RSA Representation

[wurzel]

Dear Wurzel

 

Thank you for your kind words.

 

Since your intellect appears to have run off with you, I'll re-state the suggestion I made in the post -

 

 

If you have no contribution to make, then surely even you can work out the required response.

 

Do feel free to contact me by PM if my comments regarding some commercial activities do not find favour with you.

 

Could I further suggest you take up your own idea to lay your nets 100 yards inside other set nets. Perhaps take this a stage further and have set pathways for beamers to follow over the sea-bed ... sorta 'Keep off the Grass' kindee thing, eh?

 

It's nice that you guys are capable of thinking up such conservation measures. Full marks!

 

 

Hello H.A.

 

Not off topic at all, you want to be an angling representative I'm telling you as an angler your type are the last people on the planet that I would want as a rep.

 

Why do you want me to pm you? I thought you wanted to discuss commercial activities that effect anglers on this thread starting with inshore gill netting, as I know about both angling and commercial I can see both sides so stop the ramblings and answer the questions on why you want to ban inshore gill netting and what would it achieve.

 

We can move on to other topics like destroying the sea bed, decimating reefs, and being greedsters wiping out all fish stocks within the next 20 years at a later date, I look forward to it but lets do this one first.

[barry luxton]

Hello Barry

 

Sounds like a logistical nightmare, right up DEFRA's street I suppose.

 

Hi Wurzel, there is nothing in place to check if the bass has come from either commercial or back door sources. We are not looking at a massive spend on this. It would be alot more cost effective than defra checking say all the rsa for licences and bag limits. That would be a nightmare for the tax payers.

 

So will UK merchants be banned from buying French untagged bass?

 

Nothing wrong with the uk merchants puchasing french bass as long as there is an invoice for it. Or is there some way of fiddling that. If i buy or sell, it is with an invoice either way. I thought it was the uk who more so sold into the french market.

 

A lot of black bass are sold to the Chinese communities how would it be possible to prove they didn't catch the fish themselves? That is if there is the man power to go and check every Chinese house old fridge freezer.

 

Same for the Chinese as mr blogs, if he's selling commercially as a commercial outlet, then it would need a tag.

 

sorry to have messed the post up a bit.

Edited September 16, 2007 by barry luxton

[wurzel]

Same for the Chinese as mr blogs, if he's selling commercially as a commercial outlet, then it would need a tag.

 

sorry to have messed the post up a bit.

 

Hello Barry

 

Don't worry when it comes to computer cock ups you are talking to an expert

 

An invoice only shows what has been bought not what has been eaten then replaced from some through the back door.

 

That’s the problem the Chinese communities don't sell much fish, they buy it for their own consumption, they buy a lot, plenty enough to keep bass anglers in beer, pay for the days petrol and other boat expenses.

I think this is where most anglers selling catches end up.

I personally think the hole thing is blown up out of proportion and is not the problem every body is led to believe it is, I can understand commercials using it as ammunition in retaliation to anglers misconceptions, anglers started it, knowing DEFRA I know they will monopolise on it as much as possible, they need the work.

[barry luxton]

I personally think the hole thing is blown up out of proportion and is not the problem every body is led to believe it is, I can understand commercials using it as ammunition in retaliation to anglers misconceptions, anglers started it, knowing DEFRA I know they will monopolise on it as much as possible, they need the work.

 

Many thanks for that Wurzel. I think the guys down Devon aught to see this as in thier minds it's a huge problem, enough for it to reach the press. This is what commercial and also some committee members consider to be enough for the rsa to be issued licences and bag limits for. I would feel sorry for the people who would have to pay for this, namely the tax payers.

 

I'm not adverse to winning somethings in business Wurzel, however much i try to keep me computer on the straight and narrow.

 

An invoice would show whats been ate and the detail on the tag would confirm it.

Edited September 16, 2007 by barry luxton

[Steve Coppolo]

Many thanks for that Wurzel. I think the guys down Devon aught to see this as in thier minds it's a huge problem, enough for it to reach the press. This is what commercial and also some committee members consider to be enough for the rsa to be issued licences and bag limits for. I would feel sorry for the people who would have to pay for this, namely the tax payers.

 

In over 40 years of fishing, I've never come across a single angler selling fish. So, either I've lead a very sheltered life, or it has indeed been blown out of all proportion. As no fisheries officer that I've asked has ever prosecuted a single angler for selling fish, I'm tempted to believe it's the latter.

[H.A.]

Not off topic at all, you want to be an angling representative I'm telling you as an angler your type are the last people on the planet that I would want as a rep.

 

That’s a good one, Wurzel! How many hats do you wear?

Are you sure you are asking me as an angler?

Or as a commercial fisherman …. or as an angler … or as a commercial fisherman … or as a desperate chappie scratching a living because his mates have caught his fish and there are not enough left to go round?

 

“You want to be an angling representative ….”

 

Do I?

Commercial fisherman and mind reader, eh?

Do us all a favour and go on stage or TV.

More money in it, matey!

 

Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t want to be an angling representative (especially if it meant representing your views … God help us!). I only get involved because I care a lot about my sea angling and I don’t like what I have seen you chaps do to the fishing over the past 50 years.

