The case for NOT fishing

I wrote the most of this last weekend, around the 9^th May, and there have been some developments on angling since then. I’ll still start with what I’d written last weekend.

The current restrictions on the movement of people and urging people to stay at home has been extended here in Northern Ireland for another 3 weeks. More people are venturing out now however than at any other stage since the lockdown began in March. The crowds gathering to get into places like Homebase is nothing short of shocking.

The numbers of people entering hospitals are decreasing and numbers dying are also going in the right direction but this is because of people’s actions 3 weeks ago when more were adhering to the government advice. Northern Ireland still has one of the highest reinfection rates (R numbers) in the British Isles and Coronavirus and Covid-19 are still as contagious and still as deadly as when the lockdown began. The spread has been greatly restricted by people staying at home. With more people now getting fed up with the restrictions, venturing out more and coming into contact with more and more people, I expect numbers to rise again in the weeks ahead. Will this mean the lockdown being extended further?

Angling has also been restricted since the lockdown began and rightly so. The Northern Ireland Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) closed the Public Angling Estate waters in March. The Lough’s Agency didn’t just go that far but advised that angling was not an essential journey and they also closed the online system for buying fishing licenses etc. It is not possible for the vast majority of the angling public to get to their fishing spots without having to travel by car and at the present time, fishing is not classed as an essential journey.

There are people who think that fishing should be allowed during lockdown and they have very valid reasons for this. Most anglers fish on their own and usually stay well away from each other while they are actually fishing. In most cases, it simply isn’t possible to fish with someone as close to you as would break the two metre social distancing guidelines so social distancing really isn’t an issue while actually fishing.

Many people talk up the mental health benefits of fishing as it is one of the most relaxing pass times that there is. I have said many times myself that being at the river and fishing is one of the few places my brain switches off and I get some proper relaxation. The mental health benefits of fishing are not in question and I know that many people will benefit from being allowed to fish both mentally and physically from the walking involved. People also have the very valid argument that people are allowed to get into their cars and travel somewhere to walk, run or even take their bicycle to travel further away again so why can someone not do the same to go fishing? Looking at it at face value, they are absolutely correct. To me there is no difference at all. So what are the issues with fishing during the current pandemic?

For me, it is simply that there are just so many types of fishing that it is impossible to say, “fishing is allowed” and still keep everyone safe. Never mind keeping anglers themselves safe. Far too many people say, “I don’t care if I get Coronavirus. It’s my choice”. That’s all well and good but it might be someone else’s choice not to get it. Whether YOU get Coronavirus is irreverent. It is more about not passing it onto someone else, them passing it on to someone else and so on and so on.

With that in mind, in theory, private fisheries could be able to open sooner. They may have to have social distancing measures in place with maybe only one person allowed in the office or shop at a time and maybe having to close tea rooms and things like that. Many people won’t like that as for many, visiting these fisheries is as much of a social occasion as it is about the actual fishing.

Many people enjoy fishing from a boat in the lakes and loughs of Northern Ireland and this too can present it’s own set of problems. Fishing on your own from a boat could be quite dangerous as if something bad happens, no one is there to raise the alarm. Is it possible to keep social distancing on a boat?

Sea fishing from the shore also could be quite problematic. Some of the popular rock marks for example can get very busy, especially in summer in some of the holiday towns, and distancing may become an issue. Sea fishing from the beach should be fine as it is much easier to keep away from others.

There are quite a few anglers that don’t drive but still go to fish along with their mates, maybe 3 or 4 in a car, sometimes travelling great distances to some of the rivers, lakes or shore marks. I can’t see any restrictions being relaxed that much that this could even be considered.

Then there are areas where the virus is more prevalent than others. A look on the Health Agencies website shows that there are more cases of the virus in the council areas in the east of Northern Ireland than there are in the west. Should angling be allowed in the west but not in the east?

Some are saying that you should be able to travel from your home for short distances to fish. How short should that distance be? 2 Miles? Anglers living on the City side of the river Foyle wouldn’t be able to get to the Faughan at that distance. 5 miles? So they can fish on the Ardlough Road but not in Claudy? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Then there are members of the general public and I honestly feel that many anglers are neglecting to see the potential for spreading coronavirus to people who have no interest in fishing whatsoever. I’ll use my local stretch of the river Faughan in Co. Londonderry as an example.

