And policing of it all, thats the bit i think they will struggle with
Just cut and pasted this from an email I sent earlier today:
I think that we need better arguments against a rod licence than 'there's miles of coastline, how are thy going to enforce it' or 'how are they going to check licences of 10 anglers on a boat'. (Answer: when they go out, or when they come in, or when the patrol boat checks their fish for mls etc)
Yes, there might be many miles of coastline, but there are many, many, many more miles of fishable river bank, streams, burns, canals etc, (just look at the blue lines on the map and compare all of them with the single line of coast. Oh! and don't forget they have to patrol both banks) often in hard to get places and difficult terrain.
And then there's the banks of ponds, lakes, resevoirs, moats etc to add in.
And inland the vegetation comes right down and into the water, where many freshwater anglers wear real-tree camourflage, a lot harder to see than guys standing on a beach or fishing off rocks, from a mile or more away.
And there are a lot more freshwater anglers fishing at night than sea anglers, oh and many freshwater anglers use boats as well.
Yet the problem of enforcement hasn't made a freshwater licence an impossibility, because the truth is that although the chances of being caught are remote, it's enough to make anyone fishing without a licence uneasy, and most are happier to pay £24 a year than constantly looking over their shoulder fearing that the stranger coming along the bank might just be a bailiff.
And yes you can probably go for years, fishing some hard to get to place at 2am, but is that the only kind of place you are going to want to fish? Are you never going to fish a popular spot, or a spot where you could be vulnerable?
As the freshwater licence demonstrates, not every licence has to be checked, every time someone goes fishing, forr enforcement to be successful. Not even checked every few years.
That there are prosecutions proves that many people are prepared to risk it, rather than spend a few quid on a licence, but they are very much in the minority, and the revenue raised from more compliant folk makes the scheme a success even if a few fearful chancers don't play the game.
No that is all taken into account, and I can't really understand why so many people still think it's likely to be a problem.
It's not as though there are successful working licence schemes around the world that are very similar to our situation in the UK.
We need proper arguments, and the hard evidence to back them, to show that a licence will be detrimental to RSA in the UK.
And when you look at existing licensing schemes, that's very difficult to find, as DEFRA very well know!
Leon
http://www.thisisdorset.net/display.var.1271041.0.anger_at_plan_to_save_sealife.php 
