Our wild fish future

Fishing is at a crossroads but if anglers can change their expectations, this wonderful sport will live on

- JOHN BAILEY

ONE OF the great benefits of my position as fishing consultant for the BBC 2 series Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing is that I get to spend much of the year on our great game rivers talking to the owners and keepers who matter. The overwhelming consensus is that fishing is at a crossroads and that the future of game fishing must be addressed.

Peter Orchard, keeper at Longford on the Hampshire Avon, knows the number of trout anglers is in decline. “Numbers are falling while the average age is increasing. We’ve got to be flexible in the way we run rivers and be open to new attractions,” he says. This concern comes at exactly the time that the Environment Agency (EA) is bent on limiting the numbers and sizes of stocked trout into rivers, or stopping the practice altogether. This move might be welcomed overall but it is bitterly opposed on the southern chalkstreams, the Test notably.