Global Warming

Global Warming

Forget Greta Thunberg, and all the other people who think that the world is going to end a week Thursday, but have a good think about the future of our planet after reading this. After all, if you're anything like us, you want to be outdoors fishing as often and as much as possible. 

According to NASA the planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year — from January through September, with the exception of June — were the warmest on record for those respective months. 

But what does this mean for us as anglers? Well it's hard to tell. But with a rise in earth temperature comes a rise in sea water levels and so on. Does that mean that soon these rivers that we so dearly love, for example, won't be fishable? Maybe, maybe not, but it's all food for thought. Maybe it’s already having an effect. Take our beloved River Wye for example. If you have been watching some high profile anglers social media over the last year you would have seen some of them bemoaning the lack of salmon running into the river and so on. He largely placed the blame at the feet of the Environment Agency, but maybe there were other factors at play, such as a rise in sea temperature. This coming salmon season may offer more of an insight into this. 

You may be one of those people who believes the whole thing is nothing but a wild conspiracy. Maybe that's right too. Ultimately, in the lifetime of earth we've been through no end of climatic changes and probably will do when we're long gone. 

But we think there is one element of environmental change that the human population has most definitely made worse. 

Single use plastic is the scourge of our planet at the minute. And the next time you go angling just see how it's affecting our wonderful sport. 

According to plasticoceans.com more than a million plastic bags are bought or used every minute. What's even more concerning is that we purchase nearly double that in single use water bottles. 

So, why is this important to us? Well, when was the last time you went fishing without something in a plastic bag or a drink from a bottle. When was the last time you went fishing and didn't see some form of plastic floating downstream or in the margins?

These products don’t just simply go away. They take years and years to break down, and as they do they leave millions of micro plastics in its wake. What on earth is a micro plastic i hear you say? Why is this important? You just want to go fishing, right? 

Well if we said to you current research shows that we each consume up to 70,000 micro plastics a day it should start making you think. Scientists have also found plastics at the deepest point of the Pacific Ocean and micro plastics in the snow at the top of Everest!

Now, we know you’re highly unlikely to ever cast a cage feeder into the Pacific, but this shows us one thing. If plastic is having an effect on these far reaching places, then imagine what your local water is. Again, using the River Wye salmon as an example, has the deterioration in water quality had anything to do with their decline in numbers?

There is, no doubt, a whole host of reasons why fish numbers are down, why the earth's temperature is rising and so on. But having seen some of these statistics it’s clear that have issues within the environment that need tackling. We wrote a piece previously that was all about the line recycling scheme and the good work they do, but it’s apparent that our pollution issue goes much deeper than a bit of old line. 

We often take a holier than thou approach as anglers. Match anglers look down their noses at the humble pleasure angler. Carp anglers look down at anyone without an unhooking mat and the circle goes on. When in actual fact we’re all as bad as each other and contributing to the same issue. How often have you just bitten the top off a bag of groundbait and spat it out, dropped the lid of a bottle and not picked it up when holding 16m of pole, empty hook packets gone sailing off in the wind, floats in trees and so on. Yes, as an individual it's nothing, but there’s an estimated 4.3 million anglers in the UK alone. That’s an awful lot of rubbish, whether it's intentional or not. 

So before you hit the bank next time, leave all single use plastic at home. Empty your groundbait into a bucket, pop your hooks in a hookbox and take all fluids in a flask. You never know, it may just be the difference between your great grandchild being an angler or not!