Meet the Senior Team

Having been taught fishing by his grandfather in the canals around Derby, Mark followed a career in international finance and commodity trading but always continued fishing across different disciplines. Having become fascinated by the aquatic environment over this period and eager to learn and understand more he read for a degree in Environmental Management at the University of Derby. Upon graduation he applied for the role of Environmental Campaigns manager at the Angling Trust shortly after its formation and has now become the Head of Fisheries.

Mark is responsible for a diverse range of teams in the department which include the Fisheries Enforcement Support Service, the Regions Engagement team, Fisheries Management Advisors, Environment team, Sea Angler Engagement and the Angling Improvement Fund team.

He also represents the Angling Trust on a wide range of government and non-government organisational bodies from the National Drought Group, GB Non-Native Species Secretariat’s specialist working groups, Director of the European Anglers Alliance with a responsibility for freshwater policy to Blueprint for Water’s working groups lobbying for better protection of our waterways. Mark also sits on the external steering group of a number of UK and European funded research projects focussed on improving fish populations.

Having helped establish the Angling Trust back in 2009, when he was Parliamentary Spokesman for Angling in the House of Commons, Martin Salter joined us as our Head of Campaigns in 2011 when he retired from politics.

Martin oversees our political and environmental campaigning and plays a big role in sharpening up the AT message and media profile. He works part time for the Trust as he is involved in a number of other projects and is an occasional angling writer and broadcaster.

Martin enjoys all forms of fishing, and has fished all over the world catching species as diverse as marlin, bonefish, tarpon, peacock bass, dorado and tuna but he is particularly fond of trotting for specimen roach in English rivers.

Stuart joined the Angling Trust in 2011 as our then Finance Manager, providing a critical financial eye over Angling Trust and Fish Legal in those early years. Prior to that Stuart had spent over 20 years working in personal and corporate insolvency, latterly specialising in the enforcement and investigation of wrongdoing by company directors. Since then, Stuart has seen and overseen significant changes of the Trust through the merger with the Angling Development Board, successive bids for Environment Agency and Sport England contracts and organic growth.

In 2016 Stuart reduced his hours and changed his role with the Trust to allow him to fulfil every angler’s dream of owning his own fishery. He purchased a holiday site and five lake coarse fishery in Devon which he developed into a successful small business focused on holidaying anglers and the local club match scene. In that time, he gained valuable first-hand experience of the challenges fishery managers face from day to day. Stuart has since sold his business and returned to the senior management team working on various structural changes.

Stuart now leads the Operations team delivering the Governance, HR and Safeguarding work of the Trust including monitoring operational performance of all our outputs and overseeing a range of issues from our member insurances to our gambling activities.

When he is not building something – Stuart is currently renovating his own home – he can be found fishing local club lakes but still occasionally ventures back to fish the rivers he grew up on.