Fishermen Not Happy With The BBC

[wurzel]

Hi Wurzel, I am not sure what happened at tehe EU end regarding this but regardless of what they came up with there would have been a significant delay from a problem being identified to a reaction by which time a lot of damage would have been done, and the scientists would have wanted lots of data to play statistics with before they did anything. In my view the minute the boats enter a fishery that is full of 2 year olds just below mls something needs doing to reduce the damage to what may well be marketable next season. I know that this will never be achieved by the EU or DEFRA, and I doubt if the new powers being given to the redundant SFCs will be able to react that quickly either.

 

We don't hear much about this French Armada that invades the Yorkie coast each year with a whiting quota, something that seems to be a bit hush hush by the powers that be , but my mate with a lobster boat out ofg Brid fills me in a bit. Does anyone no the score on this one

Clive

 

Hello Clive

 

I know that the trawlers got over the increase in cod end mesh size by using much heavier twine, you needed a crow bar to open a mesh, this must make a difference to the discard or the health of any fish that manages to force it's way through the mesh. I know the increase in twine was justified to a point because the bigger the mesh the weaker it is but would a square mesh cod end been more effective in reducing discards, do you know any thing about the trails done with square mesh cod ends? I know there were some done but never heard the out come.

 

The French fleet seem to be a law unto themselves of which the EU seem to tip toe around, the boats working of Brid claim to be fishing for Whiting, they seemed to have moved further north in recent years, we used to have them off here mainly off shore in mid channel, I've watched them haul on several occasions and they seemed to be catching a lot of gurnards, I have always thought the French can make a good living on what we would throw away or sell for pot bait, They must get boarded by the protection vessels same as every body else but unlike the Belgies rarely end up in the courts.

Edited February 15, 2010 by wurzel

[big_cod]

Paul

I'm not talking about knowing just about Whitby and the fishing spots there abouts, you seem to have no understanding of the mechanisms and logistics of an ever changing environment that you work in .

I never had much trouble with the local trawlers, we left because the cod were on the decrease and the sole on our home grounds were increasing big time, I could ask you to explain why the soles increased despite claims of gross over fishing but it would be a waste of time.

I doubt you would tolerate a long lining fleet at Whitby, I mean proper long liners that would target cod 100% of the time with 6000 hooks a day, working every day on the same grounds as you , unlike the trawlers that alternate between cod, whiting, haddock and prawns some times diapering off to the pipes for some black (coaly) of which none is possible for a long liner.

My little patch includes reports from south to Dover to the French coast up the Dutch coast and across and North to Hartlepool so you must be doing something wrong on your even smaller patch Paul.

 

Peter you say 6000 hooks coulnt be worked not many years ago there was double that going over the side every day throughout the winter here i worked lines myself one winter we used to shoot 6 lines sometimes 8 averageing 200 hooks aline and there was at least 10 or 12 boats working lines at times thats over 10000 hooks a day with more or less zero discards plus we had over a dozen trawlers plus gillnetters working miles of net cod are a breeding machine which is a good job the bottom line it could never stand the effort what was being thrown at it with trawling you say about pipes there was a few boats working the pipes and they did very well for cod and black but it all stopped because the fish wasnt there anymore yo cant catch it twice take the large haddocks ,tons of whiting we had close to our coast the big lemons ,big plaice ,monks, cats they are just an example of where we are today they dissapeared in numbers for a reason no it ain global warming i am not saying there should be no trawling my son was a trawlerman till just recntly and is now working down off harwich on the windfarms construction i have a few mates who are trawling and at times have at times pointed them to certain bits of ground which are holding fish but effort and mess size has been a killer over the years the fleet has shrunk whether it can sustain there effort has to be seen discards need to be more or less eliminated or one step forward and 3 steps back horsepower and bigger boats have played there part its a big sea but there is a lot of desert out there.

 

paul.

 

paul.

Edited February 15, 2010 by big_cod

[cleeclive]

Hello Clive

 

I know that the trawlers got over the increase in cod end mesh size by using much heavier twine, you needed a crow bar to open a mesh, this must make a difference to the discard or the health of any fish that manages to force it's way through the mesh. I know the increase in twine was justified to a point because the bigger the mesh the weaker it is but would a square mesh cod end been more effective in reducing discards, do you know any thing about the trails done with square mesh cod ends? I know there were some done but never heard the out come.

