What changes would you make to i.f.s.a. rules.

Paul, i think that is a good idea but a little unfair on anglers from areas like the west coast, i mean lets say i wanted to put in a "cv" of my big match wins, i would first have to attend them. and being on the west coast, i wouldn't have the time or the money to attend the matches that east coats anglers can.

Right.....so far its -

Sponsorship
International team selection
insurance
Fish sizes
Masters fished with the same rules as FIPS
Gaining more exposure for angling.

Any more?

( oh and "the prawn sandwich brigade" term is unflattering )

Alex are there no competitions on the west coast to fish, not all big competitions are on the east coast, there are probably just as many in the other provances. It's my point extactly if you really wanted to make the team there would be no stone left unturned and you would be willing to travel the lenght and breath of the county. I know you are of limited resources at the moment but the day will come when you will be free to roam.

Nice one teacher them's mighty fine words you got there.Dont know who would pick the selectors maybe rockhopper might help me out with this one. How are the english selectors chosen, or who are they.

ah let that day come fast........i am fairly sure that there is vey little in the way of comps around here....connacht gold medal and the blackhead/ballyreen international are the only ones i know of......

it would be great if there were more comps around here (hint hint nige :wink: )

The dissatisfaction with the IFSA... ie some people describing them (rightly or wrongly) as the prawn sandwich brigade might be helped if communications were improved - if the central council or whatever was seen to take an active stance in issues such as the dunlaoghaire fishing thing (just an example), maybe revamped their website and most importantly was seen to benefit anglers. At the moment the only things the IFSA seems to do is to provide insurance and a framework for angling competitions.

Something as small as orgainising a discount in tackleshops for IFSA members (any decent tackleshop normally knocks something off anyway, so it shouldnt be all that hard) or sponsorship for national teams would I believe make a big difference to peoples perceptions.

Oh and Im not criticising the IFSA, I dont know enough about what they do... but I think that they need to start making people aware of what they do and how they work.

ah let that day come fast........i am fairly sure that there is vey little in the way of comps around here....connacht gold medal and the blackhead/ballyreen international are the only ones i know of......

it would be great if there were more comps around here (hint hint nige :wink: )

again, hint hint nige lol

Nice one teacher them's mighty fine words you got there.Dont know who would pick the selectors maybe rockhopper might help me out with this one. How are the english selectors chosen, or who are they.

I have asked around and no one seems to know who picks the NFSA selection board, Goldsy doesnt know but what he did say is that the teams are picked from anglers who enter a CV because it would be futile to pick someone who either didnt want to fish or couldnt fish for the team, that makes sense. He also said that to a degree the team has some say in who is selected too.An Angler who fishes as an individual wouldnt be welcome, its the team thats important.

Some other bits of interest for instance....a full international must have at some time even as a junior been selected to what is classed as the home international team. I think if the NFSA selectors werent doing a good job and earning their prawn sandwiches they'd be dropped very quickly, there has been one or two over the years who have been marched out of the job (without going into details)

Not much more to report for you...sorry :(

Tom.

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i must agree fully that the federation need to sort out the situation with regard to fish minimum size limits.
while im fully aware people from different areas of the country will never agree what the minimum size should be i think its up to the federation to set out definative sizes whether it be on a nation wide or on a provincial basis. this should be done at the national a.g.m. and a high attendance by clubs would surely result in a system that the vast majority of anglers would accept and support.
while the current situation of several clubs often within the same county fishing different size limits is both frustrating and laughable to the more seasoned match angler, i can imagine many a newcomer to the competitive scene is often confused and put off.


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I dont really see a problem with allowing individual clubs a degree of flexibility for minimum sizes.

Most clubs do have their scoring systems, so there is flexibility in the fish sizes. The fish sizes in the diary are generally used for the "big" competitions - All Ireland, provincial opens and closed.

There are plenty of open competitions run during the year for the guys looking for competitions. The only real problems being transport, time and money. Another alternative ( if the west coast does really have so few competitions ) is to join a club in another province.

