The Scottish Government

Forum 2: Question and Answer - Session 2

Okain McLennan, Loch Achonachie Angling Club:

I just wanted to say I've got a few problems with the presentation that was made. I felt it strayed across the boundaries of access to that of the management which I believe we are going to have a session this afternoon on. And certainly as a club which also owns waters in the north of Scotland as well as leasing them I would have particular problems with some other body, whatever you choose to call it, deciding on the price of the permits that my club is going to have to charge. There is a lot of information contained in the slides and in the presentation you made. I am not prepared at this stage to make any comment on the presentation without having the chance to have a far more detailed look and a more detailed look at proposals that quite frankly give a lot more information that's contained in these slides at the moment.

David Dunkley: It's almost inevitable that there will be some crossing over and borrowing of lines between these various topics because as you've seen this morning even in the question of regulation of fish movements and different fishing methods, that still feeds back into management, this feeds back into management. People like to categorise things but these things are all intimately and inextricably linked. We are very conscious of that so your point is well made.

Kemp Meikle, Mid Clyde and Nethan Valley Angling Association:

As someone who is associated with Willie in relation to the location of where he fishes, I am concerned that what we have heard from him today is a presentation. Now I have been following the information on the website quite closely. I found that presentation with Willie quite difficult to follow even although I am fairly well acquainted with what he has already got, and like the previous contributor I would be very reluctant to make comments until we see much more content discussed. By and large there are, you know I wasn't even aware of what the three options were until I looked at the last slide and saw they were the status quo, the son of PO and the grandson of PO . These were, if you like, they are major questions and like I said earlier I am concerned that we are being rushed here. We were rushed in relation to the questions on access and changes in legislation, which are the ones which were agreed if you like in inverted commas by the Steering Group with fairly clear options. These are much more far reaching and require much more discussion and more wide circulation than this particular Forum. I would even suggest that we need another Forum meeting to discuss these two issues, this one and the management issue at a later date

Willie Miller: Can I say that there is a fair allocation of time now for questions at this time and certain points could be cleared up now, hopefully.

John Dalrymple Hamilton, River Girvan District Salmon Fishery Board:

Could you kindly outline to me what you mean by protection to owners and so on in these orders.

Willie Miller: Protection is giving them the benefit of criminal law as opposed to civil law, making it illegal for anybody to fish without legal right or written permission.

Sandy Bennet, Badenoch Angling Association, Upper Spey:

We control the Upper Spey , Loch Ericht and Loch Laggan. We were actually the second to receive a protection order after the Tweed . I was a wee bit concerned to hear your negative talk about protection orders, as I can say 100% that our protection order works perfectly. We are a non-profit making organisation. All our money goes back into fish, we have a perfect relationship with all our landowners, riparian owners I should say, and it has worked perfect as anybody who has come up to our area to fish will appreciate. I just thought I would make that point because you seem to be very negative in your talking about protection orders.

Willie Miller: I am perfectly happy that there are some protection orders which are working well and I have had no complaints about the Upper Spey Order, that would possibly be one of those which would serve to provide some good practice for building other things on.

Derek Keith: Could I just come in here. Just a couple of hundred yards behind this very building there's a quite considerable tributary of the Tay called the Shochie Burn, it's about 15 miles long and its got great stocks of salmon, trout and sea trout in it. And I'm a local lad, I was born and brought up within 5 miles of here and I used to fish it many, many, times when I was a young lad and it became part of the Tay exclusion order, because that's what it is an exclusion order, in 1986 when the Tay got its exclusion order, and the Shochie Burn, all 15 miles, was included in it. There's not been one, single, permit available ever on that river, it's only a few hundred yards from here and it's 15 miles long. I don't want to take up the rest of your day by going through every single river, burn, loch and section of loch in the whole of Scotland which that pertains to. But there's one just a few hundred yards from here, 15 miles long and not a single public permit and yet it's got an exclusion order on it.

Bert Johnston, Chairman of the Tweed Liaison Committee:

In the Federation of Border Anglers there's something like 20 angling clubs, running angling on the Tweed, where the protection order does work very well. All of them operate on a break-even basis so the fishing tickets are as low a cost as they could possibly be. What additional cost would you envisage on top of that with an anglers trust?

Derek Keith: The Scottish Anglers Trust will be taking over the fishing which should open it up for everybody in Scotland. There's going to be a lot more access, again I've just told you the 15 miles that are behind us here just now.

