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The Salmon and Trout Association

Paul Knight and the Salmon and Trout Association

Often misconceived as an “old-boys lunch club”, the S&TA is far from being “old school", it has modern, progressive ideas in management of the aquatic environment, fish stocks and promotion of Game angling. Membership of the S&TA is currently running at approx 15,000 individual members and 18,000 Club and affiliated members, which ranks it firmly as number 1 in the membership rankings compared to the other fishing NGO’s. Considering we supposedly number 5 million Anglers in the UK, this tells a sorry tale.

 

While in London for the WTT Annual awards this year, I made a quick call to the S&TA Headquarters to see if I could catch an hour of Paul’s time to find out what was new with the S&TA. I’m very pleased I did, as there is a “Blueprint for Water” about to be published by the end of 2006.

 

A major step forward has been a 10-Point Plan consensus by Non-Government Organisations (NGO’s) including the S&TA, ACA, RSPB, National Trust, WTT, Association of Rivers, FACT, Wildfowl -Wetlands Trust and Waterwise.

 

Covering all aspects of Water Management including Creation of Wetlands, New Building Regulations, Effective use of water, River Flow/Abstraction, Land Management and Agriculture etc, details of this blueprint will probably be published between this article being written and published so we will follow up as soon as possible.

 

Asking Paul to highlight a message for Today’s Fly Fisher Readers, he would like to dispel the myth that the S&TA is some type of “dinner-club” and emphasise the hard work done by just a couple of full-time employees.

 

The last 5 years have seen a major focus on environmental issues, the S&TA continue to highlight and address issues such as Upland Drainage, Abstraction, Diffuse pollution from Nitrates, Phosphates and Cattle Pesticides, Sewage Farms and CSO’s, Urban Run-off and Industrial pollution.

 

Pictured here (below) with a model showing our water course from Upland to Estuary, Paul shows the differences between correct and incorrect water management.

 

Paul also reminds me it’s not just about “clear water”, citing the river Test as being “Clear as Gin and twice as expensive”, the fly life during recent testing indicated terrible shifts in insect life, Mayfly may be welcome on many of our rivers, but the prolific appearance may be more due to silt than clean water. Many species of River life are now conspicuous by their absence.

 

“The EA Mandate is just not being met” he adds, “The YES-BUT politics need to stop before it’s too late  We support the work of the EA Fisheries team, whose budget is two thirds funded by anglers through licence fees, but other internal EA departments need to coordinate their operations to give the aquatic environment the protection it desperately needs.  

 

Touching briefly on the political lobbying side of Angling, Paul also praised F.A.C.T., indicating that a group in this style would get his full support if they could press the MP’s into legislation favouring the Angler and aquatic conservation, “FACT” could be the “BASC” of the Angling world” he added, and hoped that one day a central Angling group could bring the various Angling NGO’s together to form a powerful lobbying body.

 

We hope to interview FACT representatives in the near future to hear what they have to say.

 

As always at Anglersvoice, we would encourage you to take a look at the S&TA web site and see for yourselves what they are doing for angling and the environment, if you like what you see, why not try membership for a year and help them where they need it most.