Becky M Newsletter

Thursday 10th May, 2007

Hello once more, well what wonderful weather we have had this last month, there are no complaints from me.

The fishing has been very good as well with some excellent catches of black bream being made, and a consistent average size of around 3lbs plus.

The best one that I have boated so far this season fell to local angler Matt Brading, an excellent cock fish weighing 5lbs 1oz, of course it goes without saying that all the hen fish are being returned unharmed, and anglers are only taking what they need, enjoying a good days sport, and with the majority of fish being returned which is good to see. Long gone are the days of senseless over fishing, and anglers dumping unwanted dead fish on the way in.

This last month has seen an increase in trips, what with the good weather and all, and I had a group from Holland who booked three trips with me. They usually do their fishing in the North Sea, but they had chosen to take a holiday on the Island this year. As we were setting off I explained to them that we would be fishing light for black bream, fortunately most of them had up tide gear so I wasn’t too worried about their tackle, it was a little bit on the heavy side but not enough to mar their fishing. As it turned out they had never done any bream fishing before, and as my little mate informed me they were “Bream Virgins”, so with this in mind we scaled their gear down, and introduced them to the pleasure of light fishing, (I got some ultra light tackle out for them to use) and they had some great sport.

We managed to vary the sport a bit by going for rays as well on one of the days, with most of the crew catching them, but they also wanted to do a second session with the bream.

I also had a group from the Island, and they were also “Bream Virgins” but they at least turned up with spinning tackle, but the bream played their part and gave a good account of themselves, and gave everyone some good sport, with the majority of the fish being returned.

I read with interest that DEFRA are wanting to introduce rod licence’s for sea anglers, which is all well and good, but who is going to collect the monies for these licence’s, and then who is going to police the idea. Also what will happen with any money that is collected, will it be used for the betterment of our sport i.e.

The creation of both inshore, and offshore artificial reefs, at least this would then create habitats for fish, and crustations to breed.

The government could also then put all of those tyre dumps to some good use, the Yanks have been doing it for years. This would, in part, also make up for all the destruction that is being done by the gravel extraction around our coastline.

Or would it be just another scam created by government to grab even more money from Joe Public by putting a tax on how he would like to spend his leisure time.

It is a well known fact that angling creates more money than the commercial fisheries, now that the EU has decimated the UK commercial fleet.

This could end up being quite a contentious issue, with us all being ground down, and denied our God given right to enjoy our leisure time as we wished, without being taxed to do it.

Tight lines,

Dave