THE MAIN online forum accused of promoting “smears and lies” about the running of the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association (LLAIA) has been shut down by its hosts following threats of legal action over its content.

For months the site, robbieredball.net, entitled Fishing the Leven and registered to Robert Beacon of Dumbarton, carried a torrent of comment, much of it abusive and derogatory about the activities of the LLAIA committee and in particular its paid chairman, Michael Brady.

The LLAIA is understood to have taken legal advice and written directly to the site’s hosting company warning that action would follow unless allegedly defamatory comments were removed.  The website and its forums were closed last week.

Will the site re-emerge in a different guise and with moderated comments?   Perhaps the River Leven’s vocal online community already know.

Urban Fly Fisher, Alistair Stewart has added his take on the Loch Lomond controversy in his own direct style in a latest posting.  Followers of Stewart’s long-running and highly entertaining blog will already know that on his home beat, administration of the River Kelvin fishings is not immune from feud either, as his post earlier in the year on the River Kelvin Angling Association’s AGM revealed.

Stewart reveals he is now “back on the committee” of the Association.  How the Urban Fly Fisher will juggle his official Association duties, while upholding the independence of a blog which trades on fearless and irreverent comment on the world of angling near and far, will make interesting reading in the times ahead. A balancing act which makes spate wading something of a cakewalk, is called for I fear.