A.G.M.'s coming very soon

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my problem with individual clubs deciding their own size limits is twofold.

as already mentioned international success and recognition should be top of the agenda for any sport, therefore the rules and practices used in these competitions is also what should be used in normal match fishing situations. more than one irish international angler has been caught on the hop and struggled to catch the smaller soecies in recent years.

the second reason comes from personal experience in a one time strong club in the south. after a few years of the same anglers in the club doing consistently well some of the disgruntled hierarchy firstly decreased then twice increased the size limits in an effort to 'level the playing field' all over the period of just three seasons. obviously the same few anglers continued to do consistently well as they were simply better able to adjust and adapt. the up shot though was that over the same time period attendance levels to competitions plummeted because of all the chopping and changing. now our usual turn out is well below half of what it used to be

i just think in match situations if we were all reading off the same page things would be much simpler


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http://www.upcifsa.20m.com/

This is the UPC updated website :shock: :lol:

It's embarrassing. :oops: I know the lads personally in the photo's and they have changed ever so slightly from 1997!!! :shock:

I don't know when the last this website was updated, probably 1997. You would think that with the amount of people/anglers who have an interest in fishing that they, the UPC, would do more to promote themselves. If they don't have the means to keep the website updated, or maybe they can't be bothered with it? then IMO I feel they should close it down. That's only my view.

I also agree 100% with the view of paying numerous times for the same thing, insurance, if you were asked to pay your car insurance twice by your broker you would tell them were to go!

I think one of the most Important things the I.F.S.A can do is 1; Bring out a definitive seperate rule book (not in the Diary) and 2; bloody well use the rules it has adopted !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Case in point, The current ifsa minimum sizes are specifically to be used when the competition is on a weight basis ONLY, if the competition is being run on a point per cm basis or on a points per fish basis there are NO minimum sizes specified by the ifsa, but what you get is a situation where people involved in running competitions (who are not anglers) assume that the minimum sizes must be the ones for the weight competition and just blithely apply them, more than one angler has been fishing a pt per cm competition with flats at 250mm and round fish at 300mm, and when he presents a bass of 420mm to the weigh in he is told "sorry Bass are 430 minimum".
it cost me a place on the home shore team a couple of years ago when I caught 3 bass over 400, but under the 430, 3 flounders and a doggie, and came second in the munster closed shore by 1cm, after having 120cm of fish disqualified by Munster officals who didn't understand THEIR OWN RULES.................
Personally, I would like to see a minimum size limit of 200mm for ALL fish, in ALL ifsa major competitions, and these competitions to be run on a 100% catch and release basis, no exceptions, even if you catch a 8lb cod, or 5 lb bass they are to be returned, its only a couple of fish in one competition, and you are doing far more damage to fish stocks by taking a large fish of breeding size than catching smaller fish.
Also we need ANGLERS on our club and provincial and central council committe's.
This brings up the point about team selection. Currently in my opinion the way we select the home international teams is a Joke, and we only have to look at the irish results in this competition over the last 20 yrs to realise there is something wrong with it.
Up till recently the Masters selection wasn't a whole lot better, but by bringing in percentages, and now having 4 sessions and changing boat positions etc, the selection process has been greatly improved, what we need now as I have said in another post, is to supply all competitiors with equal bait, and adopt the f.i.p.s rules for this event.
I believe that we should bring in a PANEL system for selecting our boat teams to compete in international competitions, similar to the shore selection system, but with some refinments.
The top 10 anglers from the last 3 master angler boats, the last 3 winners of the findlater all Ireland open boat, and the last 3 winners from the 4 interprovincal closed boat c'ships should go into a selection panel, giving us a total of 45 anglers (in the case where an angler figures more than once we move to 11th, or 2nd, and so on down in the relevent competitions till we get to a total of 45 anglers)
on a year by year basis into the future we will hold a 2 day 4 session competition in which the last 15 anglers will fall out of the panel, and will be replaced by the top 10 from that years M.A, the Findlater winner,and the 4 provincal closed winners.
The top 5 in this fish off in 2008 will go forward to represent Ireland in the f.i.p.s.m world championships in 2009, and the next 5 will go forward to represent Ireland in the Home internationals in 2009, and forward into the future.
That is how I believe the teams should be selected in order to put forward the most competitive teams we can.
Each of these teams should nominate who they would like to manage them (bearing in mind that this person will have to fish if something happens to a team member) and submit these nominations to the ifsa to be ratified.
This system is virtually identical to the welsh selection system, and does away with the intrinsic unfairness of the british system (which nevertheless works)
I agree very much with Paul mason's thoughts, but I am also a realist, and know this will never happen in Irish angling, so I feel the panel is a good compromise.
As to the subject of Sponsership...... everyone, including the Provincal and Central councils, and everyone who qualifies for a team.... GET OFF YER ARSE'S and go get it yourselves !!!! there is plenty out there if you ask for it, why wait for someone to just give it to you??
Thanks for reading this far, I have so much to say on these topics, and could go on all day lol.
Dave

