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Marine Advisory Group (MAG)

Marine Advisory Group (MAG)

The Marine Advisory Group (MAG) advises and recommends the Angling Trust on policy, lobbying, campaigning and technical issues related to fisheries and marine environmental concerns affecting sea angling.

Members of the group include Angling Trust staff and volunteers who are co-opted for their specialist knowledge, experience and skills in key areas that contribute to the work of the Angling Trust. Profiles of current members are shown below. The group reports directly to the Angling Trust’s Board of Directors and meets quarterly.

Any individual member of the Angling Trust may be nominated to sit on the MAG and clubs and individuals are encouraged to bring local conservation and access issues that the MAG can assist with to the attention of the group by contacting their regional representative or by contacting the MAG directly by emailing [email protected]

 
 

Current MAG Members

Dr. Simon Thomas

Simon has been a fanatical angler since an early age and is the honorary biologist for both the Shark Angling Club of Great Britain and the Sportfishing Club of the British Isles. Through this work and independent data collection he has co-founded the Pat Smith data base with John McMaster, which is the second largest and longest database of blue shark captures in the world. His research aims to better inform decisions by global policymakers on shark conservation, highlight the role played by anglers in collecting the required information and to link changes in UK blue shark populations with large scale environmental drivers. Simon promotes the utilisation of the knowledge possessed by the anglers and skippers, who are often the real experts in the shark species.

Reginald Phillips

Reg has 40 years of fishing experience, the last 22 years as a boat angler. In that time he has witnessed the shrinking opportunities for sea anglers with marine management practices that do not effectively protect public fishery resources. This spurred Reg on to become actively involved in angling politics. He is commodore of the South Coast Angling Club, secretary of Shoreham Harbour Arms Community Organisation and secretary of the AT Sussex Marine Region. He is also an honorary consultant for the AT. Amongst other things Reg has been responsible for setting up Family Fishing events in Sussex, negotiating agreement on management of the Kingmere MCZ and carrying out Juvenile Fish Surveys to campaign for the protection of the nearshore fish spawning grounds and juvenile recruitment zones from demersal Pair Trawling.

Alan Deeming

Alan lives on the Isle of Wight and is retired. He started fishing around the age of 6 when his farther introduced him to fishing. Alan is a keen boat angler, owning an 8m boat that he runs privately out of Bembridge, specialising in thresher sharks in season but he still occasionally fishes for mullet from the shore. He is involved in a wide range of issues as the general secretary of Bembridge Angling Club and a member of the Southern IFCA’s Recreational Angling Sector Group. He was fully involved in the stakeholder engagement process for local Marine Conservation Zones and has continually contributed to the dialogue with his local IFCA regarding control measures resulting from designation. Alan tries to keep a watching brief on anything that could impact on anglers in his area round the Isle of Wight to ensure that their interests are represented.

Steven Murphy

Steve began his sea angling adventures off the Essex coast in the early 1980s with Bob Cox and John Rawle who were revolutionising inshore sea Angling with their new uptiding technique. His passion for sea angling took him to various locations around the globe in search of new challenges; from Bahamian bonefish to Mauritian black marlin. Children and a demanding career limited his fishing adventures for several years, but after recently retiring from full time employment he is now fishing again from Cornwall and with trips overseas. Atlantic Bluefin Tuna have in recent years become a major focus of Steve including the pursuit of a sustainable, scientifically supported recreational fishery in the U.K. He is founder of the Bluefin Tuna UK Campaign and is also Conservation officer for the Sportfishing Club of the British Isles.

Tim Macpherson

An angler since age 11, and an Angling Trust member since its inception, Tim has been closely involved with in a number of the organisation’s sea angling campaigns. He launched Angling Trust’s Sussex Marine Region, is Chair of the Marine Conservation and Access group and a member of the Angling Participation Committee. Tim is based in Sussex where he is a member of three angling clubs and has fished all over the world. Tim has spent with 35 years working in publishing, events and media companies. He currently runs his own publishing and communications consultancy.

Alan Butterworth

Alan Butterworth has worked in fisheries for well over 40 years. He studied zoology at the University of Liverpool, specialising in freshwater and marine fisheries, going on to complete a PhD. In 1976, Alan joined Thames Water as an Area Fisheries Officer and retired in 2009 as the Senior Fisheries Technical Specialist, after which he was invited to become a Director of the Angling Trust. Alan is currently a voluntary technical advisor, considering and responding on the Trust's behalf to hydropower applications. He has been a passionate angler all of his life, enjoying coarse, game and sea. Since moving to the South coast, Alan has become an avid mullet and occasional bass angler.

Andrew Burt

Andrew is the conservation and access coordinator for the National Mullet Club. The role involves co-ordinating and implementing the club’s conservation efforts in trying to secure a positive future for the species by identifying issues and opportunities and responding accordingly to various authorities. Living in the midlands, Andrew is a keen coarse angler with a successful background in match fishing. He also occasionally pursues barbel and chub and enjoys fly fishing (when time allows!). Over the last few years the challenge of sea fishing, predominantly for the enigmatic and highly infuriating mullet, has taken over from fresh water and Andrew's weekends are now frequently spent in the South West and Wales fishing in the tidal estuaries and harbours.

David Curtis

David leads Bass Anglers’ Sportfishing Society’s Restoration work and is a member of Save Our Sea Bass, BASS’s campaigning arm. For the last six years, he has worked closely with the Angling Trust on bass strategy and campaigning, both in the UK and in Brussels. He joined CAG in 2017 to help on other sea angling issues. He believes that public angling should take priority in sea fisheries management, as the largest and most valuable stakeholder. When the sea is calm and the weather warm, David fishes from his kayak. At other times, he fishes from the shore using both bait and lures.
 

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