Fishing for the truth about angling in Scotland
IT MIGHT be the close season in Scotland for salmon fishing, but there was to be no festive season truce this year it seems in the on-going battle between anglers and commercial interests over conservation and exploitation of the iconic species.
Continue ReadingIT IS bewildering to have to digest the variety of conflicting reports on the status of Scotland’s Atlantic salmon population in recent weeks.
Continue ReadingIT is comforting to note that I am not alone in identifying the SNP Government in Scotland of being long on rhetoric but coming up short on action when it concerns many aspects of marine conservation. And Richard Lochhead, the fisheries minister stands accused again of being out of touch with reality in the latest…
Continue ReadingIT IS heartening today to see two organisations calling for our politicians to stand up and be counted – at least as far as supporting the future of our wild fish are concerned. As I suggested here at the beginning of the year, that action to put our politicians on the spot on the future…
Continue ReadingIT CAN hardly have come as much surprise to Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond to find a letter postmarked ‘Faroes’ on his desk this week. He might reasonably have been anticipating it since June 2008. That was when the Greenland and Faroese authorities first targeted Scotland – along with Norway – for a lamentable lack…
Continue ReadingTHE wild fish lobby can huff and puff as much as it likes, but the latest spat over coastal salmon netting around Scotland demonstrates just how divided the warring factions are and illustrates pointedly Government dithering about how to solve the issues.
Continue ReadingRELATIONS between wild game fishing interests and the Scottish Government over fish farming controls have suffered another reverse with the collapse of a key agreement set up to try to establish peace between the salmon industry and anglers.
Continue ReadingTUNE in tonight to BBC-2 where David Attenborough takes a long, hard look at the state of the planet’s oceans following one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time and asks the question: Is it too late to save the diversity of our seas? Meanwhile, Scotland’s environment minister, Richard Lochhead, has signalled a…
Continue ReadingInshore creelers petition for 3-mile trawler ban COMMERCIAL fishing in the Clyde estuary is on the verge of extinction according to an alarming report just published by scientists. The study blames dredging and bottom trawling combined with ineffectual fisheries management by successive governments for precipitating what they call an “ecological meltdown.”
Continue ReadingFED UP with the mealy-mouthed political wrangling in the big election debate? Take the increasingly cynical view that it’s all a bit of a waste of time? Well if you have ever enjoyed a day’s salmon or sea trout fishing on a Scottish river, and think politics doesn’t really matter when it comes to having…
Continue Reading