Dave,

I agree with most of what your saying barring your remark "the intrinsic unfairness of the british system (which nevertheless works)" whats so unfair about it (you obviously mean the English system) Like you say it works and I have never heard an Englishman say its unfair.

Tom.

Are their many people from the Provisional and Central councils on this site?

Thanks for the comment Tom,
I am reffering more to the boat team selection that the english use, where you send in your c.v and apply for a specific team, it has been very successful for them, but I have known instances where surperb anglers have applied for places on teams fishing out of their home ports, and because they are not in a certain cilque, or may have had a run in with a selector, they haven't been picked, and lets face it a selector will only pick his friends/ people who he gets on with its human nature.
there have also been instances where team members bought their way in, ie could financially afford to travel ahead of other anglers who would have been better choices.
Their results have been very good, but it is an unfair system and certainly one that would never be allowed here .

Right Dave....I was thinking of the shore team selection....you had me wondering :)

I agree with what your saying again....I know of many happenings that you have outlined regarding friends or finances playing a big part in selection, thats not unique to the Irish team Dave. Your right its very wrong to rob a man of his place for that reason.

BTW....as far as sponsorship...I know the team captains of the England teams have acquired that themselves, it wasn't the NFSA who got it...the Irish teams should be allowed to do the same IMHO, unless thats already the case.

Brazil in October should be interesting....I know the England team are looking forward to it....Goldsy is already taking dancing lessons :lol: :lol: not in case he wins anything....I think he's got his eye on the Brazilian chikas :twisted: :twisted:

Tom.

The Ifsa and sponsorship seem to be strange bed fellows, You would think that they would have an officer who was responsible for sponsorship, and who would actively persue it, but it seems not, and in my experience it's up to the individual angler, or team to try get some sponsor ship themselves.
A few years ago I qualified for a world boat c'ships. Using my Mother who was involved with a political party, I put in a request to the government for some sponsorship, and to my surprise I obtained £4700 punts at the time, "well done" I might hear you say, well actually no...... when we went away each angler had to pay for bait for a practice day, that's when I found out that our sponsorship had gone elsewhere,
the money was split bewteen all the teams going away that year, and when I complained I ended up nearly being thrown out of the federation, so there is no Incentive for me to ever bother trying to get it again, also on a few teams that I have been away on, I personally sponsored team apperal so that we looked like a team... long before teams got matching clothes, and I never recieved a word of appreciation (not that I was looking for it).
I believe if a team gets sponsorship it belongs to that team, and if there is anything left over then it should go into the international fund.
We are all members of the biggest participation sport in this country, and it galls me to see minority sports like horse jumping and canoeing receiving thousands and thousands of euros from the sports council, the lotto, and Government, The federation should be in the position that they shouldn't have to spend a cent on the teams, it should all be sponsored, then all our memberships could go to fostering the development of the sport..
He who shout's the loudest gets the money, and we are not even whispering in the federation....
In my Humble opinion.....................................

Ps.. Goldsy gets such a good tan, and with that, and his height he'll be mistaken for a Local.... :lol: