TALES FROM THE RIVERBANK
operating in a murky criminal world. Paltry fines handed down by the courts have done nothing to deter it – we recently had a case here on the West Coast where the water bailiffs had spent days tracking a well-known local poacher but when they caught him red-handed setting nets in a sea loch and delivered him to the police, the Procurator Fiscal judged it was ‘not in the public interest’ to convict him and even failed to confiscate his nets. The outdated and romanticised public
Poacher’s lie
The myth of the lovable rural rogue is long outdated: it’s time the courts got tough on wildlife crime
WORDS JON GIBB I
n a year that saw some of the worst runs of spring salmon in living memory, it is perhaps surprising that the scourge of
salmon poaching has once again made the headlines. Two major incidents – which some believe are related – have hit the little River Tyne in East Lothian. Back in early June, an illegal gill net containing 60 very large sea trout between 4lbs and 12lbs was removed by Forth DSFB water bailiffs from the Tyne near East Linton. The illegal catch was estimated to have been worth around £1,500. Days later an infamous East Lothian poacher,
Edward Ingle, was jailed for five months after racking up a staggering record of 33 convictions for salmon poaching. Having been ordered by the courts not to go within 80 feet of the river after being caught poaching in April, just three weeks later Ingle was caught on the river again, prompting Haddington Sheriff Court to hand down a custodial sentence. Meanwhile, up here in Lochaber, that same
week our own team of dedicated water bailiffs lifted a 300-foot-long gill net that spanned the entire breadth of the mouth of the River Lochy near Fort William. Not a single salmon would have escaped a ghastly suffocating death entwined by the gills in invisible monofilament had the bailiffs not made their discovery before the tide came in. The fact that much-prized spring salmon are rarer than hen’s teeth on most parts of the West Coast does not deter these criminals from taking their chances. The involvement of an outside gang is suspected. With early-caught spring salmon fetching
up to £40 per kilo at Billingsgate, it is perhaps not surprising that poaching attracts those
‘Although it is already illegal to sell rod-caught fish, there is a huge black market in net-caught salmon’
percep tion of the crafty old countryman, the lovable rural rogue outwitting the local game- keeper and his wealthy landowning paymaster, is also partly to blame. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it is an image that the poachers themselves try hard to promote. Back in 2001 Edward Ingle wrote a book,
Poacher’s Pie, about his father – also an infamous poacher – and described him as someone that would ‘take tatties and cabbages from the fields and give them to the old folks in the pub’. The truth is somewhat more prosaic: Ted Ingle was a well-known local criminal who was battered to death in 1994 by his partner Rosie Blake in the flat they shared in Tranent. Blake went on to serve seven years of her life sentence before being jailed again for selling heroin to ex-convicts while out on licence. Until the courts start to take wildlife crime
seriously, nothing will change. In Poacher’s Pie Ingle says of his father: ‘He thought the law was a joke. He was once up in court for poaching and he had a boot-full of salmon in the car outside. He was fined £180 and he rushed off to sell the fish to pay the fine.’ It seems that nothing much has changed
if it takes 33 guilty verdicts before a custodial sentence is given. In 2006 alone Edward Ingle racked up no fewer than 11 poaching convictions and doubtlessly, just like his father, simply returned to the river to pay off his fines. So it is perhaps encouraging that the on going
FIELD ONLINE
COMMENT ON THIS VIA OUR FACEBOOK PAGE OR TWITTER WWW. SCOTTISHFIELD.
CO.UK
Fisheries Review being conducted by the Scot- tish Government is rumoured to be considering the introduction of carcass tagging for all rod and net-caught fish. In a quota scheme used widely in Ireland, both anglers and legal netsmen would be issued with numbered tags that would have to be attached to all salmon that are killed. Although it is already illegal to sell rod-caught fish, there is a huge black market in net-caught salmon and the tagging and quota system would go a long way in identifying any illegal fish. Ted Ingle is buried in a Haddington grave-
yard below a headstone carved with a leaping salmon and the inscription: ‘Scotland will never see his like again’. Let’s hope any new legislation ensures that this is so.
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 117
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286