Bert Johnston: But I cannot talk about that, I can only talk about the Tweed.

Derek Keith: Scotland has more than the Tweed, I think you are agreeing with that. But as far as the Tweed goes, there's vast parts of the Tweed that are closed, you know. We saw the problems we had on the Whitadder for many years. I got complaints from the Whitadder Angling Club and they were kicked off there.

Bert Johnston: These have all been resolved.

Derek Keith: Yes, because it took the likes of the Scottish campaign for public angling to have massive campaigns to publicise it to bring it to the public's and the Ministers attention.

Bert Johnston: No it did not.

Derek Keith: Oh yes it did. So the position is there is vast parts of the Tweed as I said where it's fly only, you know there are lots of unnecessary restrictions on the Tweed, and the Tweed Liaison Committee themselves in a letter to one of the Ministers said that since the order was granted in 1980 to the Tweed there had been a 66% drop in the amount of anglers fishing the Tweed.

Bert Johnston: No they did not. What they said was there was a drop in angling ticket sales primarily because of the decline in stocks of brown trout, nothing to do with access.

Derek Keith: You've just confirmed what I've just said, there has been a drop.

Bert Johnston: In ticket sales, yes.

Derek Keith: The legislation was given in order to encourage access, we don't have that access on the Tweed now. Where are the anglers?

Bert Johnston: The drop in ticket income has nothing whatsoever to do with access it's because of the fact that an awful lot of fishers now go to flat water fishing and catch heavily stocked rainbow trout and the decline in wild brown trout which is a problem. Not nothing to do with access. The only access that has ever been lost in the Tweed was about a mile and a half about 2 years ago where a farmer on the Upper Tweed withdrew access from the Peebleshire Angling Association, and that's the only water that's been lost since the protection order was granted.

Willie Miller: Sorry, can I come back on that one please. I am very familiar with the Whitadder and things are not back to what they were by any means. The Berwick and District Angling Association has less water now available for trout angling than it had before. The Upper Whitadder has restriction after restriction. You have to obtain additional free permits for some areas from sources which are not readily available. For example at Abbey St Bathans you have to go to a restaurant there to obtain an extra permit to fish at parts of the Whitadder and that restaurant is open only at certain times and it's not open at all on Monday's. On other places you now are restricted to dry fly only where previously you could fish by any legal method. There are stretches where ….. I mentioned the fact that you can be told not to fish the pools off the water by 10 o'clock in the evening. There are restriction after restriction. I don't know whether that overhead projector is working, is it possible to use it?

Derek Keith: If you want your fishing, you've got to open this fishing up for the simple reason there's no young blood coming into angling now. Take a look round the people here today. I doubt if there is anyone under 40 here today. Just imagine the state that our golf or athletics or rugby or our football would be in if the average age in Scotland which it is of an angler is now about 49 years of age. So we've got to get back to bringing people in. Let's get the people back into the sport. It'll finance itself, people will pay for permits through the Scottish Anglers Trust, there will be Government funding, taxpayers funding, yes, but we already pay vast sums for our policing through our police force which keeps private fisheries going, through our fishery patrol vessels offshore, through the Fisheries Research Institutes. That's all taxpayers money. Don't think that this is not a wealthy nation. We are in part of the fourth largest economy in the world and angling will bring in lots of tourism, lots of jobs, if we started to open it up. For goodness sake we've got direct road and rail and air communication with our largest neighbours, which is England. We also have direct flights and train services now from Britain to the Continent. Let's use all these communications to bring people into Scotland to open up our fishing. But let's start first of all with our young laddies and if necessary lots of young lassies who would like to fish. Get them out of the schemes, and out of the estates, get them out of the street corners, and get them on the river sites.

Bert Johnston: How much?

Derek Keith: We cannot give you a figure. We haven't seen the books yet, it's as simple as that. No responsible organisation can give you the figures until we've seen the books, it's as simple as that. But £50 a year, I think that would be quite cheap. Yes, I think it might be dearer or more expensive who knows yet. But unless we have the vision to go forward we are going to see angling completely crumbling until it's not even in the top 10 or 20% of participant sports in Scotland. It's nowhere near in the top 10 just now, that's for sure.

