Police Catch Poachers Red Handed At Drinkwater Park

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Many thanks to Greater Manchester Police, whose prompt response to our call for help resulted in the arrest of two poachers on our community fishing lake at Drinkwater Park.

An eagle eyed venue regular spotted 2 men acting suspiciously this morning, and reported their activity to a club committee member.

He saw that the men were pike fishing with 5 rods each,  and had a take on one of the rods which they weren’t paying any attention to.

Once they noticed that one of their baits had been taken, they reeled in a 5lb+ pike, killed it by a blow to the head and then put it into a bag.

Now we do not allow fish to be killed or taken from out waters. Its theft. We cherish all our fish, especially a delicate predator like Pike.

If we had to replace that 5lb Pike from a fish farm it would cost us over £50.

So, if you ran a shop or a business and you saw someone stealing something to the value of £50 what would you do??

Easy – call the police and have them arrested.

And that’s exactly what we did this morning.

Using the 101 non emergency number we called the switchboard at Greater Manchester Police, and told them what had happened. We told them that its illegal to fish with more than two rods at a time and these guys had 5 each. And we told them that they were killing and stealing our fish (which they were) from a community lake, managed by the community with the help of the local council, EA and Forestry Commission in such a way as to provide free fishing for families.

And then we supplied GMP with the deal sealer – using the information available to us via the Angling Trusts “how to report poachers” webpage – we were able to quote the police/legal codes of the laws that these guys were breaking so that the officer sent to investigate could deal with the matter effectively and with full knowledge of the relevant laws these people were breaking.

At the end of our conversation, we asked the lady on the GMP switchboard if it was likely if they would send out an officer to respond to our call, and were amazed to hear that an officer was already on the way to the lake. Brilliant.

20 minutes later we got a call from an officer on the banks of Drinkwater Park Lake, who had apprehended two men, fishing without valid rod licences, with 5 rods each and dead fish in their possession. Add to the mix a witness of all this taking place from the angling club and Bobs Your Uncle – these guys are going to court.

Many thanks to our eagle eyed member who thought to report this to us. Many thanks to the Angling Trust for giving us the information we needed to help us report the offenders properly and many many thanks to Greater Manchester Police for such a prompt response and helping to protect a community angling facility from some selfish, ignorant &@#ks

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