Committee for the Restoration of Angling Purity.
- Details
- Published on Monday, 28 May 2007 12:35
- Written by Bob Graham
I’m getting a bit worried about how our club is being run. In fact, I’m not sure that the committee have the best interests of the members at heart and feel that this might be the time for a putsch. Here are some of the things that I’ve noticed.
The other day one of the bailiffs used the club boat to ferry a couple of seventy year olds across the loch so that they could sit on their backsides and drown maggots and worms. A waste of time and petrol – why can’t they walk round the loch like everybody else? It’s only three or four miles and it’s not rough walking unless the ground is wet and there’s only one wee hill and not too many fences. Would it not make sense if all over 65s had an annual fitness assessment? Something like a four mile uphill hike in full gear with no stops allowed. If they fail, send them to an old folk’s home; their fishing days are over.
Maggots and worms – there’s another thing. We need to introduce some fishing purity. Fly only with a size twelve limit and only flies recognised by Stewart to be allowed. And the stocking policy. Who wants to catch big ugly rainbows? Who wants to catch five and six pound brownies? No stocking of any kind and let nature take over. What’s wrong with fishing all day for an eight inch brownie? Now that’s real sport.
I’m not sure that the committee are selective enough with membership applications. Look - I’m not a snob, but the membership is a bit biased towards the C and D social classes. That’s probably because the annual membership cost is so low. Why not increase it to, say, five hundred or a thousand a year. That’ll get rid of the undesirables. All new applicants will have to undergo psychometric testing and psychological profiling to ensure their worthiness for membership and purity of intention.
And we need to stop members abusing the right to have their weans and grand-weans entered as members at a reduced cost. Let them hang about on street corners like normal kids. You can see what is going to happen; in a few years time these kids will grow up and be running all over Scotland and fishing the wee lochs and rivers that we want to keep to ourselves. Even worse, they’ll want to take over the club when they grow up. Another thing - I actually heard that a couple of female weans were recruited. Fishing is not a suitable sport for a lassie; teach them how to cook and have weans of their own. What about toilet facilities; I can’t see them being happy behind a tree with a handful of grass.
Then there’s the subsidised fly tying classes. Mobbed by weans who expect us to show them how to tie our special patterns. Fly tying is for the experts and needs to be kept that way.
I’m sure you’ll agree with me that something needs to be done and I am suggesting a committee – the Committee for the Restoration of Angling Purity. I know it’s a bit challenged, acronymically, but I’m open to suggestion.
Now is the time for action – are you with me?
Bob Graham is an occasionally lucky gentleman who claims he does not do very much these days other than try to catch trout five or six days a week. Bob is a regular at Hillend Reservoir and lives in Whitburn West Lothian.