This stretch of the river has been extremely popular for many, many years. It has got even busier this past couple of years with more and more people than I have never seen before trying their luck. Whether this has to do with people broadcasting catches on social media or just more people trying different parts of the river, I really am not sure.

It used to be that most of the people that fished in the couple of miles either side of where I live, would park in farmers gates or other points along the road and make their way to the river to fish. In more recent years though, more and more people have begun to park in the small housing estate where I live. This in itself has caused a few problems. There is a road to the field beside the river that residents park on for access to their houses. There are six houses in the row and there can be two or three vehicles used by each of the houses in the row. At the bottom of the road there is a turning area where cars nose into, reverse back towards the field and then drive up the road again. Anglers usually park in the turning spot and then residents have difficulty turning. This has meant delivery drivers refusing to deliver large items to some of the residents houses and the driver of a Special Needs bus refusing to go down the lane to lift a child. The parents had to wheel the boy, on his wheelchair, up past the entire row of houses to a square where the bus would not pass and the same in the evening when the boy returned from school.

Where the anglers were parking, was a maximum of 10 metres from this families front door.

Other members of the same family have health issues with at least one of them cocooning at the minute under advisement of the doctor. The stay at home for 12 week letter. I spoke earlier about the mental health issues associated with fishing. Is it not also a mental health issue if someone is cocooning or has underlying health issues themselves, or caring for someone else that does, and anglers are allowed to park outside their front door? People sitting in their houses afraid to go out and anglers are setting up rods and coughing, sneezing and spitting outside your front door? I just think that is terrible.

Of the 24 houses in this small estate, there are only 3 or 4 that DON’T have either elderly residents, people with health issues, people cocooning, people who work in residential care homes, people who work in the NHS or some issue or illness that is either a danger to themselves, their families or others in their work environment. One of the care home workers has anglers regularly parking at the side of his house. The width of a footpath away.

With all this in mind, is it really fair to simply say that fishing should be allowed? The potential for a resident taking their dog for a walk and bringing something into their home is high. Children using the playground potentially picking up something and taking it into a house with a grandparent living with them is high. If one single person caught coronavirus as a result of anglers visiting an area, that would be one too many in my view.

Then there is a chance of anglers spreading the disease between other anglers. One country that seemed to get on top of Covid-19 very early on and kept reinfections to a minimum was South Korea. They basically tested every single citizen in any city that Coronavirus sprung up in. If any person was found to be positive for Covid-19 they were told to isolate for 14 days. What they discovered was that up to 18%, almost one in five, of every person who tested positive for Covid-19 showed no symptoms whatsoever. No cough, temperature, sore throat, headache… Nothing. However, these people were still as contagious and as likely to pass on the virus as someone who was extremely ill. As we are really only testing key workers and people with symptoms at the minute we have absolutely no idea of the numbers of people who are asymptomatic. These people going to the shop for essentials or out for their daily exercise or deciding to go somehwere for some fihsing, could be responsible for a number of new infections. We simply don’t know.

A quick search on google shows that Covid-19 can remain active on different surfaces for different lengths of time. Up to 4 days on wood and 5 or 6 days on hard metal surfaces. There just is no way to access the river here without going through a gate or over stiles or other fences. There is a risk that this disease could be spread by simply climbing a gate or a stile. I have seen advice that you should sanitise your hands before and after using any gate or stile but, in reality, how many are going to do that? An extremely careful and responsible angler might do that but it only takes one person not to and there is a potential for spreading further.

Do farmers and landowners want people coming from far and wide to walk on their land? A couple of farmers near me are out everyday checking their livestock and using the gates and stiles to enter their fields to check their stock. I have read a few requests from farmers on social media for people to respect their livelihoods and stay away from their land until things have eased off.

If anglers really want to fish, I don’t have a problem with the actual fishing part. However, I feel it is vitally important for angling clubs to identify access points to their rivers and lakes for anglers to park at. Away from any houses or people that have no choice in the matter. If this cannot be arranged or accommodated for then fishing should not take place.

