one thing i do find utterly hilarious in this conversation is the suggestion that angling ploughs vast ammounts of money and angler hours into conservation,
try speaking to any club secretary who is organising a work party to tend their section of river, about how massive the response is, they might get the odd person if they're lucky.
as for revenues, angling gets less money from licence revenue that the rspb does from subscriptions, the ACA which fights legal cases against polluters has been nigh on bankrupt for years, the rspb mobilises more volunteer labour to help conservation in one weekend that angling manages in a year.
the average british angler falls into one of 2 camps, either they will turn up for a weekend, sit in a tent and throw 5 lbs of bait in, while trying to catch a carp, except for in the evening when they get either pissed, stoned or both.
the second type is the faux match angler, who will fish for 5 hours on the side of a muddy hole, with a 12 meter pole using up to 10 kilos of trout pellets and trout pellet derrivatives, then dragging the hybrid carp out of the water by the skull, which results in very bad facial deformities to the fish, such as having their lips torn off of deforming the front of their face once the lips have gone to a shape which resembles a parrots beak.
their might be lots of money being spent on the passtime, but it's not being used to conserve the fish