Jon Gibb, Fishery Manager, River Lochy Association:

Just very briefly, firstly a point of information from the presentation by Willie Miller. He mentioned that there was a public right to fish on Loch Lochy. I would just like to correct him on that in that the Lochaber District Salmon Fishery Board sought legal advice on this matter, they advised the Scottish Executive and the result of that was that it was concluded that it is not a public right to fish on Loch Lochy. I just wanted to mention that very briefly. I would agree with the other speakers that there is far too much involved here to make really sensible comment. However, bearing in mind what has just been said there, I would just like to ask very briefly did the Steering Group consider the relative economic contribution to local economies of fishing for different species, especially bearing in mind the well quoted recent report on that matter?

Willie Miller: Sorry, could I go back to your first point. I must have been very poor at communicating. I was not saying that there was public fishing on Loch Lochy, I was saying that it was difficult to obtain a protection order there because it was regarded as a public waterway. Maybe that's not the correct wording but am I correct in thinking that you would have difficulty in getting a protection order?

Jon Gibb: I believe there is some difficulty over that.

Willie Miller: My point was that we should find some way of making sure that places like Loch Lochy could get protection as required. The salmon angling brings in by far the largest part of the £113 million. The survey did indicate that other species were bringing in a smaller sum, but I'm fairly certain that there was also a statement that there was potential for more money to come from other species. Not necessarily in all parts of the country but in some parts of the country.

David Dunkley: This is something obviously we in the Executive are very keen to make progress on. I suppose our simplistic, naïve, view is the fact that it cannot be beyond the wit of man to devise systems whereby the various interested parties from different fishing sectors are able to co-exist. It just seems to me to be entirely reasonable that that should be a reasonable expectation. What we have got to figure out, is the way to do it.

Tony Andrews, Scottish Countryside Alliance Educational Trust:

I would just like to address the point about young people that you raised just now. There are two schemes currently going, there may be more that I don't know about, Angling for Youth Development across in Strathclyde area, and Get Hooked on Fishing in the Angus/Dundee area which are designed to get young people into fishing. Now we have had one year of a pilot project of both of these and the problems we are having are that we raise the interest of youngsters who have never experienced fishing before and who are literally hooked on fishing from the day's introduction to fishing and the instruction they get from qualified Disclosure Scotland vetted instructors, but where do they go from there, and the problem for us is that it is all very well interesting young people in the countryside, in angling, in environmental work, and all the things associated with our sport but if there is no conduit whereby we can link them to angling clubs, or to opportunities which they can afford to go fishing, we are actually dealing with a dead concept. My plea to this Forum is for goodness sake let's have a way of getting young people from our cities, we are one of the most urbanised societies in Europe, let's get them interested but then let's provide them with the opportunities to fish because we are not doing that at the moment.

Willie Miller: I agree fully with that.

David Summers, Tay District Salmon Fishery Board:

Very briefly before I get to the question. Fortunately we've got nothing to do with the protection order being a salmon fishery board, but it is in fact my understanding that the Shochie Burn isn't even part of the Tay protection order. And secondly to reinforce the point the chap from the Tweed, a few years ago we in fact did a survey of the Shochie Burn on the behest of a proprietor who was concerned about trout stocks and indeed we found lots of juvenile salmon but trout were almost non-existent, and that is a big problem for fishing. However the question I want to come to what, in terms of deliberation of the Steering Group , in terms of public waters were you thinking also of upper tidal waters, were they included as public waters?

Derek Keith: Yes, the tidal waters of course, as far as the Tay and obviously up to the tidal limits at Woody Island, and that applied to all tidal rivers, lochs and burns.

David Summers: So in son of PO when it says find a way of including public waters under protection that would include upper tidal waters as well would it?

Willie Miller: I would hope so.

David Summers: Good.

Alastair Stephen, Institute of Fisheries Management: Thank you David. Believe it or not I think Willie and Derek and most of here are actually agreeing on the major key issue here, and that is something that Willie mentioned right at the beginning of his presentation which was linking management, sensible local management, with access and I think that's the key theme that we have been trying to push as far as the Steering Group is concerned. How we end up getting there is a completely different issue. But that is the key underlying sort of tenet that we have been working to. Resourcing that is a huge issue which I hope Andrew will come on to, or at least touch on this afternoon as far as management. But as David said early on, everything is linked together. I think we all want the same thing. We all want sustainable fisheries that's going to benefit local communities, youth, tourist industry. What we are trying to find is mechanisms to allow that to happen and what worries me is we can drive wedges between different organisations and different sectors where we should be all trying to work together to a common end point.

