Articles

I thought I would write something a little different from the norm to highlight that some anglers don’t have the luxury to make an impact on their local commercial or natural water like most anglers have. I speak for all the Armed Forces anglers but in particular the British Army.

As an ex-serviceman myself I can fully appreciate how hard it is for these guys to find the time to fish as an individual but even harder to come together as a team; obviously each one signed up to carry out a duty to the queen whether that be based at home in the UK, abroad at an overseas regiment or on operational tours worldwide.

Throughout the calendar year these guys may only get to see the bank a handful of times and be expected to compete under their individual Corps or Army banner, so when it comes to events like nationals or inter service events they have to fight even harder to compete against the already established and shall we say, match fit teams.

A Corps is basically a section of the Army that specialises in a certain area: Infantry, Engineers, Artillery, Logistics and so on, there are 21 different Corps throughout and some are sub divided again. This in itself produces a huge rivalry between each division that leads to good competition.

When it comes to selection it could be, and is very likely at times of high operations throughout the world to be very difficult to not only pin enough anglers down to fill a team but also for those anglers have the time to be allowed to practice.

They not only have issues with availability of anglers but they also have to fight against all other sports throughout, as we all know the Army is a physical unit so when requesting time off to go fishing for a weeks practice it is always very challenging as fishing is not seen as a serious sport mainly because it doesn’t involve running around in some capacity.

Over the past I have spent some time with several guys practicing on the banks of the New Junction Canal and said I wanted to write an article which will hopefully highlight to each Regimental Commanding Officer how serious fishing is as a sport not just for serving guys but as a whole in the UK and Europe.

We know as anglers how demanding and tiring it can be but those who don’t participate in it do not. Something I tried to change when I was serving, but with the power of media and particular social media we hope we can bring its attention to the powers that be to make an imminent change.

So how does angling work in the Army?

Basically, the UK is split into 6 groups and units serving in both Germany and Northern Ireland used to each form a group but due to the