news/editorial

5 July 2015 News/Editorial

There is no pleasure in prolonged anger, in always saying “no” to change, in constantly railing against the seemingly unwarranted injustices imposed on us.

These pages have become boring, and I, like you, I imagine, have become tired of it all…...and it is too hot to be angry.

It is exhausting.

I was woken by a thunderstorm last week, at 3.45 am, my brain instantly switched on to the Wild Fisheries Reform agenda and to how absurd it is that “they” want rivers to be run by charities in the future, how that cannot possibly work….so I got up and wrote a paper on why it won’t work…..all this at 3.45am, finished by 5.30 am and sent off to those good enough to read it.

It has all taken over my life.

It has to stop.

So, as we struggle past the half New Year that is 1st July 2015, I have made a half New Year’s resolution, which is…. to be nicer, more constructive, to see the positives, to be more understanding of those who would bring in unnecessary and unwelcome change to the Tweed, to say “after you, my dear fellow, you carry on, don’t worry about what damage you do to us, it’s fine by me, we have done all the hard work and the Tweed is now in perfect shape, there is a limit to how much harm you can do to it and its fish, it won’t be as good ……...but our salmon have survived far worse”.

And after a lifetime of caring passionately about our river, I, and those dedicated others who have done similarly, can retire and let others do all the worrying and work.

So if you want to read about the WFR process as it moves from Consultation to draft Bill, from Draft Bill to Bill, and then into life as a real life piece of our law, and to read about what’s wrong with it all, don’t bother to read these pages.

It’s all fine by me…..abolish the RTC and 200 years of history, you carry right on mate, tax those ghastly English owners and send the money off to some fishery as far north as you can go without getting wet, in Scrabster (no offence, you Scrabsterians), nae bother, control us from the centre with approved body status, money and delegated powers, without all of which we can do nothing, you carry right on, good on yer, bring in kill licences, tagging and quotas, good idea, we can all do with a bit more cost and admin in the system.

In fact, good show all round, I will put my feet up and take no part.

I might even do some more fishing with my spare time.

My inclination is to have nothing to do with kill licences, so if there is never to be a prize of keeping a salmon to eat, how can I spice up my fishing to compensate?

I can buy a keep-net so that when I put all my caught fish back, I can look at them lovingly for just a little longer before sending them on their way.

I will invest in a fibre optic cable line instead of a Wetcel 2, linked to a small TV screen to be mounted on the butt of my fishing rod, with a tiny camera in the fly, so that I can see salmon coming to look at my fly.

My hooks will not just be barbless, but pointless, as I need some practice in pointless fishing before it too becomes mandatory. I will amuse myself, in my newly gained free time, and I will see how long it takes before I can land a salmon with no point on my hook….maybe 1 in 40 hooked? That would be fun and, of course, hugely time-efficient, saving that tedious slimy bit about actually handling a fish and having to extract the hook, and that horrid business of getting your hands wet when you release it.

I can avoid all of that.

And imagine the excitement, the almost certainty after (pointlessly) hooking it, that it will fall off….but just every now and again the bend in the hook might catch on something and you will actually land a salmon.

Ho, ho , ho...what fun we will have.

We owners can all relax, pay the money annually to Scrabster via Edinburgh and leave it to others to do the work with what money is left, after all if “they” want to control everything, then jolly good of them and “they” can do all the work too.

It will be a brave new world of centrally controlled fishery management and of pointless fishing.

We must all embrace it in a most positive and constructive way .

Now, at last, I will not only have time to fish

…... but to read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.