Public Meetings on New Fisheries Bill

Rumours I'm hearing at this stage is that nothing is ruled in and nothing is ruled out - They're trying to garner ideas and gauge feedback from us before they go to the public consultation stage.

So, if there's anything you're particularily dead set against the best thing to do is get your letter in now before the public consultation stage and try to nip it in the bud. conversely, if there's anything you really want to see actioned, submit it in writing and try to make sure it gets onto the next stage.

One thing you can be sure of - the Game anglers are already on the ball, meeting with them and making suggestions and proposals.

Where's our Reps? Yeah that's right, we don't have any, so it's up to you as an individual to make sure your own voice is heard.

Exactly and excellent T.

Where's our Reps? Yeah that's right, we don't have any, so it's up to you as an individual to make sure your own voice is heard.

It still puzzles me that the large (5,000 plus) membership of this site hasnt evolved some kind of representation mechanism over the last decade. A few weeks back I put up a post suggesting at least a petition-gathering function as a beginning, but the post was promptly removed - presumably the site owners dont want the hassle, and that's fair enough.
So maybe a parallel site could be established to which SAI members can migrate for petition purposes. Honed proposals and demands put forward by several thousand sea anglers acting together will have much more punch than a collection of emails, all different, from individuals. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this, there must be something that can be organised.

Inland Fisheries Ireland commissioned TDI a year ago to complete a report on Irish Angling. While the full report has yet to be published some IFI people have indicated that in the numbers game sea angling has come in ahead of all including trout. If a compulsory payment system does come in it may well be that sea anglers would be the biggest contributors.
It would seem from numbers that I have seen that only a small proportion of sea anglers join clubs and are represented by a federation. This may just be because you dont need to join a club to get fishing. Most trout guys have to join a club to get fishing a particular stretch of river or lake as the club has the water leased. This enables the trout guys to get well organised. During the rod licence dispute in 1988-1990 trout guys split on that issue and we now have 2 trout feds each with 100+ affiliated clubs. That makes each of them a powerful force but on the current debate they are not singing of the same songsheet.
Every angler can and should make a submission. Written submissions must be submitted by 5pm on 28th June. Dont forget there are more issues than just the proposed compulsory angler contribution. There is also the need for mixed angler representation on the board of IFI for instance.

A few weeks back I put up a post suggesting at least a petition-gathering function as a beginning, but the post was promptly removed - presumably the site owners dont want the hassle, and that's fair enough.

Post wasn't removed- it is here
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=42646&p=332786&hilit=petition#p332786

Apologies if this had already been addressed but can anyone advice how to go about making a submission?

They dont want any submissions until after the 13th May. You then have up to 28th June. In around a week they will put up a summary of the meetings on the Dept website. They will list the top 5 or 6 issues that came up. Wait until then. I will put a link up to this at that time and I will make sure both email and postal addresses for your submission are given. If there are any other important general issues that they havent listed I will add them.
A sea angling issue that used to come up every so often when I was on a fisheries board was nursery areas. I know that the IFSA prepared a paper on this a long time ago and that it was updated (not recently). A sea angler did mention the need for nursery areas at the Drogheda meeting.

Actually folks, I'm not a bass angler I fish everything and devote little time to bass. The point is that there is an opportunity, the first time ever to put sea angling on par with game anglers by officially designating a sea species as angling only. For us as sea anglers this would be the thin end of the wedge that we can use to have our voice heard alongside the commercial lobby. If we can get this across the line everything is possible such as nursery areas closed to commercials etc.

Dont be short sighted on this and create divisions within our community, this will ultimately benefit us all.

Hope some of you guys can make the meeting in the SPA Hotel tonight at 7

I would think that there were about 50 anglers there. There was a good turnout of pike anglers there. Lots of good points made. The Minister did seem to be genuine in wanting to hear all anglers concerns and does seem anxious to make sure that the new legislation will be acceptable to anglers. He clearly said that if we wanted an angler registration fee/permit all funds would be ringfenced and if we didnt want to contribute it wouldnt be in the legislation. He also said that when the Bill was drawn up he would be willing to come back to meet us again to make sure that we were happy. His principle officer in the Dept Dennis Maher, while only in the inland fisheries 14 months was well in command of his brief and could answer all questions well.
I didnt check the sign in list so I dont know whether there were any sea anglers there. I think maybe 20 or more people spoke and I dont remember a single sea issue being raised apart from the Galway Bay fish farm and I think that was raised by salmon anglers.

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Natural/Inland+ ... test+News/