The Scottish Government

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS SHEET - FORUM 2 PAGE 3

PROPOSALS FOR LEGISLATION REGARDING ACCESS TO FISHING

Alan Ayre: The Grayling Society

It is important that SCAPA's voice is heard, but Derek Keith's prejudiced delivery gained him little support for his cause. This is a contentious topic essentially interlinked with management (as was pointed out) and Willie Miller's resume of the group's thoughts reflected their difficulty in reaching a consensus on the way ahead. More work is required and more dialogue with the angling public is essential judging by the reaction of many delegates.

Robert Dalrymple: Stinchar DSFB

Free access, where is the funding coming from in a small river? When other species seem to be reasonably rare it does not appear to be a great demand.

Miranda Lindsay: Scottish Rural Property Business Association

There is the strong message that where PO's are in place the majority are working well and that many problem areas of the past have been sorted out (especially with the threat of removal of the PO).

Can we not amend the 1976 Act to tighten up definitions (as suggested in Peter Maitland's 2000 paper), ensure all of Scotland's catchments are covered and ensure Willie Miller's proposal to amend the "blanket protection" at present to that allowing riparian owners to opt out without losing the PO.

Vote Result - 63 abstentions

I think we should have included two other options "No change" and "Amend 1976 Act".

Drew Jamieson: Consultative Committee

Can we protect the habitat as well as the fish species.

John Hamilton: Girvan DSFB

The River Girvan is fished by fishing clubs over most of its length. Members of club are not wealthy, and have large junior section in many cases. The proposed regulation may well prove so expensive as to reduce access in that many club members will no longer afford to continue to fish. It is therefore of concern that the costs of this regulation is not yet being assessed after all, at the end of the day, the costs have a huge bearing on affordability. Also is there not a danger of losing control of conservation unless there is some possibility to restrict access where stocks are scarce such as brown trout in the River Girvan.

John Ellis: Lowland Canals Angling Partnership Scotland

Strongly agree that fishing without consent should be a criminal offence. This should apply nationally. Endorse the comments from the lady from the River Trusts. Overall, more thought needed on how to move forward on the access issue. As an aside, more coarse angling coaches are needed in Scotland.

Peter Reith: Federation of Border Angling Associations

The problem with Protection Orders is that they are too inflexible: - they need to ensure access for grayling, coarse fish etc as well as brown trout; they are all or nothing so far as the river system is concerned. If the concept of reciprocity was introduced then most of the problems would be resolved - no access, no protection.

Jane Wright: RAFTS

The issues of access were well highlighted in Willie's presentation and there's no doubt they need to be addressed. I have not voted on the 'access' card as it perpetrates the dual system of management of different species sharing the same waters and the same habitat. It would have been much better to address the 'access' issues without bringing them into the 'Protection Order' arena or proposing a perpetration of the dual system of management. I feel that access needs clauses in legislation on its own leaving decisions on the issue of management to be taken on fishery management grounds - not the management of.

Michael C Smith: Tay Proprietor

Access must be linked to exploitation. D Keith of SCAPA has not appreciated this and I question the Forum's rational for having him on the group. Over the last 30 years SCAPA/TAG have been a confrontational lot who have done nothing positive for Scotland's trout/salmon or indeed our anglers. SCAPA/TAG's behaviour on the tidal section of the Tay at Scone has been disgraceful with many salmon damaged.

Shona Marshall : WSFT

Scottish Angling Trust: nationalises an issue which should be local.

A broad access rule, as proposed in each option, fails to take account of local circumstances and issues. There are "punishments" and "rewards" for granting access but this does not take into account the economic value of the fishery to the community, the management and conservation of the fish populations, the difficulties of policing this management in some communities or the sustainability of remote populations. A local system must be maintained which puts the fish and fisheries before anglers through local agreements and developed management. While access is important this must be on a local agreement rather than the present "national" campaign of open to all at all times.

B Gentles: UCAPA

These proposals would seem to be legislation for legislations sake. When the majority of orders seem to be adequate for most anglers and clubs. I would suggest that status quo with a few minor adjustments would suffice.

Simon McKelvey: Conon DSFB

Establishing the requirement for anglers to have a legal right to fish or written permission would give protection to fish rather than owners.

Setting up a Scottish Anglers Trust and Area Angling Boards would add further confusion to the large numbers of fishery related organisations. It would be far better to bring all management into one unitary body responsible for all management, research and enforcement.

Need for a rod licence system and a legal requirement for permission to fish.

John MacColl: River Ness Fishery Board

With any new legislation there will be problems to sort out and taking in somebody/bodies from outside will not have the "hands on" experience required for that area. Could fisheries already in place not be employed to regulate for other fish species.

How much would coarse anglers trout anglers from outside that area pay and would they be prepared to pay for trout fishing pay towards enhancing habitats and collecting data about these species. How much is this going to cost the Executive and will they foot the initial costs.

They must except the spin offs already which benefits the local economies through salmon fishing which is still paid for by private money. More funding could be put to help balance out problems they already have.

