Before I hit the technical stuff I want to tell you a little story that many of you older guys might well be able to relate to.

I was born in Swansea in the middle 40’s just after the end of the war. I have vivid memories of being a toddler and slipping in the dead of night down to Swansea beach with my granddad to recover the catch from his (illegal) dead lines. As the tide retreated we followed along the shallow beach and each new hook produced a, huge to me, flapping fish. These were mostly flatfish, but depending upon the time of year there were big cod, or even the prize of a bass. We ate well and this kept old Sam Price in beer and Woodbines. The beach was a mystical place but it was not sandy like it is now, it was full of detritus, muddy and smelled like our ty-bach (outside toilet). In fact the whole sea was so full of sewerage that you could not swim in it close to the outlets.

After an interlude of 15 years spent growing up in London I returned to seek my fortune.

I immediately resumed fishing and spent many happy days on a crowded Mumbles pier pulling fish from the sea at liberty. They were so plentiful that the old hands made us young-uns put back anything less than a foot long. We all knew the reason for this. It was because just off the end of the pier was a sewerage outlet. At certain times of the tide it would be opened, which was signalled by hoards of gulls. Correspondingly the shoals of fish had gathered for the feast.

Now like it or not all bottom feeding fish like cod, haddock, plaice, etc live off detritus. This is a mixture of dead sea animals and what we poo to put it bluntly. That is why they taste as nice just as organic vegetables do. This has being going on for millions of years, and has never done us or the fish any harm. Similarly the sea flats at Penclawdd and Oystermouth used to be covered with edible shellfish. Now they are covered in dead shells.

Now to my point.

In the 70’s there began a huge movement to clean up our seas and beaches. Basically it was because the eggheads believed that bathing in a clean sea was very important to the human race. They had not bothered to consider the fate of sealife and ultimately ours.

Gradually the waters became clearer as sewage was filtered and treated, causing sealife to retreat from our shores. This has not affected all species but it has had a dramatic affect on fish which follow the tides. Frankly they have almost died out. The Severn Estuary is virtually infertile.

According to the researchers from Dalhousie University in Canada, microscopic marine algae which form the basis of the ocean food chain are dying at a terrifying rate. Phytoplankton, described as the 'fuel' on which marine ecosystems run, are experiencing declines of about 1 per cent of the average total a year. The annual falls translate to a 40 per cent drop in phytoplankton since 1950.

The long article you can read here

Goes on to ultimately firmly place the blame on global warming, and gives all sorts of figures to prove its theories.

There is no mention whatsoever about the world wide madness of stopping raw sewerage entering the sea.

I know that it might seem over simplistic, but I firmly believe from what I and hundreds of angling associates have seen with our own eyes, is that these tree hugging sparsely bearded round rimmed bespeckled idiots have cocked up the whole ecosystem of this planet with their meddling.

Unless of course you are partial to taking the occasional dip at Blackpool of course.