July EDITORIAL

It’s great to see that the Government has finally brought in legislation that puts tight controls on the catching of tope in England. From April 6th 2008 anglers can only catch tope on a catch and release basis, and under no circumstances can any angler keep a tope to eat or for record purposes – which leads me nicely onto the subject of British records! Okay, so now the government has dictated that anglers cannot kill a tope for any reason, does that mean that Mr Chatfield’s record 82lb 8oz tope will stand for all eternity? I know that there have been plenty of near ton tope caught in recent years and all have been returned alive, but luckily those fish were caught by conservation minded anglers. I doubt that anyone would want to bring a huge tope in to claim the record, but it begs the question ‘what if we had landing bans on other edible species, such as bass?’

I’ve just returned from a couple of days fishing with my good mate Gethyn Owen out of Anglesey. He has been breaking Welsh Federation records on a regular basis over the last couple of years, namely the spurdog. He’s hot on the heels of the smoothhound record too, with fish just ounces short of the current Welsh record being weighed, tagged and released from his boat ‘My Way’. The Welsh Federation accepts fish weighed at sea on calibrated scales, and as such there is no need to bring a fish ashore to have it weighed – it’s time the BRFC took note and allowed the same to happen. I can understand the discrepancies for small boat owners, but as far as charter boats go there are usually plenty of willing witnesses on board that can verify weight and measurements. Perhaps we should have a charter boat specific records list?

On to the July issue. I hope you like Jim O’Donnell’s new series – ‘The Secret Angler’. The idea behind this one is to get Jim to simply turn up on the morning of a charter and try to jump on board, without prior warning to the skipper! Usually, when we book a day out the skipper has plenty of warning, and obviously they do their best to give us a good day out and make sure the boat is clean and the bait is good – but is it always like that for regular punters? Jim endeavours to find out with this series – so charter skippers beware! ‘Aye Aye Skipper’ is proving popular too, and this month Steve Porter reveals his secrets for catching turbot – I never knew they had such a sweet tooth!

You can expect to see more new series and yet more step-by-step instruction in future issues of BFM, so make sure you grab yourself a subscription, along with a free gift! Until next month I wish you all good weather and good fishing.

Dave Barham