Bait digging   The facts

Did you know? Sea anglers in the U.K use nearly nine hundred tons of worms each year	Unfortunately there is much conjecture about the rights and wrongs of commercial bait digging, sadly large groups of diggers marauding through Chichester harbour and the Hamble river in the late eighties and early nineties gave us all a bad name which sticks to this day.
Did you know? Commercial bait diggers supply over six hundred tons of worms to U.K anglers yearly.	Today with the demise of large-scale commercial bait suppliers this no longer happens. The numbers of people digging now are seventy-five percent less than they were fifteen years ago. This is due to a number of factors. Anglers now use a much bigger diversification of baits. Boat anglers tend to use very little worm baits these days due in the main to the demise of inshore plaice fishing.
Did you know? Sea baits of Morpeth the larger of the country's two ragworm farms produce fifty tons of worms each year.	Even so commercial diggers still provide over six hundred tons of worms for the estimated one -million sea anglers each year. This amounts to just one and one third pounds of bait per angler. By contrast the country's two bait farms provide thirty-five tons of worms each year or one and a quarter ounces of bait per angler. A further (approximately) ten tons of worms are imported from Ireland and Holland each year with the Dutch imports being mainly restricted to the Southeast.
Did you know? Sea baits export twenty-five tons of worms abroad each year.	Bait diggers turn over (in much the same way a gardener might dig over his allotment) less than nought point one percent of the mudflats in any of the harbours in the Solent area. We believe that this turning over of the mud does no more damage than forking over your garden.
Did you know? In the Solent area commercial bait diggers dig up less than 0.1% of any given harbour	One of the effects of bait digging is to create small pools on the mudflats. In these pools weed and other marine debris collects this provides cover for a myriad of small crustaceans and small fish and this in turn provides feed for sea birds which would go some way to explaining the steady increase of birds in our harbours. It is a well known fact that the sustainability of any wildlife is always directly linked to the availability of food. Another benefiting factor is that we are always amongst the first to spot pollution and alert the authorities because we are always on the scene so to speak.
Did you know? In 1976 there were over two hundred commercial diggers in the Solent area.	One has only to visit any well dug area in our harbours to see this for themselves. Birds feeding at Budds farm langstone harbour the Solent's heaviest dug bait bed. Note the birds are ignoring the bait digger in the photograph
Did you know? In 2001 there are now less than fifty commercial diggers in the Solent area	King ragworms account for ninety-nine percent of all the worms dug in our area with lugworms accounting for the rest. We would estimate that in the thirty  or so years our current members have been digging, worm populations locally are at least two hundred percent greater than they were in the early seventies.
Did you know? In 1999 sea angling contributed over one billion Pounds to the gross national product.	One of the most compelling reasons in our opinion for retaining commercial digging is the safety factor. The mudflats are not the safest place to be even for the most experienced as we have seen in the past with diggers lost in the fog, stuck in underground springs, trapped in quick mud etc. The fact that we dig mostly in pairs has saved at least three lives that we know of. If anglers are forced to dig their own bait it will only be a matter of time before one of them gets trapped and drowned.
Did you know? That under English law as an angler you can dig for worms for fishing bait on any beach in the country without let or hindrance.	Without commercial bait diggers to supply what is essentially the mainstay bait of sea angling it is likely that sea angling as a shore based sport would collapse; given that sea angling generates over one billion pounds into the economy according to official government figures it goes without saying that this would lead to thousands of job losses in this sector.
Did you know that government legislation forbids local government and conservancies from prohibiting commercial bait digging. (The seashore bye laws acts of 1907 and 1996).	Without commercial diggers disabled people, senior citizens, juniors and Lady anglers would not be able to enjoy their sport.