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Reg, your careful analysis confirms what any regular forum reader can see:
• Response levels are in largely determined by the topic (General/Fishing Chat are much more likely to generate responses than say Match Fishing and What You Have Caught where most comments will be of the ‘well done’ variety)
• Most contributions and responses are of the general/fishing chat variety which by its nature should promote a variety of views, contributions and challenges than other topics. This should be the main function of the forum, promoting exchanges among the members (and others).
• Few juniors use the forum (it might be that they use alternative media but the BAA Facebook page seems to generate even less activity).
What your analysis cannot show is the average age of contributors (my guess is that it is 50+), or the proportion of BAA members who have ever engaged with the forum (my guess is that it is no more than 1-2%). I sense also that the contribution rate was declining fairly slowly between 2015 and 2020; with the pandemic it increased as people wanted to know what was happening and we had ‘covid rage’ about the loss of fishing, staying local, rule breaking etc etc.
As matters have eased the activity has settled to a new low. This is sad as the forum is a mechanism to bind the membership together, to engage the potential clout the BAA has (by virtue of size and geographical area) to work for the future of angling in the UK. It should also be a source of information dissemination (the recent exchanges re EVA bait systems being a good example).
The BAA is like any other club, society or interest group. People join to pursue the interest. Few want to ‘get involved’. Over the last 30 years we have become a less united, less community based society where the influence of ‘the market’ has encouraged us to participate on ‘a pay as you go’ basis and loyalty and commitment ties have become more fragmented.
Posted on April 27, 2022 at 7:47 AM
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Agreed. My record is 2x in 21 years. The simple truth is that EA bailiffs are an endangered species and those which do exist concentrate on the low hanging fruit of token visits to commercials (where they can add 15-20 to the stats in an hour) rather than walking miles and spending hours along a canal towpath or river bank and add nothing to the stats. It's a number crunching cost/benefit exercise necessitated by the meagre staffing levels.
Posted on April 08, 2022 at 9:46 AM
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Just a thought but if a club is affiliated to BAA, then BAA must have a record of such clubs. Surely in response to a legitimate BAA member query a copy could either be passed on or to save admin resource it could be part of BAA website or am I missing something here?
Posted on April 08, 2022 at 9:39 AM
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Reg, I am not sure that KenL has got this right.
As I understand it, fish in rivers are wild and belong to no one (unlike those in enclosed waters where they belong to the owner of the land where the stillwater is located). The rights to fish for them reside with the landowners of either bank. Where each bank has a different rights holder neither has exclusive rights over the fish within the river but the rights are held jointly by each owner/rights holder who can confer these rights to the angling club legitimately holding these fishing rights via a lease.
If you found a non BAA member fishing the BAA bank he/she would be poaching and guilty of the theft under s1 of 1968 Theft Act. This is theft of rights (which in this case belong to BAA) and is a criminal offence and should be reported to the police as well as BAA. The EA would not be interested unless the methods used were illegal.
Following this logic in the case of Nafford if the bank opposite is held by a club and they (like BAA) do not permit fishing from boats then an offence was committed by the anglers spinning from the dinghy and you were within your rights to legitimately discourage them. The 'offence' in this case would be breaking the rules of both/either clubs, but not necessarily committing a criminal offence. You would need to know if they were members of either BAA (giving a right to fish but not according to BAA rules from boats) or the other club and if the other club permits angling from a boat to be certain that a criminal offence - theft of right - is being committed. If the perpetrators held no membership or permission from the rights holders of either bank to fish from a boat a criminal offence was committed. The EA would only be interested (and in a 'one off' like this not very interested at all) if the boaters were fishing without a rod licence.
The bottom line of course is that is you are legitimately fishing from the bank and a boat chose to fish in a way which encroached on your swim it is akin to an angler setting up within 10 metres of you and fishing or casting into your swim from the other bank. Its bad manners, inconsiderate and selfish behaviour which genuine, decent anglers would not do.
Posted on March 16, 2022 at 9:32 AM
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Apologies but this is complex. However the effects could be serious for us all, so please stick with it.
Recent exchanges about pollution and enforcing the laws designed to protect the environment have been much in evidence in recent weeks, not least on this forum. We all know (to our cost) that where the authorities (for whatever reason) take a less than active approach to law enforcement it is the environment (and our ability as anglers to enjoy our fishing) which is foremost amongst the casualties. If the law as it stands is enforced it fires a warning shot about the real world consequences to would-be polluters.
Now the government is proposing to change the law under clause 1 of the Judicial Review and
Courts Bill, which is coming before Parliament for approval. As the law stands today judges must to provide a remedy where an offence is proved; a ’quashing order’ which in effect means that the
(polluter’s) decision which caused the offence must be reversed. This stops the offence from being repeated or continuing.
The intention of clause 1 of the proposed bill is to remove this protection, by in effect weakening the remedy, directing or encouraging judges to opt for remedies other than a quashing order. It does not take a genius to work out what will happen to potential cases taken to court. Only a fool would launch a legal case where there is no guarantee of an effective outcome where the offence is proved. It renders the whole exercise as expensive and pointless and offers no protection. Nothing will change and it provides a green light for a wild west outcome.
The BAA along with other member clubs of the Angling Trust have been sent details about the
simple, cost-free steps they can take to try to resist this threat and encourage MPs to seek
amendments to the bill to maintain the current protections. It is to be hoped that the will BAA
choose to add their voice to those other angling clubs in seeking to stop this weakening of our
protections. Remember it is not the law as it stands which allows such offences to proliferate, it is the lack of enforcement. if the law is weakened a bad situation will only get worse. Each of us can assist by asking our MP to push for amendments to proposed clause 1 in parliament. Will you do so?
Posted on December 14, 2021 at 9:02 AM
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