An end to bass being sold at the pub door?

See: http://www.anglers-net.co.uk/sacn/latest/i...ex.php?view=333

Tight Lines - leon

Sounds like great news to me. Is there Any reason why it wont work ?

None whatsoever, as long as it is being policed properly!!, hopefully this will let the honest people in the catching and in the proccessing sector flourish whilst getting rid of the bad ones!!!!

I'm seeking confirmation from DEFRA on what I think could be a couple of loopholes.

Other than that, how rigorously will it be enforced?

The thing with enforcement is that it is never 100%.

It's relatively cheap and easy to enforce anything to a certain extent, quite a way below 100%.

The very threat that you may get caught will deter a lot of people from trying it on and result in a high level of compliance, especially if you make a swingeing example of the few that do get caught.

But then again, if it's seen that a lot of people are easily 'getting away with it', compliance drops.

But as you move towards complete enforcement the costs rachet up conisderably.

You'll often hear of the 80/20 rule.

20% cost brings you 80% compliance

Whereas to obtain the remaining 20% compliance, you are going to have to massively increase your cost to the 100%.

Is it worth it to catch the realtively few people not complying, when the effect on stocks of the remaining blackfish is now minimal.

Of course there is always the odd unannounced crackdown to keep the law-breakers on their toes!

Tight Lines - leon

Some strange wording here:

quote:

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Buyers and sellers of fish, even restaurants and pubs buying direct from fishermen, must be registered from this autumn or face prosecution, Ben Bradshaw, the marine and fisheries minister, said yesterday.

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Granny in the supermarket aside, what about the sellers you get in the docks around coastal areas? Say they are licenced - would I have to be licenced to buy a pound of sprats from them? If not, what's to stop them giving me a discount for a tonne?

quote:

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We cannot tolerate theft from other fishermen and from the sea.

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I'll leave that comment open for debate....

'Registration as a buyer is not required when purchases of first sale fish direct from a fishing vessel are wholly for private consumption and less than 25kg is bought per day'

TL - leon

Might have been nice if the Telegraph had included that in their article

175kg of fish per week sounds a lot - I wonder if it will affect small restaurants?

If they had included the full regulations in the article Elton, the telegraph would have been several times heavier today!

I guess that they have set that figure so high to ensure that genuine 'own use' buyers are well clear of being caught at the margin.

Anyone looking for further information should email:

Scotland - fishregister@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

N.Ireland - RBSRegistration.fisheries@dardni.gov.uk

England - RBSregister@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Wales - Telephone 029 2082 3184

The regulations are slightly different for each administration.

TL - leon

The regulations are slightly different for each administration

This is what I don't understand, it always leaves grey areas.

It's going to get interesting, the idea is that the fish merchants will enforce the quotas for them by recording all details, how much, by whom and from were,of every fish landed, Defra will only have to police the merchants.
I still don't think they realize what the are doing, or just how far out of queta they are with the amounts of fish caught.As things stand it won't work, something will have to give, and it won,t be me,they will have a fight on thier hands, the few remaining fishermen are not going to be an easy push over.