Bass Management Plan

[Golden Years]

Hi,

 

I am new to the forum, although I have popped in occasionally and read with great interest some of the post in here.

 

Probably a slightly prickly subject for my first post, but I was interested in views about the BMP, especially negative views, and the specific reasons for these. Behind this is a conversation I recently had with a good angling friend who was not entirely comfortable with the BMP. I; as you may guess am pro the BMP, but I also believe in being objective and want to know where the BMP might be lacking in other peoples view and what is simply wrong with it.

 

I look forward to your thoughts.

[Bob Jerunkel]

As as far as I can see theres nothing wrong with it.

Apart from all the delays with the consultation.

[JRT]

It's just common sense. Everyone should win. The real issue is will DEFRA police it?

[sam-cox]

They better police it if they want us to pay a lisence.

[Stoaty]

The problem for me is that the bass is a voracious predator and in large numbers will put pressure on stocks of other fish and marine creatures. We already have a situation in the Medway where the large numbers of schoolie bass are destroying the bottom of the river well upstream, depriving other juvenile fish of food. The BMP does not seem to have an exit strategy. By that I mean there is no provision in the plan as far as I can work out, for anyone to say that other species/creatures may be in danger of stocks collapsing or extinction and there is no controls in place to rectify these situations should they occur.

 

This has happened with the striped bass in the US, some of them are now malnourished and diseased. As they are now preying on themselves after eating most everything else.

[stavey]

The bmp is a start to better things ahead hopefully, whether you agree to all half or even only 1% of it, its in place and its going to give us anglers the chance for once to be heard with real meaning, if we swamp them with replys to the consultation when it comes out, they will have no reasons to ignore us any more, in our inshore waters eventualy we can become the major players, but we cannot to sit on our ar*es and expect others to do it for us, the bmp will give us a platform but every serious angler in this country must respond possitively to this consultation and do the business whether they agree with it or not.

[Bob Jerunkel]

The problem for me is that the bass is a voracious predator and in large numbers will put pressure on stocks of other fish and marine creatures. We already have a situation in the Medway where the large numbers of schoolie bass are destroying the bottom of the river well upstream, depriving other juvenile fish of food. The BMP does not seem to have an exit strategy. By that I mean there is no provision in the plan as far as I can work out, for anyone to say that other species/creatures may be in danger of stocks collapsing or extinction and there is no controls in place to rectify these situations should they occur.

 

This has happened with the striped bass in the US, some of them are now malnourished and diseased. As they are now preying on themselves after eating most everything else.

 

Look at the numbers of large bass that used to be around certain parts of the coast before they were fished for commercially in a big way.

They didn't seem to have any problems then and nor did any other species.

Bass will still be targetted by commercial fishermen but they wont be able to take them until they are 45cm instead of 36cm.

O.K more fish will spawn before being caught but I still cant see a problem with that.

Can you imagine how many bass there would be if they weren't fished for commercially?

But nature would still make things work out O.K.

It would balance things up naturally.

Remember that we are interfering with nature by taking thousands of tons of bass from the sea each year.

The BMP is just redressing the balance a bit.

[Stoaty]

Look at the numbers of large bass that used to be around certain parts of the coast before they were fished for commercially in a big way.

They didn't seem to have any problems then and nor did any other species.

 

Yes but then we had large cod, another voracious fish that used to prey on the bass and help control it's numbers.

 

Still nobody answers the question. Who is going to monitor the effect of the plan on other creatures, and if it goes wrong what will be done about it?

 

Will it take the extinction of the allis shad before any body realises there may be a problem.

 

If you guys arn't asking yourself these questions then you shouldn't be doing it, and I am not with you.

Edited November 3, 2005 by Stoaty

[wurzel]

Quote

the bmp will give us a platform but every serious angler in this country must respond possitively to this consultation and do the business whether they agree with it or not.

 

Sounds like you are the party whip then Stavey.

 

I think the bmp as it is will cause more problems than it will solve.

[sam-cox]

At present due to a long run of mild winters and exsteamly good spawning we now have more bass in our seas than ever before.There are so many that their rang has increased north and they have even been caught in Norway.

The problem is that the bass are filtered by the 90mil gill netts which target the MLS size of 36cm.This is because cheffs have helped make plate sized bass trendy.

 

If bass are alowed to grow to a larger size(I feel even 45 to be to small in the long run) then the balance of nature would become more real.

 

As Bobsyaunckle was saying about the bass numbers of the past not destroying the envioroment.

 

Yes we did at one time have large numbers of good cod hear in the Thames Estuary, but they have gone probably for ever.

So lets look after what we have got and thats what I think the BMP will start to do.

 

We do have now excelant fishing hear to offer thornback ray in large numbers, smoothounds in large numbers, a reasnable large tope fishery and the prospect of some realy excelnt bassing if the BMP is implemented in FULL.