Dear Editor,

I totally agree with and support the comments published last week in your newspaper by Ian Finylas, Chairman of the Ogmore Angling Association.

I am a bass fishing guide based in North Pembrokeshire and am endeavouring to show visiting anglers how good our bass fishing is in the area, and that the pleasure is catching not killing bass, or indeed any other fish. I operate a catch and release policy which true anglers and fishermen appreciate.

Articles such as the one published in your newspaper on August 6 (Sea bass invasion....) will only lead to an influx on the estuary and river of people who I do not class as anglers or fishermen but opportunists who come into the area to plunder not only our bass stocks but also our salmon and sewin stocks,using any method fair or and mostly foul (illegal netting and foul hooking using lead core lines with bare treble hooks mounted to rip into the fish) The region will not benefit financially in any way from these people but suffer with the number of visiting anglers turning away when they read and hear about these practices.

Any bass over 5lb in weight is almost certainly a female fish and so to kill these fish is just reducing the breeding stock of the future. This though means nothing to these people who only see £5.89 per pound as the fish's value.

Let us hope as anglers fishing for bass,salmon or sewin in this beautiful estuary and river that the Environment Agency Fisheries Officers are pro active in policing the area and taking whatever steps necessary to deter these 'unwanted visitors' to our area.

John George,

Sundown,

West Street,

Newport.