These self appointed fish guardians, who seem to think it is a good idea to throw stones into the water to get children to question the ethics of angling (The Argus, August 8), should instead ask themselves: "Would our fish be better off if people didn't go fishing?"

Anglers don't just see fish - we see individual species, all of which have their own characteristics, behaviour and preferred habitats.

The hours we spend at the waterside enable us to develop an understanding - we call it watercraft - which teaches us how to approach the water, how to behave when we are there and where individual fish species might be.

That is why we can see things which non-anglers can't.

When there is a problem, like the pollution of the Sussex Ouse at Sheffield Park two years ago - just like countless other tragic incidents across the country - we are first on the scene and able to alert the Environment Agency (which is funded by our rod licence money) to the problem.

We can also see the impact of recent changes in our environment.

We may not know why there has been such a reduction in the number of small fish species in our rivers in recent years but at least we know it is happening and at least we care.

-Bill Eborn, Whitehawk, Brighton