I am lucky in that I live beside the river and can access it without the need to use public land. I am also completely happy not to wet a line this season if it means that we don’t spread Covid-19 and we can get fishing next season and future seasons. If me not fishing encourages others not to fish and helps even one more person NOT to catch coronavirus, I’ll happily give this season a miss. If me NOT fishing this season lessens the risk to my own family members then I’ll happily give the season a miss too.

Fishing, is JUST a hobby at the end of the day and I feel that it is just not fair that someone should feel scared in their own home over something as trivial as fishing.

Well, that is what I had written last weekend. Since then, things have developed extremely quickly.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a speech on Sunday evening saying that we should start to take steps to ease the lockdown. People were encouraged back to work, people could exercise for as long and as many times in a day as they wanted and they could drive the entire length and breadth of England if they wanted. People in England have been allowed to fish again since Wednesday and there have been no shortage of people seizing the opportunity to do so. The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have taken different approaches and have stuck to the ‘Stay at Home’ message that came with the initial lockdown. In saying that, there have been some easing of restrictions with Garden Centres and Recycling centres allowed to open again in Northern Ireland and then completely out of the blue on Thursday evening, the Minister for the Northern Ireland Department of Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Edwin Poots, announced that he would reopen the Public Angling Estate from this coming Monday, 18^th May. No one was expecting it. No one was prepared for it.

This is lifted from the DAERA website:

“Fisheries Minister Edwin Poots has confirmed that the Public Angling Estate (PAE) will gradually re-open to local anglers, from Monday.
All PAE’s across Northern Ireland will re-open to the public for recreational use, but anglers should only use the DAERA facilities within their local area, and should not travel long distances. Minister Poots also confirmed that car parking facilities will remain closed until 27 May 2020.
Speaking about the announcement, the Minister said: “In the interests of public health, I shut down the angling estate on 30 March, to discourage unnecessary journeys and protect my staff as well as anglers themselves, given that the majority are in the 50+ age bracket and many have concessionary angling licences due to underlying health issues.
“While car parks will remain closed until 27 May to discourage long journeys, I have decided to permit local anglers back on to the Public Angling Estate so that they can participate in their favourite recreational activity.
“By its nature, angling is a solo sport or hobby, and its participants can enjoy a day’s fishing without being in close contact with others. The sport has huge benefits for people’s mental and physical well-being and in this time of uncertainty, I know that many people have missed the solitude and peace that angling and being outdoors with nature, brings them.
“However, let me be clear – anglers must continue to follow social distancing guidelines, practice good hand hygiene and walk to their nearest PAE, fishing alone or with a member of their own household. I do not want to see crowds of people near the river banks and fisheries.””

So, fishing is only open to those who can WALK to their fishing spots? Some chance.

This appeared to be only for DAERA waters and as I type this there has been no word whatsoever form the Lough’s Agency. Many private fisheries are also completely in the dark as to whether they can open or not although some have already done so and many more have decided to open next week on the back of the words of the minister. To me, this message says; Stay at home, but if you can walk to your fishing spots you can now do so from Monday but don’t be driving. Will every single angler take it as such? I have already been speaking to a few who are intending to drive 20 odd miles to remote loughs to fish on Monday. Who would want to be a police officer doing road checks and Covid 19 controls next week?

Then the news came yesterday afternoon that the Faughan Anglers had decided that the Faughan would open on 20^th May. My heart sank. The only thing in our favour is, perhaps, by the time more anglers will venture this far upstream, maybe the infection rates will have fallen to safer levels. Maybe there won’t be as many people in hospital or entering hospital on a daily basis. Maybe there will be fewer asymptomatic Covid-19 infected people and maybe, just maybe, anglers will show some empathy, manners and basic common decency and not park their vehicles in places with potential to cause problems with people who live there. That’s an awful lot of maybes.

Please don’t read this as, “This guy doesn’t want anyone fishing on his patch”. As I have said from the very beginning of this post, I have absolutely no problem with the actual fishing part. The Faughan is over 25 miles long and I have no problem with anyone fishing any part of it. As long as we can minimise the risk to residents living along the Faughan or any other river or lough for that matter.

Take care everyone.