N Yonge : River Tweed Commissioners

Must identify that access is the problem in management. There is in fact huge access but limited demand because the fish are not present or not present at an acceptable size. This is an issue of management which must incorporate regulation related to stocks. In turn, this means local management by local fishers. Mostly people are happy to do this without payment on Tweed. The last thing fishing organisations on Tweed want is to have a democratic infrastructure that take power of decision making away from them.

Gary Clarkson: Scottish Federation For Coarse Angling

Mr Miller: Agree more access for freshwater fishing should be made available. Permit costs must be affordable. It is unacceptable to give salmon/sea trout anglers priority over other paying anglers.

Alastair McPhee: Pike Anglers Alliance For Scotland

Access must be improved

- suggestions very positive

- public owned bodies, say by Councils, Scottish Water, Forest Enterprise must be made to allow increased access both physical and methodology.

- methods - for specific species should not prevent access for those wishing to fish for those species ie grayling/roach Tweed, roach/dace Forth etc.

Steve Tapley: Pike Anglers Alliance For Scotland

Better access for all anglers.

Better protection for the fish in the system.

Policing on the majority of the orders is mostly pathetic as no estate has wardens especially for the job.

Buying permits out of hours is hard work. ( internet access would be great).

Liaison Committee's are good and should be compulsory but need to have better Executive back up as it's poor at the moment. The Executive are failing some of the Liaison Committee's at the moment.

Rab Lee: Pike Anglers Alliance For Scotland

Although I appreciate that salmon anglers often pay dearly for their fishing, it would seem unfair to completely restrict other anglers from fishing these areas. More freedom to fish for different species and use alternative methods should be encouraged and the opening up of access to other anglers can only be a positive step. I feel that Scottish anglers would be willing to pay for fishing, if they were getting something back like improved access and rights to fish.

M McFadden: West Sutherland Fisheries Trust

Surely, as various species live within the same habitat, to protect them for future, the whole habitat has to be approached in the big picture. Trying to legislate/regulate for a specific species can not be advantageous for future management. General rules to cover the larger issues are required in addition to specific, local regulations that will address the direct "on the ground" problems that do come up.

David Houston: Kyle of Sutherland Fisheries Trust

Inadequate depth of presentation given size and importance of subject. This subject is of such fundamental importance that I believe it deserves greater forum consultation.

I believe that all fisheries groups: salmonid bodies, coarse anglers etc all have one common interest - that of protection, conservational and remedial management of their habitats. I further believe that via a local trust system with a national co-ordinating body, is the most simple and effective method of managing this.

Hilary Anderson: SFCC/FRS FL

Agree that not enough information on proposed option to allow other than abstain on feedback sheet 15. Concerned that an Anglers Trust structure did not include representation by the biologist/fishery manager of Trusts and Boards as a matter of course. Essential there is appropriate information provided on the science and sustainable management of the fisheries to anglers.

Peter Kennedy: River Doon Salmon Fishery Board

Not a very clear presentation.

The proposal for a Scottish Anglers Trust is a thinly disguised proposal for nationalisation of all fishings. This would not be in the interest of the future of fishings - would cost the public purse a vast amount - and would be economically unviable.

The options require further discussion and need to be "fleshed out".

Jon Gibb : River Lochy Association (LDSFB, LFT)

I felt there was far too much information/contention to be presented in this short space of time. The subject is just too big - it probably needs a whole day's forum on its own. Perhaps because of this, the presentation of ideas was far from clear (even too varied in its possibilities showing at times a radical range of ideas that it was not clear whether these had the support of the Steering Group or not). Nevertheless, from a fishery protection perspective, I 100% support changing the law of fishing for brown trout 'without right or written permission' to a criminal rather than a civil offence. This is to make the job of bailiffing easier. I do not agree with making this part of a 'carrot and stick' package as mentioned in the presentation. However, I also believe that all salmon rivers should offer 'an appropriate degree' of access to brown trout fishermen (eg on Sundays when no salmon fishing is allowed).

Duncan Clark: Auchterarder AC

The current system of PO's could be improved by producing terms of reference and funding for liaison committees. This would help iron out any anomalies between areas. Protection should be withdrawn from owners not abiding by their original commitments.

The high number of abstentions in the 'round up' vote is a bit of a concern given that many persons (presumably) present would benefit from the existing system.

Clearly rationalisation is unlikely to happen if only due to high cost of compensating owners. Similarly voluntary surrender of management to a fisheries trust is also an unlikely scenario.

It is really difficult to see a way forward here but in addition to para 1 above I would suggest the existing system could be substantially improved by making protection for access a heritable burden on land sales. Also a more formalised means of testing the commitment of those offering access could be introduced by offering to pay for a few permits each year for visiting anglers to test out randomly or where problems arise. Failure to grant might then be more formally investigated if liaison committees and bailiffs had more investigatory powers (formally backed by law) ie power to take statements and refer to procurator fiscals.

The issue of permit availability can be difficult for some individual beats to promote but the returns the Earn Liaison Committee could be made more widely available. Our list (I am secretary of Earn Liaison Committee also) has been made available to Visit Scotland for the last two years but they do not appear to use it on their web page. Maintaining a web page for ourselves (as a committee) would not in my view be viable given the voluntary nature (and often single handed nature) of the committee.

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