Stamping out poor angling practice on SPRITE waters

Thanks to great ideas from Martin Kowalski and Danny Gill, SPRITE have now had some handy guidance cards printed up (cheers to Nick James for printing and laminating!) to help reduce the avoidable mortality of fish (particularly grayling) due to poor practice. The guidance cards come with a free disgorger and free packet of hooks on a cord so that all three are to hand when needed. This way, SPRITE members can hand the kits out free on the bank to help anglers in a friendly way and get away from the avoidable losses of all fish from the river.

The cards are double sided and cover everything from handling, making sure to return trout (both unfit to eat and also not sustainable to remove wild fish), what to do if a bait is taken deeply and also E.A. phone numbers.

Comments

Luddite said…

Respect to the guys behind this idea. Can you tell me why we should cut the line and leave the hook if the fly is taken deep? Is this the best course of action even if you can remove the hook with out too much trouble?

2 March 2012 at 08:58

Paul Gaskell said…

Hi - this is aimed mainly at people trotting with maggots; which grayling in particular have a habit of swallowing completely. We have seen some really unacceptably bad examples of people killing grayling whilst retrieving hooks. When challenged the response has been "grayling always die when you unhook them" (!!!). If the (barbless) fly/hook can be removed easily then you should do it. If it is looking more like an "operation" to do it; best to cut the line and let the fish shed the barbless hook than to risk internal injuries.

5 March 2012 at 00:47

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