Allelujah, we can fish again from Wednesday - with obvious and logical caveats - and it’s a big thanks to the Angling Trust for all their hard work
“WE WILL FISH AGAIN! Angling to resume on Wednesday, May 13th”. Am I okay to assume that if you live in England you most likely watched the national news at 7pm last night? A Prime Minister is hardly going to specifically mention fishing in a ten minute or so address to the nation, but any of you anglers here who live in England must surely have got at least a little bit excited at the mention of sport in there. Facebook quickly turned into a “does that mean we can go fishing again?” kind of thing, and then pretty damn swiftly an email came in from the Angling Trust with the “Angling to resume on Wednesday May 13th” as the subject title……………..
This is copied and pasted from that Angling Trust email: “The Angling Trust has given a warm welcome to the announcement today (May 10th) by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that recreational fishing looks set to resume in England on Wednesday, May 13th. The Prime Minister announced the resumption of ‘unlimited outdoor sports’ from Wednesday providing they are conducted alone or with members of the same household and that social distancing rules are followed at all times. A government source confirmed that “outdoor exercise includes angling, golf, water sports and tennis providing social distanced from Wednesday.” The decision to include outdoor activities such as angling in the first wave of newly permitted activities followed weeks of intense advocacy and lobbying by the Angling Trust which unified the angling community like never before and saw over 8,000 individual emails sent to MPs and dozens of articles in the regional and national press in support of a safe return for angling. The Prime Minister is making a full statement to the House of Commons tomorrow and the Angling Trust will be seeking clarification about the reopening of tackle shops and confirmation of any restrictions on how angling should be practised during the next phase.”
I don’t know whether the Angling Trust are the only reason we can go fishing again as from Wednesday, but damn do I take my hat off to them and say a huge thank you for all their hard work in putting fishing right up there and into the political domain. As a group of people we are notoriously useless at standing together to fight for our respective corners, and I would hazard a guess that us saltwater anglers are even worse at this again. What the Angling Trust has managed to achieve is outstanding and I think they deserve a huge amount of credit. Some good people have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and if you are able to go fishing on Wednesday then please at least doff your cap to the Angling Trust as your lure or bait or fly hits the water for the first time.
A May bass from a couple of years ago. What would you give to see a fish like this on Wednesday?
I can’t tell you how to go about any fishing you might or might not be able to do from this Wednesday, and I am sure that later on today there will be further clarification from the government and then the Angling Trust about how we might more safely and sensibly go about things - but in some way, shape or form we can get back to fishing and it’s going to feel incredible to be by the water again. I note with interest how many medical experts this current crisis has produced on social media especially, and I also feel a bit deaf from all the virtual shouting by regular people at other regular people that is going on out there, so how about us anglers do the right thing from the off and let’s get back to the fishing we can safely and responsibly do during these mad times. Please stay safe and well, and if you do get out fishing later this week, may that first fish you hook have you giggling like a loon…………….
Below is the current guidance from the Angling Trust to saltwater anglers, with more to follow I am sure at this page here.
