thedogs

To use words like the dark side I feel to be a little childish. Not all commercial fishermen are arse holes, some wish to continue to earn their living from fishing until retirement. Therefore to over fish would be detrimental to this. I for one now fear the likes of BASS, NFSA and Roskilly far more than any commercial fishermen. They pose more of a threat to the angling freedom that I enjoy at present. My sea angling is very enjoyable at the moment and it angers me that people will not just leave it be. I now fear its to late and these busy bodies have now set in to motion an un stoppable snowball that could sea us tied up in restrictions that will render sea angling just a shadow of what it is today. We should not be fighting the commercial but fightin for our rights to angle.

I am old enough to remember the so called good old days. A time when it wasnt uncommon to have more than one double figure bass on a charter boat in a day. A time when more than 50 bass over 6lb was common in a day. A time when I could catch thirty odd cod between 5lb and 15lb from the bow of my Dads boat a day. But things aint that bad now, we have more bass than ever before the problem is they are to small to hold anglers interest. If you wish to catch a big double now its a life time campaign. But if managed better these small fish would grow. The thornback fishing is equual to the good old days and sometimes better.I have heard very good report of good catches of better sized cod comming this winter just gone. The smoothound and tope fishing is also now very good. We are also seeing some good packs of large spur dogs more regularly than before. The weather is more of a problem to myself than a lack of fish. What does worry me lots is that anglers will get rapped up in red tape and I will not be able to fish my favorite marks in the fucture.

I hear on the grape vine that BASS now want a closed season on bass from november till april I think.

Catching decent sized bass from any mark is good fun. Nursery areas are not where large mature bass spawn. They are where juvenile bass thrive. The areas where mature bass spawn get hammered annually by commercials and anglers alike. If a commercial fisherman was to shoot 90mil mesh gill nets in a nursery area he wouldn’t catch many undersized bass as they all swim through the meshes. Nursery areas are a fig leaf covering DEFRAs miss management. DEFRA will put these nursery areas in place with some restrictions on anglers so they can say they are doing their bit for RSA when in fact they are giving us diddlerly. The fishing at present is good, and just as it gets good bodies like BASS, SACN and the ruddy NFSA could see us so restricted we will not be able to enjoy it. Unless we all turn into Fluff Chucking tree hugging nutters!

Catching decent sized bass from any mark is good fun. Nursery areas are not where large mature bass spawn. They are where juvenile bass thrive. The areas where mature bass spawn get hammered annually by commercials and anglers alike. If a commercial fisherman was to shoot 90mil mesh gill nets in a nursery area he wouldn’t catch many undersized bass as they all swim through the meshes. Nursery areas are a fig leaf covering DEFRAs miss management. DEFRA will put these nursery areas in place with some restrictions on anglers so they can say they are doing their bit for RSA when in fact they are giving us diddlerly. The fishing at present is good, and just as it gets good bodies like BASS, SACN and the ruddy NFSA could see us so restricted we will not be abler to enjoy it.

I can only report as I see things in my area. Last year I had to wait until mid July before I caught a bass over 36cm, this year so far I have caught so far I have caught eight. Ok so they are small fish of 2.5lb the best going three and a quarter but still better than last year. Local commercial inshore fishermen are also reporting the best year so far for five years. As I said I can only speak for how I find things I also understand that some parts of the UK like the west country are suffering with depleted stocks. Personally with several good year classes coming through I am quietly confident about my bass fishing this season. BASS are now becoming a joke with many of the UKs sea anglers that I speak to. I even hear worrying rumours about some members wanting a no bait rule to apply in bass nursery areas. BASS have recently bought out a book, I wonder if it has a captor on how to make friends and influence people.

Fished a rough jetty today @ Creaksea for a few hours. Caught these two and a cute little dogfish about ten inches long.

The Merc four strokes are pritty good. My maye had a 60hp that would run for 20 mins after the tank was disconected.

Are there many old commercial fisherman at the mission? or is it mainly merchant seamen?

But I thought the mission was for Uncle Albert types, but the RNLI saves lives. And we already pay taxes to look after our old.

£3 donation to the sea mans mission just to obtain a copy, whats that all about? I could understand it if he asked nicely for RLNI donations. What happened to the feedom of info act?

The outer banks of the Thames Estuary can really fish well for bass just as an easterly gale fines down. I have also had some good bassing from some shallow shore marks after easterly gales and durin a moderate easterly. If possable I like to use a rolling lead letting the bait roll round with the tide, but if the wind is very strong I like to lock down using a fixed breakaway, bites are normally spectacular afairs using this method. Hope this helps a little, please excuse the spelling, couldnt be bothered to do spell check.

