A plea to all walkers and anglers

[Tragus]

Before I start, I am not having a go at anyone, purely asking for help.
Could all anglers, walkers and those who are near water at any time please keep a look out for discarded line, floats, hooks etc. and take them home with them
Most anglers are conscientious and care deeply about wildlife,but there are times when fishing lines breaks or is left by those NOT so caring and this then becomes a problem for all wildlife, particularly waterfowl.
I have attached some of the hooks/float photos and one of a gull injured by carelessly left fishing tackle. Please help us to help the wildlife

[nightshade]

I agree ,just caught a blackbird 1mtr. of line attached to a hook in its throat
all I could do was cut as much of the hook off as possible and release it.
I always have and always will clean up where anglers cant be bothered,the majority are conciencious.My main cause of dismay nowdays is the discarding of plastic water bottles,by otherwise responsible people,when I challenged a yuppie class woman she said they were perfectly safe as "no animal would swallow them"!!

[Coops]

As an angler this does annoy me. I too hope that anglers begin to take care and clean up after themselves. Unfortunatly some people have an utter disregard for others and the places they fish and the wildlife within the area. However i do not class these people as true anglers as anglers are not just about the fish they catch but the journey they take in doing so.

This type of behaviour is apparent in all areas of society, angling is prehaps a little more fagile that other areas, as the perception is different for different people. I would though like to thank you guys for recognising that it is not all anglers who cause these problems but i will say that it is getting more and more wide spread, mainly due to the amounts of people who are fishing and the amout of products on the market (packaging).

[Tragus]

Hi there Coops
Welcome to the forum, and thank you for your post. I totally agree with you and find that nearly all anglers I have met are responsible and helpful.
Many of our wildlife casualties are either reported or even rescued by anglers and without them a lot of what goes on would remain 'hidden'.

Could you help me by maybe identifying the types of hooks etc in the attached pictures? I mean they seem a little over the top for fishing on small lakes. It makes me wonder if younger children are using 'grandads old kit' without supervision. I'm sure our local wardens who keep an eye on the lakes and stretches of rivers would be only too glad to advise children on what to use for which fish.
Welcome once again Coops
tragus

[Tragus]

Well done you nightshade for catching and removing said hook. The consequences would have been disastrous. It's utterly laughable at the excuses people come up with for throwing away litter, and its amazing what people throw away too, I'm sure most of it could be recycled.
Tragus

[Coops]

I cannot seem to find the pictures you have put up.

There are lots and lots of taining oppertunities for the younger generation. Things like national angling week, fishathon etc where people can go a recieve help form older and more experienced anglers. However the littering aspect is more down to the indevidual rather than how they are taught. The person you see at the traffic lights who empties their ash tray out the window etc... they know its wrong and so easy to go about their business correctly but choose not to.

Cheers for the welcome :-)

[nightshade]

I moved into a swim one morning and picked up line, sandwich wrappers, a milkbottle and a wallet of hooks to line. a little later I was asked to produce my licence (which I had) by a club bailiff,he looked around not a little suprised then asked if I had found any hooks as he had been fishing there minutes before I arrived,I handed over the bag, hooks rubbish and all, he disappeared very quickly!
I still see the large majorityof anglers as very tidy and caring people like every group there are just a few selfish and uncaring that give the rest a bad name

[Tragus]

Hi again Coops,
If you scroll up to the first post in this thread, you will hopefully see some pictures on the screen. If you click on these it will enlarge the image for you.
Hope this helps
tragus

[Boddie]

Good thread this one. Very conscientious and very true and something that we can all help with. It does not take much but makes a big difference.