Alex Stewart, River Tay Protection Order:

I was a wee bit astonished to learn that some other orders or some areas are not being monitored. The Tay Protection Order has just published its 6th Annual Report, it has a circulation of some 160 plus the Committee members and various riparian owners. Anyone can get a copy via the website, I have a few with me but not many. We also have an embarrassment and I'm not using the word freely of funding. We have had in the last 3 years a pot of money made to be available for grants for improving environmental for fishing. Only one club, my own, took up the opportunity. It's open to riparian owners as well. We have an administration cost which is funded by a levy from permit sales the bulk of which come from angling clubs, many of which have lease access agreements with riparian owners. And on the point of larger areas for access, my own club has a 87 km river and bank access covered by one single permit. Maps are provided, and the monitors throughout the Tay system look after their own necks of the woods. It is always better to deal with any problems, and we do have problems, straight to the point by locals rather than bringing someone in from the outside. The question I would like to ask is when you are talking about having monitors on a new system, are they going to be funded in the same manner as the bailiffs are at the moment because the wardens which we have on the Tay are volunteers, they don't have any fees apart from expenses?

Willie Miller: First of all can I say that the current Tay Liaison Committee is one which should be copied much more widely and the previous Tay Liaison Committee left a bit to be desired shall we say. I think we have to bite the bullet and say that we require to have river wardens funded somehow or other because I am aware that in many areas they are operating on a volunteer basis, they are using their own money for petrol and everything else and we are doing nothing about it. We can't at the moment do anything about it. Angling needs more money for a number of things and that is one of them, funding the operation of your river wardens, funding the operation of your Liaison Committee.

David Dunkley: I think we are kind of straying into this afternoon's session a little bit.

Jane Wright, until quite recently on the Steering Group representing the Association of West Coast Fisheries Trusts: I am concerned that we are going to be asked to vote on 3 points to do with this presentation all of which perpetrate the devisory management of fisheries in Scotland, which means presumably that we endorse this, and I think all of us would like to see a larger view taken as to whether we can go on managing different species by different bodies. It means setting up probably yet another body which we have been working towards getting rid of so that there are less bodies for people to comprehend in the fisheries world. And we ought to be thinking about managing salmonids and coarse fish, they all share the same water, they require the same habitat by and large and we ought to, I think, be thinking along those lines rather than setting up a son of protection order or a grandson of protection order which is focusing on trout and coarse fish and I believe eels and will essentially be another body that the Fisheries Trusts have to deal with as well as that body that's representing migratory fish, and wouldn't it be so much better if we had one body looking after the welfare and health of all our fish in Scotland aided and abetted by the Fisheries Trusts for scientific information.

Willie Miller: Again I would agree with what you are saying. We are in danger of straying into the presentation this afternoon, but we must find some way of ensuring that there is reasonable access for all species. That can be done by one body provided that one body is not dominated by one particular interest.

David Dunkley: any further questions? I mean one of the things, with any of these card systems, again it's like categorising things you put down questions when in many respects what we are thinking of here is almost a continuum. I would urge you please to use Feedback Sheet No. 2 because it is obvious with any of these things we are not making decisions here today, this is literally a feedback from the Steering Group to the Plenary Forum. We will be continuing to work. We obviously have to continue to work, so we are relying very heavily on feedback from yourselves. Please take advantage of the feedback forms and I would also say that if you find it's too much to deal with today then please send them into us because the Steering Group will be meeting subsequent to this and going on and we will be taking on board the views that you express, so bear in mind absolutely nothing, nothing, whatsoever is set in stone, or will be at the end of this afternoon. This is very much a chance for you to find out what the sorts of things that the Steering Group has been discussing and comment back. Any further questions on this subject because we have a little bit of time yet.

Michael Brady, Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association: Just that, it's clear listening to the questions and various answers that there are distinct different problems in different areas. In Loch Lomond for instance, I have to say this that the majority of coarse anglers behave reasonably well in the lower end reach when I'm out there watching there are certain matches go on and I don't see any litter after it. So it's easy to criticise on a wide basis, but at the same time it's not just quite as simple as that. In Loch Lomond there's probably better access there than any other large loch I know. There's no permit prices, again the problem of course, and the main problem that I refer to is down to funding because the bad element within the coarse group just the same as they are in the minority in the coarse groups, they are the ones that are causing the massive problem but that is where the money has to be spent in policing alien fish, in policing people that's doing things that they shouldn't be doing, the education is the easy part and who from this Scottish Trust thing, I mean it's a large loch, it takes an awful lot of money to be spent on stopping the alien fish being introduced and protecting both, all game and coarse fishing, because the pike angling is suffering greatly through being hooked far too many times and released not in the correct manner. So we have to work on this, but our problems are different from problems further up north. I just want to emphasise that, I can't answer that, I can't give an answer just now for that.

