Life of a Chalkstream: Is the Angling Trust a worthy cause gone rogue?

Greetings!

Am I becoming too old and jaded? I did rather begin to wonder as I ploughed my way, at first in hope, through the recently published twenty four page Strategic plan for the Angling Trust 2023 – 2028.

Now, I like the idea of looking to the future of our sport. We might be battling societal and demographic change, which along with most other outdoor sports and pastimes, is seeing a year-on-year decline in participation rates but we are still a considerable force with 2.5 million regular participants which, to put that is some sort of context, is roughly two and a half times the number of people who play golf, four times more than tennis and half a million ahead of football. We are important in the British way of relaxation and deserve not only to have a seat at every table that determines the legislative and economic landscape for leisure pastimes but also a strong, able and intelligent body to sit at that table for us. It is just a shame it is such an bland body such as the Angling Trust.

In the past few years I have, modesty aside, become all too expert at dissecting the voluminous output of those bodies that have a direct impact on rivers and the countryside. The EA. DEFRA. Natural England. Numerous water companies. Ofwat. Regular readers will know far too well my usual list of suspects. There is a template to which all these organisations cleave as they parade their virtue in annual reports, policy statements and strategic plans. They are shameless magpies in lifting trite phrases from every play book be it on diversity, climate change, net zero, mental health or whatever passing fad will tick the ESG boxes that they value so highly.

Read the full document here .....

The Angling Trust plan, such as it is, has the fingerprints of an expensive management consultancy SWOT analysis all over it. The Trust strengths being many (quelle surprise), the opportunities various and threats anodyne. Weaknesses? I had a mild chuckle at this section, hidden in an obscure corner of one page where three brief bullet points listed lack of public funding, ‘enormous diversity which creates a challenge in resourcing’ (no idea what that means) and the ‘lack of awareness in the angling community of the role of the Angling Trust’. Err, who’s fault is that?

We all know full well this strategic plan, which contains I promise you not a single concrete proposal or any costed plan is destined, having fulfilled it feelgood purpose for the Trust quangocrats, to end its brief life gathering dust on a shelf in the Trusts’ Leominster office. In itself that would not matter if the Angling Trust was not, as they point out in the document, the recognised National Governing Body for the sport of angling. And there’s the rub. We have a body more interested in looking out for itself than the sport it purports to represent.

But perhaps that is no surprise; it is an organisation increasingly distant from its roots. Membership income now only accounts for just over a quarter of monies in, with more than half coming from the Environment Agency and Sport England. Make no mistake the Strategic plan for the Angling Trust 2023 – 2028 was written for those paymasters and not us or the benefit of angling.

Saltwater fly fishing UK style

Saltwater fly fishing is usually thought of in terms of sunny destinations with bath-warm water to your knees with the pleasant grit of sand filling your wading shoes. In the lee of the M27 on an early autumn day with the roar of Portsmouth ferry bound juggernauts for a backdrop, clad in chest waders chosen for their thermal qualities, is not exactly the thing of exotic travel brochures but the best of fish sometimes live in the most unlikely of places.

It was here on the first weekend in September, and all along the coast to the east at Bognor, that the contestants gathered for the 2024 Orvis Saltwater Festival, a competition which has grown from a single day a few years ago for what some might call fly fishing oddballs to a fully-fledged celebration of UK saltwater fly fishing with 180 contestants competing over three days.

It is a truism that there is no fish, given enough time and the right conditions, which cannot be caught on the fly but for the coastal saltwater brethren who ply this increasingly popular subset of fly fishing it is sea bass and mullet that attract the attention. The former because they are the most ‘sporting’ British fish, close to bonefish with aggressive feeding habits and fighting qualities whilst mullet are just really, really hard to catch.

A bit like our own One Fly the competition is all about the length of the fish, all released having been measured. Obviously, the additional complication when it comes to anything to do with the sea is the tide and the Solent, thanks to the bottleneck effect of the Isle of Wight, has an extreme tidal range which was not helped on this particular Festival weekend with some of the largest tides in forty odd years with a fifteen foot rise and fall within the space of a few hours.

This didn’t make it the easiest of weekends, but as our guide Steve Batten, a contestant for the last four years, says, ‘It’s never easy.’ He counts a single measurable fish as a successful day whether it is for fun or competition which, in many respects, is a refreshing philosophy in a time when we do have a tendency to get rather get hung up on numbers and size.

You can watch Andy Ford’s 45 minute show, which I think is also broadcast on BT Sport, on You Tube via this link and there are plenty more photos on the Orvis Saltwater Fly Fishing Festival Facebook page.

Mayfly dreamin'

I thought I would wrap up the monthly feedback draw prize winner with something to squirrel away for next season, so I asked our vice master Nigel Nunn to tie a Mayfly selection. As ever, his amazing creations are, at least we hope, not just flies of great beauty and tying accomplishment but also equally appreciated by our fishy friends for dining purposes.

Well, done to Steve Brooks who wins the September draw having fished Breach Farm on the River Itchen. Next time it will be the end of season draw with a very special fly box filled with Nunn flies.

Visit Nigel Nunn flies via this link

Quiz

The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.

1) The cornerstone of which building, previously referred to as the Executive Mansion, was laid in this day in 1792?

2) Leukophobia is the intense fear of what?

3) Which British band had a 1967 no. 1 hit with A Whiter Shade of Pale?