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A coracle fisherman is ready to invoke a 400-year-old charter in an attempt to preserve the future of an ancient practice in the face of tightening government regulations.

Dai Rees said that attempts by the Government to restrict the number of licences granted to coracle fishermen on the River Towy in West Wales was a threat to livelihoods and the country’s cultural heritage.

Mr Rees, whose family have fished since the 1600s, said that he would invoke a charter signed by Elizabeth 1 that passed down through his family granting him the right to fish anywhere in the country.

The Environment Agency said that coracle fishermen, who ply their trade by proceeding up rivers in pairs with a 30ft-wide net stretched between them, were threatening fish stocks. But Mr Rees, who has not been granted a licence, said that the agency had been successfully lobbied by angling clubs who wanted fishing rights for themselves. Mr Rees, whose exploits have attracted tourists for decades and been celebrated by the chef Rick Stein, said that the decision by the Environment Agency and the National Assembly in Wales was unjust.

Mr Rees, who lives in Llanstephan, near Carmarthen, and who paid £500 for his net licence last year and earned some £4,000 from the sale of fresh salmon and sea trout, said that the action was akin to constructive dismissal as well as a threat to Welsh culture.

He said that next Saturday, the first day of the coracle fishing season which runs to the end of July, he would take out his coracles in protest.

He is also invoking the aid of an ancient charter passed down through his mother’s family, the Combes, who were fishermen in Bosham, near Chichester. He claims that the charter, signed by Elizabeth I and also King James I, was awarded to his mother’s family, a group known as the Men of Bosham, for their help in preventing the Great Plague from reaching the people of Chichester. Mr Rees said the charter gives him the right to fish on any stretch of water in the kingdom without a licence.

He said: “I am going fishing on St David’s Day and it’s up to them if they decide to come and prosecute me. I am ready to defend myself in the magistrates and the crown court if necessary. I owe it to my family. I can’t believe the Welsh Assembly Government wants to kill off Welsh culture. I really don’t think they know what it means, it’s really unbelievable.”

Mr Rees also insists that he and the other coracle fishermen are keen conservationists. If stocks are low, they keep away from the river for one or two weeks, and if they fish will take only one home.A spokeswoman at the National Assembly said the reduction of licences had been approved owing to concerns over salmon stocks. Commercial salmon net fishing licences are regulated by Net Limitation Orders. She said that the Environment Agency had consulted on proposals to reduce the licences for the River Towy to eight, as this had been the maximum issued in the past three years.

“There is a selection process for those who want to apply for a coracle salmon net licence and this ensures that any netsman who has taken out a licence before 2007 would continue to receive a licence if an application was submitted,” she said.

Under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975, Mr Rees faces a fine of up to £5,000 and/or a maximum three months’ prison sentence if found by magistrates to be fishing salmon without a net licence.

Fishy business

— Coracles have been used for UK fishing for more than 2,000 years

— They are primitive, light, bowl-shaped boats with frames of woven grasses, reeds or saplings covered with hide. They also have a lath and calico covering. Some modern coracles are made from glass fibre

— They are still used for fishing in West Wales and Ireland’s coast

— Similar boats are still found in India and Vietnam

— A coracle is propelled with a single narrow paddle, moved as a figure of eight

— The coracle fishing season is from March 1 to July 31

— Julius Caesar, who first saw coracles when he came to Britain in 49BC, is said to have used the design to move troops during a campaign in Spain

— Under Edward III, Froissart wrote about the English Army invading France in 1360, carrying a baggage train of more than 6,000 carts in which small boats of boiled leather were crewed by three men who rowed and fished

— Bernard Thomas, from Llechryd, Ceredigion, in 1974 took 13.5 hours to cross the English Channel to France in a coracle

Source: Times archives and Coracle Society

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