 

… so stop the ramblings and answer the questions on why you want to ban inshore gill netting and what would it achieve.

 

That’s not what the ‘thread’ was supposed to be about.

 

Nonetheless, since you ask, did you know that in 2003 UK drift and gill nets (in ICES Divisions IV b,c VIIa,d,e,f,g,h) accounted for nearly 600 tonnes of bass (excluding ‘black bass’) while French beam trawls accounted for only 400 tonnes. So there’s one reason I’d like to see the end of inshore netting as well as French beamers in UK waters.

 

Is reading difficult for you? I actually wrote:

 

Near-Shore netting restrictions - to protect our fragile coastal zones.

 

So, want another?

 

Close inshore waters are of extreme and unique value to the overall marine environment, containing many food species not found in deeper water, shallow warm water with plenty of structure and plant growth providing ideal nursery conditions for many species of marine fish and also spawning areas for a number of species and places to deposit egg cases for rays. A list of the special value of inshore marine habitat could go on and on.

 

The regulations I refer to would no doubt take into consideration the damage to stocks and indiscriminate killing of species in gill-nets AND the damage caused to delicate reefs (Jurassic coast fan coral areas, for instance) and sea bed by trawls (and dredges).

 

Well, I could go on at length, but the point is that there would be great benefits to fish stocks, benthic organisms and advantages for recreational anglers if strict near-shore netting regulations were put in place.

 

Why do you want me to pm you?

 

Change of mind! I don't!

 

[steve pitts]

Hello Steve

 

I mean selective in size of fish, it's a bit more difficult to be species selective, it can be done up to a point, there are just so many spotty dogs on the grounds that it is difficult not to catch some no matter what gear you use.

 

The net you mention being only 300 meters suggests a part-timer or hobby netter or even a poacher after a sea trout, there are cases of commercial fishermen setting nets for pot bait such as wrasse, some thing I'm not familiar with or condone, the potters in my area don't.

 

Hi Wurzel

 

A different scenario, and one I'm sure you don't condone, is this catch seized by the EA from an illegally set gill net. Selective of species it certainly ain't

 

 

I appreciate the problems with avoiding LSDs, but I do have difficulty in understanding how this sort of bycatch isn't considered damaging, when this net was set for bass and mullet (but not set to avoid salmonids).

 

 

Ref: the other photos - The guy used 300m of net because that was all he needed to close of the entire bay. Anything trying to exit the bay at low tide (when the photo was taken) was trapped.

It was set by a licenced vessel which fishes pots and gill nets, so there's a good chance that the wrasse and doggies would have been used for pot bait I guess.

I have seen over three quarter of a mile of gill nets set by the same guy and watched him haul around two dozen wrasse to every bass or mullet landed.

 

The good news is that he has stuck to potting for the past two years.

The bad news - the bass and mullet fishing for us has been b******s for the past three or four.

 

He's off my Christmas card list!

 

Cheers

Steve

Edited September 17, 2007 by steve pitts

[barry luxton]

In over 40 years of fishing, I've never come across a single angler selling fish. So, either I've lead a very sheltered life, or it has indeed been blown out of all proportion. As no fisheries officer that I've asked has ever prosecuted a single angler for selling fish, I'm tempted to believe it's the latter.

 

Must have lived your life in a nunnery or something . According to some guys down the west, it is rife, (they are called not angler's down there) don't forget guernsey last year, black fishing by the rsa again is ruining the valuable stock, that one went out for consultation and has not been resolved yet as i believe the sfc don't really want to put thier foot in it.

 

Wag recons that to protect the bass stock it is more benificial to look at bag limits for the rsa plunderers than increase the mls. Also there is one other sfc down the west who are also looking at bag limits for the rsa, naughty rsa. FWIW i have never seen one.

 

So it's either that or pub talk, bull shine, hearsay, lies, are rife.

Edited September 17, 2007 by barry luxton

[steve good]

Afew gillnets spread thinly around our coasts seems to provoke a storm in a teacup from just a few anglers.

 

In accordance with our laws anyone has the right to catch fish from our beachs with rods, nets or longlines and sell their catches thats the law

 

Commercial fishing is only one factor that may deplete fish stocks, anglers seem to forget that they to take fish home thus playing their part in stock depletion.

 

Afew nets are nothing compared to the 500,000 kilo of fish that seals kill and eat per DAY, seals consumption of haddock has increased threefold and plaice fourfold

 

Whiting consume 100,000 tonns of commercial fish stocks every year. Whiting in the Humber estuary gorge themselves to bursting point on the immature codling that are spawned there each spring

 

Aggregate dredging plays its part as to all the sea birds that feed on the fish stocks, ect, ect ect

 

Why just pick on a few gill nets when there are so many other factors that should be taken account of

 

steve

[Leon Roskilly]

Why just pick on a few gill nets when there are so many other factors that should be taken account of

 

 

Thousands of kids die from disease, why bother to introduce seat-belt laws to protect the few that die in car crashes?

 

Thousands of people get away with committing crimes, why bother expensively jailing the few who get caught.

 

Thousands ...........

 

Just because there are many other problems, doesn't mean that we shouldn't tackle those that we can.

 

'few'?