OAA Info

Membership

All members of the Association, under section 3.11 of the Association Rules and Byelaws, must complete a mandatory catch return at the end of each season on the form issued by the Company.

We understand that you might not feel it's necessary because you didn't have a very good season and besides, what good would your input do anyway?

Well, as it happens, even a nil return tells us a lot about the state of the River. All catch returns benefit the Association in a number of ways. They are used in the first instance to monitor the state of the migratory fish returning to the Ogmore. The information that we obtain goes into a database that can indicate trends over a period of time of a possible falling population of migratory stocks. Rather than be reactive to any issues, we can be proactive and put in place plans to investigate and possibly offset minor problems before it's too late.

Secondly, we must safeguard the fishing for present and future generations of anglers. As such, we require catch returns to enable us to record, what fish were caught each season. For example. should a major pollution incident occur that devastates the River, through various agencies, we would be able to seek compensation. However, without a true and accurate record of the catches that have been made, the Association would not be able to make representations for the loss of fish, other agencies, based on the number of fish caught would not be able to make an assessment of the number of juvenile fish lost and therefore, any possible restocking program would be seriously undermined because of the lack of data, i.e catch returns that could be relied on. We hope then, that you can see how important a catch return is to the Association.

In addition, it would be appreciated by the Association if visiting anglers could also complete a catch return for our records.

Completed forms are to be returned to the Membership Secretary. Please see the Contacts Page.

Catch Return Form download

Anyone who witnesses pollution, illegal tipping of waste, fish in distress, poaching or danger to the natural environment, PLEASE report the incident to the Environment agency's emergency hotline on

0800 807060

calls are free.