David Dunkley: If I may just say something here. I think one of the words that's been used actually quite a lot today is the word local. I don't think there is a one size fits all solution. I think there's a one size fits all overall general philosophy, and that philosophy might have to be applied slightly differently in different areas to address local issues, but you know I come back to what I am saying, my view for what it is worth of the object of this exercise was the fact that we have out there something like 30,000 lochs and ponds, and 30,000 km of rivers and streams, probably more than that actually in Scotland, and we've got all these different fish native or otherwise swimming about in them, and we've got all sorts of different people who are fishing for them and we've got other people who are using our rivers as well either for industrial or commercial purposes or for recreational purposes, I just cannot believe it is beyond the wit of man to have a system whereby we can you know all actually enjoy things and not tread on each other's toes anymore than is, I mean there will always be some treading on each other's toes, but I am sure this can be managed. What we have got to do though is we have got to do this in a way which is commensurate with sustainable fisheries, so it's all very well saying we have got to have free access to this, that and the next thing, that is fine and that's the absolute ideal but it has to be commensurate with sustainable fisheries so that necessarily means there will have to be some sort of regulation involved. It's how we do that and who does it that has come up. It was felt that the 1976 Act was a fairly blunt instrument in some ways and not necessarily the one which would achieve the desired effect, laudable although its initial aims were, it may not necessarily have hit all the marks. So it's a case of if the 1976 Act has to go what comes in its place, because a vacuum is not an option.

Paul Knight, Salmon and Trout Association, National Director: On this question of getting youngsters into the sport, I mean I couldn't agree with you more it's absolutely vital for the future. However a huge amount more can be done I believe up here on the voluntary side of things. Sorry to bring examples from England into this. But we as an Association work very closely with the Environment Agency on an angling participation and we introduce through one day courses some 3,000 people a year. Now English trout fishing is actually pretty expensive, you know, we have just been approached by the Test Emission Association and you don't get much more expensive than that believe you me. And they want to know, and a lot of their proprietors want to know how they can help, not by having children running all over their fisheries every day of the week but by having courses, by giving access to these fabulous trout streams for ordinary people, you know for ordinary children. I think it's a question of organisation, you've got a lot of still waters up here now. We organise most of our days, and we do about 150 one day courses around still waters. You get still water fishery owners to help out. You get them to provide tickets for families to go fishing, so in other words rather than paying one ticket price for each person a husband and wife, a father and son, a father and daughter can share a ticket, can share a limit. There are ways of doing this, it is a question of organisation. I think S&TA, SANA, and all the other organisations up here have got a lot to play in that, so please don't regulate for this, there's an awful lot that can be done as I say on the voluntary sector. Thank you.

Willie Miller: Thank you. Can I say that SANA, well I can't speak on behalf of SANA at the moment, but as a member of the Coaching Committee can I say that we very much appreciate the work that is being done my Malcolm Hanson at the moment, and this is wandering off the subject I'm afraid but we need to build up a supply, a bank of coaches, and people to assess coaches within Scotland and I would like to think in the long-run we will find a way of getting more young people into angling as you suggest.

Eric McVicar, Salmon and Trout Association: Unlike David I don't have 3,000 or 30,000 lochs, I have 30 to look after. Now the estate who own these lochs has spent tens of thousands of pounds in putting in access paths and hill tracks. Permits cost about £10 per day. The number of anglers who actually fish these lochs is minimal. But what we do find are people up there without permits, and they tend to be the ones that are leaving a mess. So as to how much it does cost to run a national angling body and how much would it cost to fish, I doubt if we would ever recoup the costs that the Ardnamurchan Estate has put in on its hill lochs, so on a financial basis alone I don't think we could have a national permit system. And that's just the point I'm trying to make.

Willie Miller: Are we really advocating a national permit system?

Eric McVicar: Well that appears to be what Mr Derek Keith has been doing for years.

Derek Keith: The Scottish Anglers Trust is not a national angling permit system because there would be various local area boards which may be run on local authority lines, or if they were a small local authority lines, with bigger local authorities or river catchment areas or geographical areas and obviously there would be management powers and decisions devolved down to local level. It's simple really.

David Dunkley Thank you.

LUNCH

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