Tag Archives: angling

Powerful objections to proposed Lamington Quarry as Clyde overflows

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Widespread and serious environmental concerns at the  proposed Continue reading →

Malloch Challenge Trophy for heaviest salmon back after 10 year absence

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The beautiful Malloch Challenge Trophy – a solid silver leaping salmon and the most desired award in Scottish angling,  is coming back into circulation after an absence of ten years.

It was first awarded in 1972 for a 43lb salmon caught on the Tweed and until 1999 was awarded annually to the fisherman credited with the heaviest salmon landed in the season,

Since 1999 – when it was awarded for a 33lb salmon on the River Spey, it has been withdrawn from competition. Why? Well strict conservation measures had an impact on landings and this situation was aggravated by the consequent withdrawal of sponsorship.

The Tay Salmon Foundation has now acquired the trophy and is restoring it to competition. The winning fish must have been caught on a fly and released alive back into the water.This requirement now neatly associates the trophy with conservation.

During the 28 years of its previous competitive life, the Malloch Trophy was awarded for fish landed from a variety of rivers including the Dee, Spey, Tweed, Tay and Naver.

The 2009 salmon season opens on some of Scotland’s northern rivers – the Helmsdale, Thurso, Naver, Borgie, Oykel, Cassley and Carron – on Monday 12th January and on the Tay on Thursday 15th January.

Council to host intensive sports coaching conference at Oban in February 2009 – good focus for sharpening Argyll’s ambitions

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Over the weekend of 7th-8th February 2009, Argyll & Bute Council is hosting a sports coaching conference in Oban. It will run from 9am to 5pm on Saturday 7th in Oban High School; and on Sunday 8th in Atlantis Leisure, Oban.

Its aim is to:

  • increase the number of sports coaches available and active in Argyll
  • support them with courses, clinics, certification and mentoring
  • see their work develop participation in sport and personal health
  • contribute to support for sports tourism which is Argyll’s huge undeveloped economic earner.

Spokesperson for Sport and Leisure, Councillor Douglas Philand, wants to see the total of 250 participants at last year’s first conference beaten out of sight this year. He says: ‘This unique event will appeal to a wide range of people who are currently involved in sport or who would like to take the first step into sports coaching’.

He mentions the coaching courses and a coaches clinic hosted by the Council’s development officers at the event. The focus will be on the team sports of football, rugby, netball, shinty and cricket alongside trail cycling, canoeing, kayaking, orienteering, golf and weightlifting – reflecting the growth of interest in newer sports and activities across the area.

The recent growth of orienteering in Argyll through the Stramash schools programme and the Argyll and Bute Orienteering Partnership means that a plan for the development of instructors at various levels is needed. There are courses over the weekend to learn about teaching, coaching and participating in orienteering.

What is also welcome is that this initiative should return, through team and individual sports, the necessary healthy competitive element to Argyll which well meaning but unintelligent UK-wide public policy has been eradicating over the years. Without this, no one raises their game and people lose the ability to discriminate between the competent and the stellar.

There is associated work to be done. Any serious attempt to increase coaching, participation and achievements in sports in Argyll will be blind-sided unless the Council takes the lead in driving refinements in the ‘Disclosure’ system. Its focus on child protection is beyond question as a priority but the way it is set up at the moment actively obstructs the development of both participation and coaching. For Argyll is aware of such instances.

As it stands, the ‘Disclosure’ process is procedurally confused. It is unnecessarily expensive, bureaucratic and restrictive. Furthermore, because people have lost faith in the care and integrity of institutional procedures, many potentially worthwhile coaches do not put themselves forward lest, through some bureaucratic error, they be refused and, in Argyll’s small communities, face ruin by rumour in their own places.

Simplification of this system need not involve any loss of protection for children but it is utterly vital if coaching and activities across the spectrum of sport and leisure are to survive, never mind grow.

The aims of the Council’s Sport and Physical Activity Strategy, the Scottish Government’s Reaching Higher Strategy for Sport, the Active Schools programme – these all help but they’re some of the means, not ends in themselves.

The real prize is the development of Argyll’s wide range of potential winners across a wide range of sports including sailing, kite-surfing, canoeing, shooting, golf and angling.

With a coaching system and a policy to support and develop excellence in Argyll, the Council has only to look at the impact of Chris Hoy‘s remarkable achievements on the national and worldwide consciousness – and on paricipation – to see the benefits. How many kids have asked for bikes for Christmas to start their campaign to be the next Chris Hoy?

The boost to self-belief, pride of belonging and the international interest in a place generated by sporting achievements can indeed be bought. It doesn’t come cheap but the price is well below the value.

Well thought-out, strategic and prioritised infrastructural developments will be needed to lift the impact of high-calibre and widespread coaching to achieve its potential for Argyll. But this is playing to Argyll’s uniquely rich and broad spectrum of natural resources to support sporting achievement and sports tourism simultaneously.

The Council is to be congratulated on its strategic imagination in this initiative and its commitment to the overridingly primary value of such strategies to the development of Argyll’s economy.

For further information on the conference, contact Willie Young on 01546 604121.

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Scottish Youth International Team ties third with Wales

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The recent international youth angling competition at Lough Conn in Ireland was marked by the almost total absence of fish. The Irish team managed to find enough to win though. Local knowledge? Scotland and Wales tied in third (although Wales had a slight advantage in weight of catch), with England in last place. Worth noting that the lack of fish is the story everywhere this year – and it’s very worrying. How will the stocks for next year be built?

2008 Open Angling Championship Final

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The Open Championship is a competition open to all people who are either individual members of the Scottish Anglers National Association (SANA) or members of Clubs affiliated to SANA. The aim of the event is to encourage people to try competition angling and to generate funds to support the wide spectrum of work carried out by SANA to benefit game angling in Scotland.

The dates for the 2008 competitions are: Heat 1 Monday 2nd June; Heat 2 Monday 23rd June (evenings); with the Final all day on Monday 18th August.

Scottish Ladies International Angling Win

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Scotland’s Ladies International team saw off all the home nations competition this year at the Lake of Mentieth on 19th June. They caught 65 fish weighing 147lbs and one ounce. England came second with 55 fish weighting 111bs and 12 ounces. Third were Ireland with 39 fish weighing 86lbs and 9 ounces. Wales brought up the rear with 31 fish weighting 68lbs and 11 ounces.

Scottish Government launches plan for future of freshwater fishing

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The Scottish Government has announced details of its Framework for Freshwater Fisheries at the Game Fair in Scone in Perth. It puts forward a new strategy for development of freshwater angling on Scotland’s lochs and rivers. We have around 31,000 lochs and 50,000 kilometres of river. The plan aims to support the spectrum of fishery management through funding and legislation (though it should be said at this point that significant new funding is not anticipated at this time). The plan has identified eight priority projects including education, youth coaching, fishery district amalgamation and tourist market research and promotion.

Tony Andrews, Executive Director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust welcomed the initiative as ‘a huge step forward’, saying that ‘it is absolutely essential that we manage our national fisheries in a sustainable way’. In warning the industry and the angling community not to expect direct government funding to develop the sport, he added, ‘There is little doubt that the punter will have to pay’.

Ronnie Picken, Chair of the Scottish Anglers’ National Association which governs trout angling, raising the issue of the £120 million of annual income generated for Scotland by recreational angling, said, ‘I think the government has to look kindly on the sport. But I think is it only right that anglers should contribute to its development and that means brown trout and coarse fishermen having to pay more.

Launching the initiative at Scone, Richard Lochhead, Rural Affairs Minister, noted that it was both significant and encouraging for the future that so many Scottish fishing interests had worked closely together in developing the framework.