 

The French fleet seem to be a law unto themselves of which the EU seem to tip toe around, the boats working of Brid claim to be fishing for Whiting, they seemed to have moved further north in recent years, we used to have them off here mainly off shore in mid channel, I've watched them haul on several occasions and they seemed to be catching a lot of gurnards, I have always thought the French can make a good living on what we would throw away or sell for pot bait, They must get boarded by the protection vessels same as every body else but unlike the Belgies rarely end up in the courts.

Hi,

 

Square mesh codends are a disaster Jens Bojen tried them many years back and ended up with a cod gilled in every mesh, it obviously depends upon the mesh opening and the size of fish that you hit upon. However I think that most of the research hit this problem. The other problem was the strength of the codends and the fact that with knotted netting the meshes get pulled into rectangles which distorts the selectivity. The same problem arises with square mesh panels unless the braided knotless netting is used.

 

Re heavy twines and heavily treated and heat set netting as you say you need a crowbar to open it. In addition the use of long extensions in front of the codend help to keep the meshes closed , ideal for the scottish shelterdeck fleet who like fishing for small haddock and rounders, no good for soles though, you need a blinder in the codend to keep them in, just hung on a lacing line that can can easily be cut before the bag is lifted.

 

Cheers

 

Clive

[Guest challenge]

Hi,

 

Square mesh codends are a disaster Jens Bojen tried them many years back and ended up with a cod gilled in every mesh, it obviously depends upon the mesh opening and the size of fish that you hit upon. However I think that most of the research hit this problem. The other problem was the strength of the codends and the fact that with knotted netting the meshes get pulled into rectangles which distorts the selectivity. The same problem arises with square mesh panels unless the braided knotless netting is used.

 

Re heavy twines and heavily treated and heat set netting as you say you need a crowbar to open it. In addition the use of long extensions in front of the codend help to keep the meshes closed , ideal for the scottish shelterdeck fleet who like fishing for small haddock and rounders, no good for soles though, you need a blinder in the codend to keep them in, just hung on a lacing line that can can easily be cut before the bag is lifted.

 

Cheers

 

Clive

Your right about the length of the bag Clive, the long shelter deck boats do like them as they take all there fish forward to the hopper therefore a long bag is very helpful when taking several lifts on board.

As for your mention of blinders. Well there you go I suppose you will get a few more stars off your friends on the Whitby forum for mentioning them again.

Regards.

[cleeclive]

Your right about the length of the bag Clive, the long shelter deck boats do like them as they take all there fish forward to the hopper therefore a long bag is very helpful when taking several lifts on board.

As for your mention of blinders. Well there you go I suppose you will get a few more stars off your friends on the Whitby forum for mentioning them again.

Regards.

The Dutch and Belgians were famous for them and they were quite popular at Mablethorpe as well, but I doubt if they are used very much these days. I wass fully trained buy a group of old deep water skippers at Grimsby in the use of all these naughty devices. We had a full set of case studies in Grimsby for training the navy, about 15 different codends all rigged illegally, there is a whole menu card of ways to break the rules, and quick release blinders were just one of them. No end of illegal ways of rigging lifting bags and chafers as well.

 

No doubt the odd Brownie point!!

 

Cheers

 

Clive

[big_cod]

Your right about the length of the bag Clive, the long shelter deck boats do like them as they take all there fish forward to the hopper therefore a long bag is very helpful when taking several lifts on board.

As for your mention of blinders. Well there you go I suppose you will get a few more stars off your friends on the Whitby forum for mentioning them again.

Regards.

 

 

Blinders john whats one of them.

 

paul.

[Jaffa]

The Dutch and Belgians were famous for them and they were quite popular at Mablethorpe as well, but I doubt if they are used very much these days. I wass fully trained buy a group of old deep water skippers at Grimsby in the use of all these naughty devices. We had a full set of case studies in Grimsby for training the navy, about 15 different codends all rigged illegally, there is a whole menu card of ways to break the rules, and quick release blinders were just one of them. No end of illegal ways of rigging lifting bags and chafers as well.

 

No doubt the odd Brownie point!!

 

Cheers

 

Clive

 

So you "trained" the navy to spot the use of bad devices used by deepwater skippers from the Humber and showed them the 15 illegal codend demonstrations. Would this be at the same time that the humber fleet was coming to an end and the Scots "inshore" fleet were pushing boundaries and experimenting? Did the Navy training achieve anything real?

 

The real fishing power moved north . A cynic might imagine the civil servant cash was reluctant to follow so MAFF concentrated on ever more ridiculous schemes to "manage" an industry they though they thought they understood.

 

Were any of your case study nets based on the methods the Scots inshore fleet were using?

