Bag Limits for Devon?

[Toerag]

However there are quite a few private craft operating out of the ports you mention, that also frequent the channel wrecks, with some known to me as small as 23' or less going as far as the Channel Isles. Some of these are part of the problem. <snip>...... Most of those boats were undoubtably genuine RSA's and I am sure they had a good time. Present though were at least 3 boats that have been there and on other similar marks on many occasions in the last few days/weeks/ months and even previous years. Perhaps you can explain what they are doing with the copious quantities of bass they catch and do not return? Their identities are known to the authorities and at some stage, once the evidence is accrued, if possible, I would hope to see a prosecution!

 

Spot on mate, spot on. Anyone who is a competent angler and owns their own boat WILL catch way more than 'personal consumption' and should be licensed.

[Bob Jerunkel]

Spot on mate, spot on. Anyone who is a competent angler and owns their own boat WILL catch way more than 'personal consumption' and should be licensed.

 

What a ridiculous thing to say.

I've never heard anything so ridiculous.

Do you speak for all boat owners and have you ever heard of anglers putting fish back that they dont want to eat?

Talk about thinking your own little bubble is the whole world.

[barry luxton]

Spot on mate, spot on. Anyone who is a competent angler and owns their own boat WILL catch way more than 'personal consumption' and should be licensed.

 

Get it right Toerag. Those who sell into the commercial market should be licenced, full stop. Any others outside of that do not need licencing, they are the one's being victimised by the cheats and the guys who spout off about the rsa who do not sell.

 

Rsa fish for own consumption and sport. Illegal commercial, non-licensed thieves should be taken to court. Do not mix the two up my friend. There is enough legislation to do this but there are too many lililiverd hangers on who don't want it fixed. Like back door commercial for example. A five year old kid could think of more adequet ways of protecting the bass stock, if your suggestion is to do just that, somehow i don't think it is.

 

Whats up with the sea fishing committee boats doing thier job and catching these thieves then, they get enough of the tax payers money to do it, or do they require a new broom.

 

Still haven't heard a good argument against gill tagging yet. That would sort it out overnight. Increase the mls before the bass stock dissapear. The fix you are talking about Toerag would acheive nothing compared with close season during the breeding season. Ban transhipment. Increase the mls.

Edited September 8, 2007 by barry luxton

[steve good]

Hi All

 

2 million anglers, 400,000 target bass and or cod, collectively catch and land very large amounts of fish thus adding to stock depletion. These catches go unrecorded because anglers can fish unrestricted and with out any control on what they land and therefore anglers are not sportsmen.

 

QUOTE/ Rolling a fresh cigarette, Bill Ballantine gives a sardonic laugh as he recalls the headline when New Zealand's first marine reserve was opened in 1977—"Nothing to do at Goat Island Bay any more." He had fought for 12 years to protect two square miles (five square kilometers) of marine habitat on the coast of Northland, a region of the North Island. That protection was finally in place. To Ballantine it was the start of a new era. To the local newspaper, voicing community opposition, it was the end of one.

 

At issue was the reserve's no-take status. This stretch of sea was to be totally free from human interference. That meant no line fishing. No spearfishing. No hooking a lobster out of its lair.

 

 

Given the success of Goat Island, one might assume that the rollout of further marine reserves would have been rapid and decisive. It wasn't. For the next three decades Ballantine would square off against stubborn anglers, reluctant bureaucrats, and fence-sitting scientists.

 

There was a setback with the very next reserve application, over the Poor Knights Islands, 12 nautical miles (22 nautical kilometers) off the Northland coast.

 

QUOTE/ . Yet astonishingly, the legislation crafted to protect such habitats was amended to downgrade that protection. Pressure from recreational fishing interests was the reason. The islands were a favorite destination for anglers and supported a strong game-fishing fleet. Anglers strenuously objected to having such prized fishing grounds declared off-limits. And so began what Ballantine calls the grand compromise, in which commercial fishing was banned but recreational fishing for the most popular species was permitted.

 

To Ballantine it was a travesty. The act of parliament that sanctified ordinary Goat Island now denied the iconic Poor Knights its chance for ecological redemption. Seventeen years of jousting would elapse before the recreational-fishing provision was removed and full protection was conferred on the beleaguered Knights.

 

To be fair, few realized the extent to which recreational fishing can damage marine ecosystems. Commercial fishing, with its capacity to scoop up whole schools in a single trawl, or deploy thousands of hooks in a night, was perceived to be the enemy, not a bunch of weekend anglers trying to catch a feed. Only later, as fish numbers dwindled and some species became rare, was the scale of the problem realized.

