Angling Charter Boats to be Decommissioned?

[glennk]

Any such research whether it be on commercial fishing boats, charter boats, or anyone else for that matter would be difficult if not impossible to research without some form of bias, and even cheating. Who would want to take part in research that could see them loose their livlihoods ???. You would have to force them to submit dat by law and even then you couldnt garuntee true data.

[barry luxton]

Errrrrrm What you still doing on here Leon, thought you were going to the pub.

[Guest challenge]

Any such research whether it be on commercial fishing boats, charter boats, or anyone else for that matter would be difficult if not impossible to research without some form of bias, and even cheating. Who would want to take part in research that could see them loose their livlihoods ???. You would have to force them to submit dat by law and even then you couldnt garuntee true data.

But isn’t this part of the commercial fishermen’s argument? No accountability, no track record? I personally think that a voluntary decommissioning scheme introduced would be over subscribed anyway.Regards.

Some months ago a study was relased on cod catches in German sea waters. The charter fleet was surveyed as well. As I understand it the information sources was multiple e.g. ads in fishing mags. The funny thing was that responses from anglers and charter skippers about the amount of fish caught were biased and had to be corrected downwards! Ask anglers about their catches more than a few days back in time and they tend to remember more fish caught than what they actually did. As for charter skippers. It came up that the skippers had a vested interest in boosting their catch records not to loose potential customers.

Well you would never get that in Whitby would you?

[steve pitts]

CEFAS will decide whether it needs to look at the angling charter vessels once they have completed the first 6 month study looking at the 'environmental footprint' of the inshore commercial vessels.

 

I'll bet you a tenner here and now that they'll 'feel the need' Leon

CEFAS seem remarkably adept at securing just one more study for the scientific record.

 

Shame that Defra ignore most of the studies they fund.

Edited February 7, 2008 by steve pitts

[Leon Roskilly]

Errrrrrm What you still doing on here Leon, thought you were going to the pub.

 

 

Been there.

 

Done that.

 

Thanks for the drinks Barry.

 

[barry luxton]

Been there.

 

Done that.

 

Thanks for the drinks Barry.

 

very nice to see you again Leon.

[H.A.]

Interesting details.

 

So, who maintained that Whitby RSAs were taking more fish than the commercial fleet and what figures was that based upon .... or is it another case of self-righteous 'gut feelings'?

 

[steve good]

Thought maybe Glennk and big_cod would appreciate some calculations based on defra known figures

Whitby

If we play with the figures from that Drew report we can compare the Whitby charter boating with the Whitby commercial sector:

 

'We were unable to obtain estimates of shore or own boat anglers. However we estimate

11,560 charter boat days

and an

annual expenditure by these

anglers of £706,137

(Table 7.4).'

 

(note: charter boat days = angler days)

 

Table 4.6

 

 

 

On average 4,8 fish were kept per boat day: 11,560 days x 4.8 fish = 55,488 fish annually

Average weight of fish (don't know, guesstimate) = 2 kilos

 

Annually:

Whitby charter boat caught fish: 55,488 x 2 kilo = 110,976 kilos ~ 111 t

 

Commercial landings: 2,535 t

 

Charter catches in % of commercial landings = 4,4%

 

If we anticipate the commercial discard amount to some 40% of the landings then the charter catches in % of the commercial catches is down to 3,1 %

 

Commercial black landings: 0

 

Value of commercial landings 2,535 t: £ 3,508,015 = £ 1.38/kilo fish

Total expenditure charter boat anglers: £ 706,137 = £ 6.36/kilo fish

Fish caught by charter boat anglers are 4.6 times more valuable to the local economy.

 

Visiting anglers attracted by whitby charter boating; expenditure: £ 197,847

 

I think it is a bit unfair of Drew to conclude that:

'It is clear that both general tourism and commercial fishing

are much more

important

to the local economy than

sea angling

, which is a relatively

minor

activity.'

 

Indeed, commercial fishing is according the figures available ca. 5 times bigger than charter boat fishing. However, expenditure from other sea angling was not included. Amount of public aid given to the commercial sector is not taken into consideration (but difficult that one. From a local perspective this would be income if it's coming from the state's coffer - in a national perspective aid should be deducted the landing value to be fair to charter boat and angling). And landing value versus anglers expenditure doesn't give the best picture of the real value to the local community from the two sectors.

 

Environmental footprints: The commercial vessels need 4.1 times more fish than the charter boats to generate equal value, which is worth having in mind these days with fish scarcity. The environmental impact from angling is much lesser than it is for most commercial fishing.

 

35.1% of charter boat anglers were visitors from more than 50 miles away. 'There may therefore be significant spin offs to tourism.' Would be interesting to know how many tourists was drawn to whitby by the charter boating and how many were other kinds of tourists.

 

And most important charter boating seems to have the best growth potential, and scores best from a sustainable development perspective.

 

 

 

Hi FishingFines

 

I assume that in 2001 the commercial catch was 2,535 ton so what would be the commercial catch in 2007 allowing for reduced quotas

 

Wuzels veiw that anglers take more cod than commercials may well be correct then???

 

steve

[H.A.]

Steve -

 

(2001) Whitby charter boat caught fish: 55,488 x 2 kilo = 110,976 kilos ~ 111 t

 

Commercial landings: 2 535 t

 

Charter catches as % of commercial landings = 4.4%

 

self-righteous 'gut feelings'?

 

Pity it wasn't zero commercial catch of cod as CEFAS et al recommended.

 

[steve good]

Hardly, but do you really want to go down that road?In the calculations above I was good to the commercial sector including their catches of high value shellfish, which is of no interest to anglers, 425 t / £ 1,088,556.Looking at the commercial demersal landings alone (2,110 t / £ 2,419,309) you'll see that the per kilo ratio is as low as £ 1.25 per kilo. Charter angling spending per kilo fish was £ 6.36 ~ 5,5 times more value to the local economy per kilo fish.Looking at cod alone:Today's landing prices at GRIMSBY:Low price, high price (£ per kilo)COD 1 Large 2.30, 2.50; COD 2 Lge/Med 2.10; 2.70; COD 3 Medium 2.00; 2.55; COD 4 Small/Med 1.40; 2.40; COD 5 Small 1.40, 2.00 These prices are above the before mentioned £ 1.25 per kilo but there is still a long way up to charter angling's £ 6.36. If there is a need to cut in Whitby cod catches the figures available show that the local economy would suffer 4-5 times more from cuts made in the charter angling catches. It could be more if reality shows that most Witby charter anglers are attracted by the cod fishing alone and would stay away if e.g. a bag limit was introduced.Ps. When the foot and mouth disaster haunted the country some years ago everybody's worry was the agriculture sector and the losses made there. When the dust had settled the grim surprise was that the biggest losses came from the outdoor sector (fishing and hunting and the dependant bussinesses like tourism, hotels, B&B, restaurants, pubs etc. etc.)

Hi FishingsFineWhat was the the commercial cod landings for 2007steve

Steve - (2001) Whitby charter boat caught fish: 55,488 x 2 kilo = 110,976 kilos ~ 111 tCommercial landings: 2 535 tCharter catches as % of commercial landings = 4.4%Pity it wasn't zero commercial catch of cod as CEFAS et al recommended.

Hi H.A2001 is history what was the commercial cod landings for 2007steve