 

Chris

[Guest challenge]

Blinders john whats one of them.

 

paul.

Paul.

Well one things for certain, you’ve never seen one.

Clive.

I worked off Mablethorpe quite a lot many years ago. With an ex deep sea skipper and I will repeat again in my 15 years experience of working on trawlers I never used one.

Still I am not after brownie points.

Regards.

[cleeclive]

So you "trained" the navy to spot the use of bad devices used by deepwater skippers from the Humber and showed them the 15 illegal codend demonstrations. Would this be at the same time that the humber fleet was coming to an end and the Scots "inshore" fleet were pushing boundaries and experimenting? Did the Navy training achieve anything real?

 

The real fishing power moved north . A cynic might imagine the civil servant cash was reluctant to follow so MAFF concentrated on ever more ridiculous schemes to "manage" an industry they though they thought they understood.

 

Were any of your case study nets based on the methods the Scots inshore fleet were using?

 

Chris

Chris, Grimsby made a one week contribition to a three week training programme run by Maff since around 1975 to when I finished in 1999 The Navy guys who were doing a tour of duty on Fishery protection vessels spent a week in london studying the current legislation, then went onto Lowestoft to learn fish ID and a bit about how the science lead to legislation. Their final week in Grimsby covered Market and vessel visits, lectures from ourselves on fishing techniques and then they looked at the practical side of net inspections with our case studieis. The nets in question were put together on behalf of the Ministry based on convictions for breaches of the legislation. Some of the case studies were actual confiscations by the courts and others were put together to represent infringements of current legislation. All were regularly updated to keep the guys abrest of the new tricks of the trade. We are talking about 25 years hers so I saw a fair bit of what went on in that time

 

Fishermen and the law has been a total cat and mouse game with one trying to outdo the other all the time.

 

We also went through a period when the processing industry was looking for small fish to give them their 4oz fillets.(two 40z fillets come off a fish that weigs 1lb, 480g I would guess that in the case of a cod that is below mls. We were told that this was what the British housewife demanded. When I told one of the senior managers of Ross Youngs that the British housewife did not know a fishes eye from its ass he was not impressed!!!

 

The industry has plenty to answer for and a very short memory, from the processors to the catchers. The whole principle was a big bag with plenty of ground rubbish or the gear was not fishing properly, and that could be achieved by any means in most cases. I know there were a few skippers that thought differently, so I am not tarring everyone with the same brush, but 80% would bend the rules if they could get away with it

 

Clive

[Jaffa]

Chris, Grimsby made a one week contribition to a three week training programme run by Maff since around 1975 to when I finished in 1999 The Navy guys who were doing a tour of duty on Fishery protection vessels spent a week in london studying the current legislation, then went onto Lowestoft to learn fish ID and a bit about how the science lead to legislation. Their final week in Grimsby covered Market and vessel visits, lectures from ourselves on fishing techniques and then they looked at the practical side of net inspections with our case studieis. The nets in question were put together on behalf of the Ministry based on convictions for breaches of the legislation. Some of the case studies were actual confiscations by the courts and others were put together to represent infringements of current legislation. All were regularly updated to keep the guys abrest of the new tricks of the trade. We are talking about 25 years hers so I saw a fair bit of what went on in that time

 

Fishermen and the law has been a total cat and mouse game with one trying to outdo the other all the time.

 

We also went through a period when the processing industry was looking for small fish to give them their 4oz fillets.(two 40z fillets come off a fish that weigs 1lb, 480g I would guess that in the case of a cod that is below mls. We were told that this was what the British housewife demanded. When I told one of the senior managers of Ross Youngs that the British housewife did not know a fishes eye from its ass he was not impressed!!!

 

The industry has plenty to answer for and a very short memory, from the processors to the catchers. The whole principle was a big bag with plenty of ground rubbish or the gear was not fishing properly, and that could be achieved by any means in most cases. I know there were a few skippers that thought differently, so I am not tarring everyone with the same brush, but 80% would bend the rules if they could get away with it

 

Clive

 

Clive, the Humber ports and the methods historically used by their fleets were irrelevant by 1980, never mind 1999, yet as you say thats where people were sent to be trained. How crazy was that?

 

All the actual fishing was being done by the Scots "inshore"fleet, with Seine net the top method for the top boats actually catching in the early eighties, yet the enforcement guys are sent to learn ancient trawl history on the Humber? . I doubt any of the Seine net skippers thought

The whole principle was a big bag with plenty of ground rubbish or the gear was not fishing properly