 

QUOTE/ And, as the Poor Knights experience shows, they must be fully protected. Allowing fishing in a marine reserve makes as much sense as allowing the most popular books in the library to be borrowed and never returned.

 

QUOTE/ Ballantine's insistence on no-take reserves as the means to that end has made him a thorn in the side of anglers, politicians, and even some of his professional colleagues

 

In the light of the above evidence anglers should play there part in fisheries conservation and should willingly and with good intent take it upon themselves to have there own quotas in the form of bag limits

 

When our Marine Bill is introduced and nature reserves established the lessons of New Zealand must be learnt no take zones should be exactly that which should include anglers

 

regards steve

Edited September 8, 2007 by steve good

[H.A.]

Thanks for the tales from New Zealand, Steve.

 

Their problems are hugely different to ours where huge swathes of sea bed have been destroyed inside and outside 12 miles and stocks, generally, not isolated populations of reef fish have been decimated by hugely damaging and irresponsible commercial pillaging observed by regulatory bodies from a distance.

 

Demersal trawls (i.e. trawl gear towed so that it is close to or in contact with the seabed) constitute one of the most invasive methods of fishing. Nets, often with rollers, chains, and heavy wooden or steel doors (otter boards) to keep the mouth of the net, are dragged across the seabed, scooping-up everything in their path. "Rockhopper" nets, with heavy rollers that allow the trawls to roll or jump over rough terrain, including boulders or coral reef heads, have been employed since the 1980s.

 

During a fishing trip, a single pass of a trawl removes some 5-20 per cent of the benthic organisms. After 5-20 passes, the seabed is barren of life. Many areas of the world's continental shelves, such as the North Sea, are repeatedly "ploughed" in this way three or four times a year, leaving no opportunity for species and habitat recovery in between. Such habitat alteration has been compared to strip mining or global deforestation through clear-cutting.

 

Statement from EUROPEAN CETACEAN BYCATCH CAMPAIGN

 

Then there are entanglement nets .... obscene or what?

 

Puffins, shearwaters, terns, dolphins, porpoises, smoothhounds, threshers, baskings sharks - and recently even, a dog found dead in a gill net after being taken for a walk along a beach.

 

Steve says:

 

In the light of the above evidence anglers should play there part in fisheries conservation and should willingly and with good intent take it upon themselves to have there own quotas in the form of bag limits

 

Sure, what have they got to fear for?

But then why, when mass pillaging is happening on a massive scale in the commercial sector.

 

C'mon, how many of Britain's 2 million (?) sea anglers will catch a bass to take home; how many would ever need to contemplate a 'bag limit'?

I have fished week in week out for fifty years and won my share of match, species and specimen prizes; but how many times have I had to ask myself whether I should keep my 6th, 10th or 20th bass that day!

 

Never, that's how often!

 

I don't have access to live sandeels or a boat or the few surviving good reefs, sandbanks or deeps where bass can be caught in numbers and probably nor do 1 999 900 others!!!!!!!!

 

Now stop trying to find a sledgehammer to bury a carpet tack and look at what is really making a difference to fish stocks and the marine environment.

 

It's not one man and his kid, two hooks and some ragworms for bait!

 

Edited September 8, 2007 by H.A.

[barry luxton]

Thanks for the tales from New Zealand, Steve.

 

Their problems are hugely different to ours where huge swathes of sea bed have been destroyed inside and outside 12 miles and stocks, generally, not isolated populations of reef fish have been decimated by hugely damaging and irresponsible commercial pillaging observed by regulatory bodies from a distance.

Statement from EUROPEAN CETACEAN BYCATCH CAMPAIGN

 

Then there are entanglement nets .... obscene or what?

 

Puffins, shearwaters, terns, dolphins, porpoises, smoothhounds, threshers, baskings sharks - and recently even, a dog found dead in a gill net after being taken for a walk along a beach.

 

Steve says:

Sure, what have they got to fear for?

But then why, when mass pillaging is happening on a massive scale in the commercial sector.

 

C'mon, how many of Britain's 2 million (?) sea anglers will catch a bass to take home; how many would ever need to contemplate a 'bag limit'?

I have fished week in week out for fifty years and won my share of match, species and specimen prizes; but how many times have I had to ask myself whether I should keep my 6th, 10th or 20th bass that day!

 

Never, that's how often!

