The front page headlines in NZ Herald yesterday featured Ministry of Primary Industries being caned by the courts over fraud etc.  It reads as though they were responsible for discovering the cover-ups, etc. in NZ’s fishing industry.

The Fishing & Outdoors newspaper has been questioning and reporting on MPI failings for more than the last few years. They have consistently exposed the departmental corruption.

To a few cynics they may have appeared to be over aggressive and controversial.  Perhaps now you can see why…  So now they can rightly claim “I told you so!”.

All anglers should be thankful that there is still a real (i.e. non PC) gutsy newspaper prepared to tackle the hard issues and expose these fraudsters and other environmental issues.  They stand up to people and corporations and government on behalf of those who want to complain but don’t have a voice.

In the latest issue Fishing & Outdoors newspaper warns about the dangers of any increase in aquaculture including trout farming…  Watch this space.

So a BIG Congratulations is due to their Editor, Graham Carter, and Fishing & Outdoors Newspaper for their courageous investigative journalism.  Keep up the good work.

Below is a typical “letter to the editor” TRM received a few months ago:

Great Paper

Dear Sir
A trio of words in your last issue caught my eye. You, Mr Editor, said “Remember we are not a warm fuzzy fishing and hunting magazine.”
Thank goodness for that. Who wants to see rows of photos and stories of various bods with their big fish or big stag while “hard news” is missing?
These other publications rarely pick up on issues threatening the public’s sport. Yet if DOC and mad scientists get the last deer by either chemical or crazy science, there will be no need for a hunting magazine. Similarly if rivers run dry or are polluted and sea fish stocks plundered by company fishers, then trout fishing and saltwater fishing as we know it will be gone. Fishers will all be gone.
So these other magazines who do not care an iota about these hard issues will have dwindling numbers of readers.
This is something so basic, they don’t understand.
The other magazines do not even have letters to the editor. Free speech is dead.
Instead we have photos of “grin and grip” style.
But your paper, Mr Editor, stands like a beacon taking up the “hard issues”.
Well done.
“Reader”
Hawkes Bay

TRM replied:

Congratulations to Fishing & Outdoors. It should be compulsory reading for all anglers.  TRM concur with the above comments. Based on anglers’ feedback and requests from inmates this Fishing & Outdoors newspaper is more popular than the Herald.  TRM commend their Editorial intestinal fortitude for supporting anglers concerns and printing the controversial fishy stuff the main daily papers ignore – we reiterate with the Hawkes Bay “Reader” it stands like a beacon taking up the “hard issues”.