LostAgain wrote:FatBoy wrote:unsurprisingly choose to get fishermen to pay a licence to fish there rather than letting canoeists on.
There I guess you have the crux of it, no fee collection no access!
I'd happily pay but unfortunately fishermen need about 2m of river. We need hundreds. BCU (who I pay) do negioatiate (pay?) for various bits but what's needed (ideally) is a change of law to the way rivers are "owned" in many other countries (including Scotland). As it stands in England and Wales if one person owns one bank and another the other then they own half each and can both assign fishing licences for their own banks. Canoeists have no hope unless you get both parties to agree. In Scotland anything declared as a river is a public right of way hence if you can get on to it legally you're legally allowed to use it. Sensible?