I recieved an email (no name or contact details so fair game in my book) which I found kinda puzzling:
Why, you have so readily popularised fishing on river kelvin or was it inevitable, point being, banks of river even more populated by buckie swilling dope smoking idiots, fishing size 6 trebles on Sunday for brownies. Ooh where are bailiffs now.
regular folks getting pretty fed up whats happening
Ok – Seeing as how I cannot reply conventionally I thought I would reply here and also open it up for discussion.
This email appears to be asking me if because I have a diary dedicated to the river I have somehow contributed to the problem of Buckfast drinking, cannabis smoking individuals who fish illegally. I think not – purely because I doubt these guys read my website – if I was being blamed for an increase of guys fishing with the dry fly upstream then yes I would probably hang my head in shame.
I think the rise in number of guys fishing is proportional to the number of Salmon returning to the river – it is also the closest bit of water to the local off licence which is a bonus for these guys.
Is this the clubs problem? Should the club be policing these guys? The quick answer is no – last time I checked smoking cannabis and drinking in public was illegal and should be a matter for the police – if members phoned the police often enough about these guys then the police would take a stricter view on them and probably be a bit more proactive in dealing with them.
Regarding fishing for Salmon on Sundays with trebles – well, head along to the EGM and listen to the proposals – if you reject them then you had better come up with a better solution instead of just dismissing them out of hand.