16 replies to this topic

[fenboy]

In this week's Angling Times, there's a report that the Environment Agency may resort to using gill nets to survey some venues. AT rightly opposes this.
Can I suggest that fellow AN posters who oppose this register their objections? I don't know enough about website mechanisms to suggest how we can create an electronic "petition" of names and addresses to present to the EA. Can you help, Elton?
My own stance is that if the EA presses ahead, I will refuse to buy a rod licence. ANd when I am inevitably taken to court, I will appear in person and state why... seeking the maximum publicity/coverage in the process.
I urge fellow anglers opposed to this barbaric practice to do the same.

[Newt]

Help me out here since I don't have access to the angling mags.

If they need to survey (and it is good to do from time to time), why not electroshock which if done carefully does little to no damage to fish stocks?

[poledark]

Could someone explain (in rational terms) the process of gill neting?

As for electro fishing it can cause internal damage, especially to large fish.

Den

[Leon Roskilly]

poledark:
Could someone explain (in rational terms) the process of gill neting?

Although directed at Marine fisheries there is a useful CEFAS pamphlet about gill netting at:

www.cefas.co.uk/publications/lableaflets/lableaflet69.pdf


You can set up an online public petition at:

http://www.petitiono..._petitions.html

(but then you have the problem of letting the world know about it)

Tight Lines - leon

[Toerag]

Gill nets as used in the sea around the UK work as follows:- The net is usually 5ft high and anchored to the bottom at both ends. A weighted rope at the bottom keeps it on the seabed, and floats on the top rope hold it up. They are normally made of monofilament these days and have a square or diamond mesh. Fish are caught when their heads poke through the meshes and their gill covers catch preventing them from backing out. The nets are very selective, in that small fish pass through, and bigger ones have heads too big to fit through the meshes. They work very well for spiny fish like bass. Some fish too big to get their heads caught are caught by their teeth, or spiky fins if they roll in the net. Similar nets are fished near the surface and allowed to drift in the tide to catch fish like herring & mackerel (drift-netting).

[Newt]

poledark:
As for electro fishing it can cause internal damage, especially to large fish.

Granted Den but if they are absolutely going to do population studies, I think it is probably the least harmful method that is effective.

Netting does damage and besides that, misses lots of fish in a given area which makes the whole thing pretty much a bad joke. The various chemicals - well lets just say I'd not like to have a water I fish surveyed that way.

Gill Nets

Population Sampling Gill Nets

[Brian Carragher]

The problem when using gill nets to do a sampling of the fish population is that it is pretty useless as a means of determining the size of the fish population. Too big a mesh size and the smaller fish go through and too small a mesh size and you miss the bigger fish. To be accurate in your sampling you need to have an educated guess at the average size of fish to relate it to the mesh size in the gill nets
Unless the nets are hauled and reset every few hours the fish in the nets drown and quickly go soft making them pretty usless for scientific analysis. As far as I understand it the EA only haul and reset every 2/3 days. This can only lead to a depletion in the stocks as more fish will be thrown away than will be retained for analysis. If the idea is to get a broad picture as to the range of species in the water then it would be better to either electro fish the water or let a number of anglers on to any given water and record the type and number of fish caught.
Having been a commercial fisherman for a number of years and still retaining a link with the professional boatmen it is my opinion as an ex gill netter that using said gill nets will only result in a lot of dead fish and very little understanding of the size range and distribution of species and general topography of the bottom

[Pete Elleray]

What I read in the AT was that they, the EA, had accepted that they might use gill nets if other sampling methods failed. Do you really think that the EA don't know what the reaction will be if they use these nets when and where they are not needed?

Pete

[Newt]

Brian - my 2nd link shows how the size thing may be gotten around to some extent.

[Brian Carragher]

Agreed but it doesnt get away from the problem of drowned and therefore useless fish