[Tragus]

Thanks Boddie
It DOES make a huge difference. We had one family who bought in a lead poisoned duck from a lake near to their house. The duck did survive but we moved it to another lake which was fishing free, as it was just unfair to return it to the lake. As a result the family now regularly 'warden' the lake themselves and in the first week filled an icecream tub size box with old fishing tackle and bits of household rubbish. The press even got hold of their efforts and rewarded them with a piece in the local paper. The lake is much cleaner and the wildlife is checked on by the local residents.
Tragus

[henrya]

I once had to rescue a Pipistrelle Bat that had been hooked in the mouth and was suspended by a length of nylon line from a tree above the River Stour in Dorset. With a bit of paddling I managed to dislodge the line and the bat fell into the river and swam ashore. I removed the hook and took the bat back to my hotel and dried it out, and offered it some morsels of meat cadged off the landlord, but it wouldn't feed. However, I took it back close to the spot that evening and put in on a pile of logs, and half an hour or so later it had gone. I assumed (and hoped) that it had survived.

henrya

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

I realise i'm mega late posting in this topic but i've only just found this forum

I'm a mad keen angler and would like to say how much it saddens me that some "anglers" do not seem to care for the environment in the same way I and 95% of anglers do these people are just the same as anyone else who doesn't give a toss about nature, but happen to go fishing

I am a shareholder in a fishing pond, over the past 10 years we have turned the lake from a barren piece of water with no tree's and hardly any wildlife, into a lake with tree's(willow and alders mainly) all around, with new species of birds turning up year after year, me and a few other members have been putting nestboxes around the lake to encourage birds to nest and we feed them all the way throught the year, the seed feeder i do has to be filled up everyday

Angling does far more good for the environment than bad

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

This topic didn't seem to update, so i'm posting this to bring it to the top

[nightshade]

The bad anglers are in a minority and it is always pleasant when another angler speaks out

[Boddie]

Its a top thread I think as I never gave it much thought. Now I will endeavour to check myself when I pass lakes, ponds etc and if I can help I will remove anything of danger.

[John]

Originally Posted by Tragus

Could you help me by maybe identifying the types of hooks etc in the attached pictures? I mean they seem a little over the top for fishing on small lakes. It makes me wonder if younger children are using 'grandads old kit' without supervision. I'm sure our local wardens who keep an eye on the lakes and stretches of rivers would be only too glad to advise children on what to use for which fish.
Welcome once again Coops
tragus

I'm afraid those hooks are not over the top as all bar one are lures used for Pike. You need big hooks for these fish. The bottom one in the second picture will be a Carp hook that is attached to braid. Again a large fish that needs substantial hooks and line to be used.

I haven't fished for 10 years now but I can speak with a vast experience of Coarse Fishing. I used to fish on the open circuit for many years. Ran a few fishing clubs and was on various committees. I finally moved onto become a specialist Angler for Barbel and overall was fishing for close on 45+ years so I think I can speak with a measure of authority on the subject.

First of all I detest the untidy and thoughtless angler as much as the next man. When I ran a fishing club any member that left his peg untidy was fined and banned from fishing the next contest. That was my way of dealing with it. On the open circuit there were organisers of their competitions that operated a similar system but that only worked on a competitor that was likely to fish one of their contests again.

Now please don't have a go at me when I state the following but you have to try and picture the scenario to understand it (if you don't fish you will have your own ideas on what constitutes line and hooks being just left, and you may be surprised that your perceptions are possibly way off the mark).

An angler is fishing a water. He/she hooks an extremely large fish that suddenly becomes too powerful for the line, or the hook just pulls out and flies into a tree and tangles up, possibly 50 or more yards away from where he/she is fishing. There is no way that Angler can get to this line and hook. The hook could be dangling just off, or on, the water and is now a danger to anything swimming by. Whose responsibility is it to remove that line. The Anglers, I don't think so as he/she has no chance of getting to it.

Now this is where fishing lets itself down. A lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon regarding using their pools for fishing. They charge a peg fee and then do nothing more than perhaps re-stock fish every now and again. They might even open up a cafe on site or a shop selling bait and tackle but ask them to go around in a boat and clear the area of line and hooks that Anglers can't get to and they will look at you as if you have gone mad.

It becomes a different matter on the big rivers where line could get caught up almost anywhere and no one would possibly ever get to see it, never mind trying to clean it up.

The comprehension of the public is that the offending lines and hooks that are causing damage to wildlife are generally left where Anglers can just pick it up and take it home with them. True, some of it is, but that is in the minority as the majority is lost hooks and line through breakages and virtually all of those will be well beyond the reach of any Angler.

Before slagging of the Angling fraternity you must first understand the sport. If you don't understand it how can you base a sound judgement on it.

I hate to see any bird that has been caught up in line and hooks as it is a tragedy. There are ways of dealing with some of it as I have mentioned earlier but I think that this problem will never go away.

