I've been gone for a while. Among other things I spend a week in the UK on business. I was curious to check out the sport of fishing there. Pretty sad state of affairs best I could tell. Upon inquiring about fishing I find that one doesn't just hop in the car and go fishing very much. In England it appears that most good fishing waters are either controlled by fishing clubs or the government restricts access by requiring special permits to fish certain areas. I stayed on lake Windemere which is the largest lake in England. I was told there was a few places that one could fish for free (just requires a fishing license) but the good fishing spots required a special access permit that apparently is very expensive and only clubs or resorts can afford them. For instance the place I stayed boasted about possessing a permit to fish some of the best areas of the lake or adjoining rivers and therefore guests could fish these areas. It appeared that rivers were totally controlled by either land owners or clubs. I am thankful that in this country we have a heritage of considering most large bodies of water as public property and state governments provide a lot of lake access. Here in MN all lakes of any size generally have a free public access. I do fear however that as fishing and hunting gets more and more commercialized we will eventually end up the same way. I for one think that fishing tournaments are bad for the sport of fishing. I know that's a controversial subject but as soon as you start allowing people to make money off a natural resource it ceases to be a public resource. Some of my favorite fishing lakes no longer have access to the average guy via the public landing because there is almost always a fishing tournament going on that will take over the access. So unless you are in the tournament or belong to the "club" holding the tournament you can't even got on the water. Agree or disagree?

Gotta get back to fishin!