COLLAPSE IN LICENCE SALES

[joffmiester]

The number of junior anglers buying rod licences has crashed by 50 per cent.
Sales in 2014 – 2015 were just 64,000 – a dramatic fall from the 126,000 sold in 2009-2010.

The knock-on effect has also seen adult licences slump too, from 1.5 million to 975,00o during the same five year period.
Junior rod licences are required for children aged 12 to 16 and cost £5.

A new £1m contract given to the Angling Trust by the Environment Agency will hope to arrest the decline by bringing more people into the sport.
Sarah Chare, head of fisheries at the EA, said: “We are working hard with the Angling Trust to encourage more young people to give fishing a go.
“Increasing participation amongst existing and new anglers is an important element of our new contract with them.”
Angling Trust chief exec, Mark Lloyd added: “The Angling Trust is determined to reverse the decline in junior participation. Over the next year we will be expanding our existing programme, funded by the EA rod licence, to promote angling to people of all ages through our Family Fishing initiative, in partnership with Get Hooked on Fishing, and some exciting new projects.

[Simple]

This is the first year I have not bought one. Even though I never went last year I still bought one just in case.
Quite a big drop in numbers that is.

[TK]

With sales of both classes of licence falling has there been a reciprocal increase in court cases for anglers fishing without a licence ?

Are these genuine losses to the sport or people chancing their arm.....?

[MarkV]

No doubt there will be a few chancing their arm, maybe even quite a few, but not many more than there's always been.

It is a huge drop in sales all round.

I'm both surprised and pretty concerned by it.

[joffmiester]

i must admit it's worrying as other canal and river users such as canoes, boats and mountain biking are getting more popular meaning less anglers on the bank the less we can do about these sports taking over . i did see a plan to link up rivers and canals to produce a series of canoe routes throughout the country this can only be a bad move for angling .
Having said that I've possibly had the worst run of form in angling over the past 2 to 3 seasons fingers crossed it will come to a end soon but still enjoy every outing on natural venues . i hope it turns around as more and more anglers are turning back to naturals and we don't need anymore problems to stop the growth . What is worrying is the fact there are more angling coaches out there than ever before . Angling is getting into schools a lot more or is it the fact anglers think the Europeans get away with it why shouldn't they [i'm not saying all Europeans as we have quite a few members in our club].

[kirkie]

I think that charging youngsters from the age of 12 for a licence is just pure greed.
What would they do if they prosecuted a 13 year old who had no money to pay any fine... Put them in prison ?
The licence should not start until you are 18 years old to help to attract the youngsters to our sport.

[TK]

To be honest kirkie when I was that age, many many years ago, I didn't know/ realise I needed what was then a Severn/Trent licence.

I used to fish local canals, getting there on my bike, a private pool, well it was a moat attached to an historical property and a local pool that I used to have to purchase a season ticket at the then princely sum of 10/-.

Neither my parents fished, I didn't buy the weekly fishing papers......just didn't know.

[daveyboy]

It does not surprise me really, Lincolnshire's main river the witham is unfishabble most of the year, banks uncut and the river full of weed the majority of the river from Lincoln to Boston is a disgrace , and gets worst every year, the upper with an from south witham to Lincoln is in the same state, that's just one river, the stainforth to keadby canal ,from keadby basin to moors bridge is unfishable most of the summer due to weed, the river ancholme from snitterby to Brigg is also unfihable in the summer due to weed, there's the drains around Lincolnshire unfishable due to weed growth and uncut banks, the majority of the rivers I've mentioned used to always have pleasure anglers, children fishing on them especially in the summer months, so I wonder how many licence holders have been lost in Lincolnshire alone, if the ea did more to clear the rivers of weed and cut the banks there licence sales might do better.

[Sluicer]

On a reduced scale, the situation is very similar in the North West too. Our association's drains are now becoming unfishable during the summer months due to weed. We have (until this year) been maintaining banks ourselves to give us access to platforms we installed - but now find that slipshod dredging operations a couple of years ago have actually increased the weed problems instead of easing them.

Our members don't appear interested in bank maintenance work, so we're looking at a steady decline in numbers on the bank and an end to what were our traditional 'home waters'. Each member who doesn't renew is probably another rod licence which will not get renewed too. It doesn't take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure-out why the numbers are declining.

Oh, and our landlords?? The Environment Agency!!