Anglers have always been an agile lot, any crack in the fence or slack in barbed wire quickly exploited for fishing purposes. We’ve scraped flesh, twisted ankles, and occasionally needed ambulances and the Coast Guard to return us to safety.
As the press of people grows, and mindful that the largest growth in outdoor use is wildlife watchers, are we suddenly at the mercy of large insurance companies and their stiff premiums?
My saltwater-youth was largely the San Francisco waterfront – which was a thriving commercial enterprise; freighters would dock and depart and were impervious to the 4 ounce pyramid sinkers we flung in their direction.
With the demise of the freighter traffic and the collapse of the freeway during the Loma Prieta earthquake, the waterfront was rebuilt and gentrified to make the area attractive for tourists, dog walker’s, and inevitable “40 is the new 20” jogging crowd.
So which group do we exclude?
However the local water board has banned fishing on the dam wall after a number of anglers sustained minor injuries slipping on the rocks. Anglers are also banned from most of the rest of the reservoir for fear back casting will snare a passer-by, although this has never happened in the forty years since the reservoir was built.
It’s merely a footnote about a UK impoundment – banning fishermen from fishing for fear they might hook a passersby, but this type of contention for a resource is liable to increase.
The urban waterfront is likely at risk, with voters pedestrians outnumbering anglers by many hundredfold, but with the press of humanity expanding outward, marching under the Political Correctness battle standard, will this be an issue for some of our freshwater venues as well?
It’s too early yet to tell, but it’s likely each of us knows of numerous spots close enough to a parking lot, or within the confines of a wildlife sanctuary, where anglers and non fishermen intermingle.
Soaring insurance premiums endured by the owning counties and cities are a compelling reason to side with the less agile pedestrian – as they’re not tempting fate by repelling down a cliff face, or being stranded at high tide as we are.
They’re still debating whether to bill the 134 ice fishermen rescued off Lake Erie this year. It could be we’re headed for a wakeup call.
It does beg the question of why that breakwater was created. The intent was to protect the boats and harbor – but if they’re no longer a factor, who has first dibs? Certainly, fishermen scampered over the greasy rocks first – but now that the city has installed a path and landscaped the aging edifice, and it’s used by a mix of folks – what now?
We’ve seen how lawns vote more frequently than fish, it’s not unexpected that pedestrians will vote more than fishermen.
Some well intentioned angling organization gains public access to a formerly private creek, installing parking lot and riparian protection – and in so doing denies us fishermen from ever using it due to more frequent use by birders?
Ouch.
The UK’s a funny place when it comes to this sort of thing. Sometimes, as in the instance to which you referred, the health & safety authorities overreach in trying to protect people from themselves, and in so doing live up to every nanny state stereotype we rugged Americans tend to associate with them.
And sometimes they revert to a distinctly British sense of personal responsibility. A couple examples: leash laws for dogs in public parks are generally quite lax, and for us bipedal mutts there’s no such thing as jaywalking.
Just don’t let the rozzers catch you out after dark with a fillet knife in your pack.
I’m thinking we’ll be seeing plenty more of this. Insurance premiums reach a certain point and then we’ll see a trickle down of off limits begin.
Political Correctness means whomever yells last wins.
Sadly, I reckon you’re probably right. This apprentice curmudgeon remembers when, in order to do something safely, you learned how to do it well. Contemporary attitudes seem to run more toward sanitizing things to such a degree that actual skill becomes almost an afterthought.
It seems to me that fishing is becoming ever less distinguishable from going on safari. Or to the zoo.