A Time of Change?

Sometimes you wish that the time you live in would last forever

More frequently you wish that you could turn the clock back to a time that is now gone forever, and only in its passing do you now realise what has been left behind.

(Wouldn’t it be wonderful to travel back to the ‘50s and ‘60s, with the kind of fishing tackle available now, and knowing what we know now?)

But that journey back in time is of course an impossibility.

We can only look at what we have now, and work out how to improve it for the future.

But to improve anything means uncertain change and, for good or bad, the future will inevitably be different to now, thanks to change.

Understanding the changes that can be made for the better and trying to bring them about, and understanding the changes that are coming, and working to make them work for the better, is the only hope that we have of ensuring that ‘now’ will be looked back upon as a time we’d rather not go back to, rather than as the last of the good times that were forever lost.

And all of us have a responsibility for that.

The good (and perhaps bad) news is that we currently have much to work with.

The proposed Marine Bill envisages the establishment of Marine Protected Areas; the reformation of the Sea Fisheries Committees who control the inshore fisheries, both commercial and recreational; it talks too of licensing sea angling and imposing bag limits on anglers’ catches.

The DEFRA RSA strategy will be put out for consultation very soon, for the first time spelling out the government’s responsibilities for maintaining healthy Recreational Sea Fisheries, and for the development of the Recreational Sea Angling sector (as well as spelling out the responsibilities of Recreational Sea Anglers and angling organisations).

When the RSA strategy consultation has been finalised, there will be further initiatives and consultations to put some meat on the bones of the framework strategy, followed by plans to be implemented.

It is unfortunate that at this time of change, the National Federation of Sea Anglers, deprived of traditional funding from Sports England, now struggles financially, and even proposes disbandment next year if a workable solution cannot be found.

Who then will be left to represent the best interests of the UK’s 1 million or so sea anglers?

Global warming and changed fish population dynamics, a greater understanding of fisheries science and the management of commercial fisheries, even a new fisheries minister.

These are but a handful of the changes that we will see, fundamentally affecting both the quality of our fishing and the management of our sport in the coming years.

A time of change certainly.

Perhaps too a time of opportunity for Recreational Sea Angling, if the people needed to make it work in our interests come forward and make it work for us.

But we should not rely too heavily on them so that, as often happens, it is all left up to an overburdened few without the resources to cope with so much change.

And we must always remember that a time of change is also a time of threat.

Threats that could see anglers managed, regulated, and politically side-lined if the burden of representation is too often left to others, and in a naïve belief that things will work out for the best all by themselves.

Threats that ownership of fish stocks could increasingly be removed from everyone, and concentrated in the hands of relatively few that have no interest whatsoever in the maintenance and development of healthy Recreational Sea Fisheries.

A time of change – always interesting to live through, and to realise that things will never again be the same as now.