Even now Anglers are blamed for lead poisoning, again by those that don't understand the sport. Lead was banned many years ago and was replaced with alternative non-toxic metals so it can't be down to angling. On the other hand my information is that lead shot is still used in shooting and who knows where those pellets end up.

I have attached a couple of photos of a Black headed Gull that I found in November 2003 at Chasewater, near Brownhills. if you look closely you will see that there is blood all down the chest of this bird. It was at very extreme distance from me so the photo quality isn't very good. I used it to send it to someone I knew that might have been able to get out on the water to attempt a rescue but by the time he had got there the bird had gone, where I don't know, but its fate was obvious.

John

[nightshade]

The first pic is a pike plug, the second pic is of 3 spinners one looks homemade and could be chain it certainly has a swivel,the gull has another pike lure I wonder did it fly into the path of an angler casting out?
these things are difficult for an ordinary angler to recover as John says
but the angling clubsand river authorities, through their bailiffs ,should be more on top of the problem the licences they check pay for what services?
The enviromental angler should speak up

[Kayleigh]

I agree with John. I used to go fishing if a slight breeze takes your line it ends up in the nearest tree. You don't deliberateley go out to loose your tackle.
But saying that every peg we came to we had to clear it of bits left behind hooks, line, shot ect. We would take our children so had to make it safe for them. You get mindless uncaring people every where. My children now grown up never drop litter, they have been taught to put it in their pockets or find a bin. People have this attiude that someone else will pick it up. How do you educate this mentality.

[Neil]

Hi Tragus

The first two photos are of lures used for pike fishing, the first part of the line is normally steel wire to stop the pike biting through it. Being a fisherman myself, I am disgusted with the amount of line and hooks that I find at the lakes I fish. The lakes are on a farm where most of my bird photos are taken. A pair of swans visit each year to breed. Last week the female had a hook with line attached in its throat. The farmer caught the swan but could only cut most of the line off but not remove the hook. He and I have feed it with bread to take the hook through the swan, this appears to have worked. I have made three posters that we have placed around the lakes. As I have said in other posts the farmer is wildlife friendly he breaks open the iced over lakes to let the water fowl swim and drink. See attachments.

Neil

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

Nice to see some excellent replies on this thread from both anglers and non-anglers

Like i say some people just don't give a toss about wildlife, just unfortunate that some are anglers We have a area of wetland near t our house, went over today to feed the ducks, the amount of tin cans and plastic bottles about was totally unacceptable, we brought a bagful home to put in the bin where it belongs

[John]

Originally Posted by Lincs Yellowbelly

Nice to see some excellent replies on this thread from both anglers and non-anglers

Like i say some people just don't give a toss about wildlife, just unfortunate that some are anglers We have a area of wetland near t our house, went over today to feed the ducks, the amount of tin cans and plastic bottles about was totally unacceptable, we brought a bagful home to put in the bin where it belongs

It's good to see that you are so responsible John in collecting all that Rubbish. The thing is you shouldn't have to do this. If it is a club water they should be clearing it up and if it is a day ticket water the owner of the site should be clearing it up. Either way there is a chain of responsibility that you can follow.

If it is a club water they will be paying an owner for the rights to use that water. Tell the owner what you are finding and express your disgust at the problems wildlife in general can encounter with this rubbish.

If it is a day ticket water you have a problem. I mentioned in an earlier reply that there are certain people out to make money opening up waters to anglers paying for the right to fish them. A lot of these owners care nothing about the surrounding wildlife and are only interested in the income that is generated from the day ticket money.

What you can do about this type of litter I don't know but a word with the right Environmental office might pay dividends.

John

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

John,

Its a area of land that the Council own, not exactly a lake, more a flooded reedy area unfortunatly because it's not policed people seem to dump there rubbish down there its a real shame because with a bit of work it could be something nice only today saw a few Teal down there, you can hear the owls in the woods from my house and also woodpeckers during the spring

[Kayleigh]

We are all responsible for our own rubbish. It should be taught in schools and in the home from a very early age. Why should we rely on clubs or day ticket owners. There should be large notices asking for peolpe to take their rubbish home with them. It should become common practice.