commercial fisherman, MMO, INCA( wildlife charity) All data
was considered and we drew our lines until about 5pm that day along with the
caveats for the draft MCZ we had created. Overnight all data was imputed into
the GIS (digital map) and the three tables MCZ’s were overlaid on one another,
we then had to reach a consensus as a group to the areas drawn, so the day was
made up of the three tables joining the lines together until a consensus was met
along with taking out and adjusting areas to comply with the ecological network
guidance set by Natural England (ENG). The most important thing was that all
caveats would remain. At this stage it would appear we have nothing to fear
regarding RSA, but we will be getting down to the detail in the intertidal zone
in the next round and I await the restrictions and management controls on bait
digging. I got the feeling that some conservation groups will try to get control
caveats on anything to do with disturbing birds. Some of the new data has not
yet been processed for RSA and under 10m fishermen in North Northumberland
(personal interviews by NG). Once again the Broad Scale Habitat (BSH) data was
questioned and to the accuracy regarding sub tidal mud, the group agreed to use
local knowledge and place mud on the map in an area shown as sand we will
evidence this through local fishermen and see what the Scientific Advisory
Panel (SAP) have to say. We had information that most of the BSH is calculated
through sampling and then a computer model made. The features of conservation
interest (FOCI) is also similar in as much as if it is on a map it is only
because they have sampled there, the greatest number being in and around gas and
oil platforms or potential wind farms. So the science is very patchy and is
right unless we can prove it wrong !. The other interesting point is I started
researching some of the Latin names from the ENG FOCI list and found after
questioning those in the know, that a vast majority of them have and probably
never will live in our area, so much of the science is generic to all four
projects. Banning twin rigging was mentioned and endorsed by the inshore
fishermen and the disparity between bye-laws in different IFCA districts and the
MMO out past 6 miles ( banned in Northumberland only) No mention as yet as to no
angling within an area, Anchoring was briefly mentioned along with strings of
pots and possible damage to Sea Ferns, I asked if they existed in our area as my
research had shown they did not, the general consensus from the brains in the
room was they did not but corals did. We had a very active member of the Crown
estate who was representing the interests of its customers, the renewable
sector, who it transpires will have all sorts of planning issues along with
extra cost if they have to apply in MCZ’s. Finally as should have happened on
the last iteration this work will go into the public domain. I for one am glad
that ASAC are in this as stakeholders as I have seen first hand how quickly
areas can be thought off and if there is no information by the way of an overlay
or a representative of an affected stakeholder group lines get drawn. How the
big commercial boys attack this process when it is finished and back with NE
will be interesting. Next round mid December.
Les
ASAC AGM 2010
Briefley 13 people turned up that includes the committee.
Tony Cook is the New Chairman
with Jock Forgie as the Vice ,the Club is currently financially sound due to the
Summer Open and those members that subscribe to the weekly lottery draw contact
Norma, £1 a week on the bonus ball.
The ban on wrasse in ASAC
competitions, this is purely a conservation measure for a fish that is killed
and more often than not thrown away and not eaten.
No change on winter league
match times (see footnote)
however we return to our old policy of supporting local clubs by allowing
members to fish these Opens and or our own boundaries on the times dictated by
the other clubs. You are not able to claim the biggest fish if you fish the
alternative open.
Sunday Sept 12th
10am to 2pm Whitley Bay
Sunday Sept 26th
Newbiggin
Sunday Oct 10th
Seaton Sluice
Sunday Dec 18th
Angling Trust
Sunday Jan 9th
ASAC
Sunday 23rd
Competition cards must be
signed by a club official and returned to the ASAC match secretary.
Club boundaries will now be
from the Chip shop at Beadnel to the South end of Newbiggin Bay.
The Club will draw up a
safety code of practice for members, please contact any committee member or
myself, we need home telephone numbers car registrations and your e-mail
address..
The club will draw up a
membership/ renewal form for this purpose along with a junior membership
disclaimer for parents.
The second half of the winter
league will start with the Marathon.
We will look into running a
trip next summer any ideas to me please.
Discuss the summer league and
it’s boundaries in the New Year.
Your subs are due before the
first match you fish.
·
Proposal lodged for October
7th meeting to place competition times between 2pm and 10pm to target low tides,
ebb tide and darkness. Any objections please make known before then.
email
loopyles5@btinternet.com
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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