November 2006 - Canoeist Magazine

Stanley gate
opened briefly
Landowner Mike
Smith opened the gate
to the Tay at
Burnmouth. Paddlers
were asked to note
the new advisory
signs which indicate
cooperation anglers
would like to see in
return. Paddlers had
tended to agree in
principle to paying for
parking on his land
but not for access to
the river, a legal right.
Then he locked the
gate again so the SCA
have asked for their
signs to be taken
down. One man’s
fight goes on.
Anglers attacked
Anglers have been
attacked this year by
hunt saboteurs. In
particular, a group of
at least 30 broke up
tackle at Caton on the
Lune. There has been
an attack on a trout
farm near Lanark by
the Animal Liberation
Front while the
Lobster Liberation
Front have destroyed
lobster pots and
sprayed slogans on
fishermen’s sheds in
Scotland and slashed
a fisherman’s nets in
Dorset. Saboteurs are
also blamed for
releasing 50,000 fish
from a reservoir in
Kent.
Anglers
breaking ranks
The claim that
canoes disturb fish is
being undermined by
the anglers
themselves faster than
by anyone else.
Increasing numbers of
anglers are moving
onto sit on top kayaks
as they discover they
can reach fish that
those on land cannot.
In the USA at least
two canoeing
magazines have
carried angling
special issues this
year. As anglers
steadily break ranks
with the diehards it is
rather like watching
the Iron Curtain being
breached. Kayak
angling courses are
already being run in
north Wales.
14
Culham lock on the Thames, still with no take out point despite all the expenditure on it.
Boating, hunting
and fishing
declared illegal in USA
The arrest of six men for fishing on floodwater
outside the normal channel of the Mississippi has
resulted in a court judgement stating that boating,
hunting and fishing are illegal except in deep water
navigations in Louisiana and perhaps throughout the
USA. The case was, by this time, at appeal. The
suggestion that it would give a situation as bad as in
England and Wales has created uproar and there is a
general expectation that the status quo will be restored
after a hearing in November. While boaters alone do
not carry that much weight, anglers and hunters are
another matter and this draconian reinterpretation
of the law is not appreciated.
Scots law continues
Apparently Scots law applies to rivers
which rise in Scotland even when they
continue into England. This would seem
to have positive access implications on the lower
parts of the Whiteadder Water, Tweed,
Till, Glen, Liddel Water and Border
Esk.
CANOEIST November 2006
Do noisy paddlers
disturb salmon?
A respected fish scientist, writing in the serious Atlantic
Salmon Trust’s magazine, has expressed the opinion that
canoeists and rafters disturb salmon by making noise in a
way that powered fishing boats don’t, regardless of what EA
research found. He claims they cause salmon to move when
they should be resting up on their way to breeding sites.
Because they do not eat in freshwater they run out of
energy more quickly and so cannot complete what they
came to undertake. In the Tyne catchment, which has a full
catchment agreement, there does not seem to be enough
disturbance to prevent the highest
catches in England and Wales.
Thanet
clean seas
There should be cleaner
seas around the Isle of
Thanet from next autumn.
Sewage will be pumped to a
treatment works on the Stour,
given advanced treatment and then
pumped back to Margate for discharge
into the sea, a round trip of 22km for
much of it. Pump failure will result in
tipping it into the sea untreated,
together with large EU fines.
* The two lead options for
cleaning up the Thames in London
ahead of the 2012 Olympics are both
pipelines. One is to run 30km, intercepting
discharges and taking the water for treatment
in east London. The other is for two shorter
pipelines in east and west London. A decision
will be made in the new year.
Edmonds new
IWAAC chairman
John Edmonds has been appointed the new chairman of
the Inland Waterways Amenity Advisory Council. A
DEFRA statement said ‘The Government has decided to
reconstitute the Council as an independent body with wider
terms of reference.’ How the IWAAC can still be seen as
independent when John Edmonds is also the EA’s board
member with responsibility for navigation issues remains to
be explained