Go Angling
The Solent provides opportunities for both beach and boat fishing. The Solent Fishing Guide provides advice to anglers on all aspects of fishing around this coast. It also provides details of local angling clubs.
The Angling Trust is the single organisation that represents all game, coarse and sea anglers and angling in England. The formation of the Trust forms a single body to take cohesive action to represent the sport. It provides information about how to begin participating in sea angling.
Sea anglers in England are to be asked what fish they catch and what they return in the biggest ever survey of the sport in England. The survey, Sea Angling 2012, aims to find out how many people enjoy the sport, how much fish they catch, what is returned alive, and how important the sport is to the country’s economy. European legislation requires EU Member States to collect and report data on recreational catches of certain species – including bass, cod and sharks – where it is needed to give a clearer picture of how fishing activities are affecting the stocks.
If Sea Angling 2012 and similar surveys in Europe highlight circumstances where anglers should play an important role in conserving vulnerable or overexploited stocks, Defra would seek to agree voluntary measures to avoid having controls imposed from Brussels. The data obtained in Sea Angling 2012 will allow the importance and needs of recreational sea angling to be more effectively represented in future discussions on marine management at local, national and EU level. It will be carried out by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas), and the new local Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs).
