News

Great news for charter boats, after putting pressure on DEFRA to clarify their guidance news guidelines have changed to allow boats operate. This will; come as welcome relief =to hundreds of skippers and thousand of anglers across the country. Here is the statement from the Angling Trust. Following a campaign by the Angling Trust and READ MORE

A few months ago, angling centric social media platforms (and some conservation related ones too), were aflame with rage about the supertrawler Margiris (and its sister boat), working off the Isle of Wight hoovering up shoals of fish. At the time I wrote a blog trying to clarify some of the facts about these boats READ MORE

Tim Macpherson gives his view on the Benyon Review of HPMA’s The government recently released The Benyon Review into Highly Protected Marine Areas. It was the result of a nearly year-long informal consultation process involving all manner of marine stakeholders, including anglers – its objective was to answer the following questions: What are Highly Protected READ MORE

The Angling Trust spent a lot of time and effort, alongside the Professional Boatman’s association, and in conjunction with Charter Skippers from around the country, working out a protocol for them to able to start operating again. It was accepted by the DCMS and subsequently added to the advice available on the Government website. So, READ MORE

When We Fish Again After nearly two months in lockdown, we can now get out on banks, beaches and in boats, but only on a limited basis. To make sure the voice of angling  was heard  the Angling Trust lobbied the government with a detailed plan on angling resumption – details of this effort here  READ MORE

It’s been many weeks since the lockdown was applied and like most other sports angling has been stopped. It is immensely frustrating for all of us, particularly for boat anglers. Typically, the weather has been near perfect for 6 weeks but we’ve not been able to get out and fish for plaice, bream and other READ MORE

Over the last six months or so DEFRA have been engaging recreational sea angling groups, including the Angling Trust, B.A.S.S, the Mullet Club the Angling Trades Association and others, in a consultation process designed to share and develop Defra’s current approach to recreational sea fishing policy development, develop thinking on current data collection processes to READ MORE

Despite all the hard work over 2019 it still came as a surprise when just before Christmas the EU agreed to increase the bag limit and season for recreational bass catches to two fish per day for nine months of the year – from March to November – in 2020. Anglers have been restricted to READ MORE

Penn Big Fish winner for October. This months winner is Rob Cornish with a bass of 5lb 6oz, caught on board the Robert Clare out of Milford Haven. He was drawn out as the winner in our latest Penn Big Fish Draw. He progresses to the final, held next spring at a venue to be confirmed, READ MORE

Now all of my blogs are about angling matters…but for this one I am focussing on something which affects our fishing opportunities and is causing waves across the angling community. Super Trawlers! There has been a lot of recent noise all over social media, and elsewhere, about a super trawler, the Margiris, which has been READ MORE