COMMERCIALFISHERMAN

What a load of old ****.

The point of the issue is that its these big factory boats that the public and those members of the public that go angling should be targeting. Inshore commercial fishermen have been speaking out about this problem now for many years but you guys just will not listen. Take cod, if left for just four years we would see a dramatic increase in numbers, its not just those few boats left targeting cod, its the fact that codling get caught as buy catch by sole trawles and many small codling get nailed by you anglers too.

Winters are warmer, summers are longer and things are changing quite fast in the marine environment. Inshore marks that used to produce good numbers of sizable bass are now at bursting point with immature fish. The offshore sandbanks and wrecks can and often do still produce many good-sized bass. So this suggests to me a movement of fish not necessarily a decrease. Some anglers would like to see all commercial activity stopped everywhere; some would just like the so-called GOLDEN MILE. I would suggest their anger is misplaced. A large beam trawler working out past the six-mile limit catches more fish in a week than a small thirty-five foot inshore gill-netter does in one year! By stirring up all this emotion and by stirring up government inperticular anglers are going to end up with less than when they started. Not necessarily less fish but lots of restrictions. Its quite possible that in the future some of your favourite marks will be out of bounds, others my have bag limits attached to them. Anglers could even have to pay a licence for the basic right to fish. Once you are licensed then it’s easy for governments to impose many more rules on you and more restrictions. I say that your arguments should be with the large beamers who are decimating your sport and my living, rather than targeting the little guys like myself. Sometime I feel inshore fishermen get so much flack as they are visual, they are seen going about their business where as the big beamers are working to far out to be seen.