 

I don't have access to live sandeels or a boat or the few surviving good reefs, sandbanks or deeps where bass can be caught in numbers and probably nor do 1 999 900 others!!!!!!!!

 

Now stop trying to find a sledgehammer to bury a carpet tack and look at what is really making a difference to fish stocks and the marine environment.

 

It's not one man and his kid, two hooks and some ragworms for bait!

 

 

Most i have ever caught in one day is six, after that it's time to change tactics anyway. Gill tagging?

Edited September 9, 2007 by barry luxton

[steve pitts]

2 million anglers, 400,000 target bass and or cod, collectively catch and land very large amounts of fish thus adding to stock depletion. These catches go unrecorded because anglers can fish unrestricted and with out any control on what they land and therefore anglers are not sportsmen.

 

Hi Steve

 

I have just spent a long weekend in Dorset 'targetting' bass.

Total spend for two of us on local B&B and pub grub was around £320

 

Our intensive targetting resulted in several bass of half a pound and just one of just under 1 lb.

All were returned alive and fit.

 

Compared to the bass fishing that I used to enjoy of 15 to 20 years ago these results were nothing short of crap!

 

It isn't anglers targetting and returning bass, or taking some of what they catch for the table that has ballsed up the fishing - it is the sustained use of gill nets, set within 50 yards of our marks, an MLS that is set way too low to ensure truly sustainable bass exploitation, trawlers fishing in areas of known high juvenile bass density and discarding huge numbers of fish, an offshore fishery that has been allowed to target and erode our breeding stock and the blind reluctance of the commercial sector who rebut any attempts to safeguard the long-term future of our stocks and their own livelihoods that is doing the real damage.

 

And as for your sweeping statement about anglers not being sportsmen - total b******s

 

Cheers

Steve

[H.A.]

Sounds like the two Steve's are from opposite sides of the debate.

 

I assume Steve G has some commercial interest.

I've listened to every argument put forward by these guys from Peterhead to Land's End.

The majority. whether dealing in large scale beaming, shellfish dredging or 'fixed engines' are dedicated, concerned, good blokes.

 

But boy, have they got it wrong!

 

All the abuse hurled at recreational angling is just the death throes of a greedy, irresponsible industry watching its own endeavour wreak havoc with its own demise AND OURS!

 

Intensive farming did the same thing; but terrestial farmers realised what they were doing and soon instigated strict crop rotation; fallow years and followed by careful soil enrichment and seeding.

 

I've never used the word 'farmers' in relation to the fishing industry since they return 'koof all' to the 'soil'. It's take, take, take and the devil take the hindmost.

 

No wonder they feel persecuted and want to blame anything/anyone else for what is staring them in the face. Unsustainable fishing is NOT the fault of bureaucrats in Whitehall or Brussels. My own experience of these (govt.) guys is that they are grass roots driven. They are not in the business of understanding and regulating accordingly.

 

It's up to the lads on the coal face!

Do you carry on fishing for soles when the vast majority of a local fishery has disappeared, giving them booger all chance to recover?

Did you continue to hammer the herrings in the N Sea until there were none left?

Did domestic and foreign commercial 'greedsters' remove an entire food chain layer in the form of sandeels from inshore waters where they sustained and nurtured an enormous population of fish and sea birds?

Do you continue to illegally fish bass nursery areas?

Thus flaunting one tiny piece of legislation which appears to be making some headway.

Do you continue to use non-discriminatory methods which lead to unacceptable by-catches of endangered, quota-exhausted stocks?

Do you destroy inshore and deep-water reefs and decimate the benthic (sea bed) ecosystem?

Do you ignore what the scientists have been telling you for 30 years about cod in UK/Eire waters?

 

And now? Well, the larger fleets are having to do one of two things - buy larger, decommissioned boats from Holland and repeat the same cycle in Baltic, Norwegian, Greenland and near-Icelandic waters OR fish ever deeper water and convince the good old British housewife that this is tasty like 'scampi' and then when that supply is killed off .... and what then ...... and what then .............

 

 

[Leon Roskilly]

Barry's Letter published in Today's Western Morning News

 

See:

 

http://shorterlink.co.uk/12952

[smudgertoo]

I assume Steve G has some commercial interest.

 

He's one of the local ones Ada, Pompey i believe.

 

so far He has blamed everyone from the french to RSA's to the seals in the local harbours for the lack of sizable bass locally but like the rest of his ilk refuses to take any blame himself coz it's his "livelyhood"..........how many more feckin times do we have to hear his shite

 

Nice letter there Barry, can't wait for the response