It doesnt look like the gear had been left long as the fish look farely fresh, if they had of been left long the crabs would have damaged the bass and made them worth less. I wonder what happened to these fish, I hate to think they were wasted and died for nothing. It would be good if siezed fish like this could go to old peoples homes or other good courses free of charge.

I make you right there Steve, where the EA have jurisdiction they are much more likely to enforce local buy laws than any SFC, not that I’m saying SFC are bias due to the amount of people with an interest in commercial fishing sitting on them. As for the length of the fleets of nets its hard to say as they have been just bundled into the tub rather than flaked properly, I ges they were 90mil to 100 mil mesh.

Hi Steve, How long was the fleet of nets that these fish were caught in, were the nets fixed, were they standard gill nets or trammels, and do you know the mesh size. This would be a fair catch from say 50 yards of nets but only a modest catch from say half a mile of nets.

Hi H.A I have sent you a pm and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Hell Leon with all those meeting I bet your in heaven!

What is the dark side? What would one find there? Could it just be men trying to work against the bad management that was MAFF and the same bad management that is now DEFRA? Could it be men working against the bureaucratic ball **** that comes from being in the CFP and being joined to the EU? As I have said before yes the commercial fleet have over fished through being to efficient, but who can blame a guy for trying to better him self, what we can blame is the governmental organisation that was meant to govern the fleet. Anglers now have a voice, and they ruddy need one as its not just the commercial sector that threatens our sport now, oh no now we to face a load of changes and a book full of dos and don’ts to abide by. Anglers need to make themselves heard by the powers that be so we do not get left out of the discussions. We need all anglers that give a toss about their sport to reply to the marine bill proposals. If sea anglers do not make them selves heard and head loudly it will left down to the sea-angling representatives. Some of these so called well meaning guys who generously give up their valuable time vary rarely go fishing, they have very little sea angling knowledge, and more to the point they don’t know the sea angling needs of your local area, un yet they will be the only ones that the government will listen to if sea anglers do not make them selves heard! Not all sea angling reps lack the necessary skills, but more of the good guys are dropping out year by year. I would love to be a sea angling rep and maybe one day I will try, however un like many existing sea angling reps I know my limitations and at my present time of life feel I have little to offer that will improve things. But I will make myself heard by writing all the necessary letters to the organisations that matter regarding sea angling. I will also make myself heard by responding to all the relevant consultation papers. Sea anglers really need to start responding in mass or it will be left to the representatives of BASS, SACN, and the DREADED NFSA to defend our side, if this carries on happening then GOD HELP US!

Even in the so call good old days regularly catching quality fish from the shore took a certain amount of dedication. My Dad and his mate Mick Chalk would average one bass each over five pounds every other trip. Not bad by today’s shore standards, but not exactly loads. As with any sport to keep on top of your game you need be doing it on a regular basis, preferably every day if possible. Before my partner and I had our daughter Willow in 2002 I would fish most evenings from April through to mid November. This was made possible as my partner worked at a care home until 21.30. I would also fish both days at a weekend although not always all day. Having the luxury of time was great as it allowed me to learn the movement of bass in my two local estuaries the Blackwater and Crouch. I would be able to follow the fish from mark to mark as they moved with the tides and be able to pick and chose what river I wanted to fish. Often I would be fishing with my partner’s brother Simon who I grew up fishing with. We would often end up with 4 or five fish each from 3 to 5lb, and only in a fairly short session of maybe three to four hours. Sinse then my fishing time has been cut to maybe one or two short evening sessions and one day at a weekend. Also my catch rate has dramatically declined, I’m still targeting the same places we used to catch at, but the fish just aint there in the numbers they were. If I had more time I would be able to work out where they were now frequenting. One thing I do now have that will increase my catch rate without the luxury of time is my 17-foot dell Quay dory. This will allow me access to marks that take time to reach by foot. The bottom line is that commercial pressure has made stocks decline, but this pressure has decreased in many ways. The fleets local to me have decreased and changed shape over the past fifteen years. There are less large trawlers working the Thames Estuary, this has allowed species like thornback rays to make a remarkable recovery. But there are more small inshore gill-netters now targeting bass and soles. Due to a succession of mild winters since 1989 more juvenile bass are surviving the winter. But due to the 36cm minimum landing size they are being filtered at this size. This has lead to an explosion of very small bass throughout the Thames Estuary. As with most fish many small bass can come from just a few breading fish. The gill-netters do not catch all the fish though, and we are left with a few fish to catch. Last November my mate and I went live baiting only a few yards from my mooring, we didn’t catch any large bass but we had over forty from two and a half to just over four and lost a few better fish at the net. These were fish that the inshore netters had missed, and this session they will be that much bigger. Like it or not sea angling does now have a voice, the only problem being is that voice knows very little about our sport and is influencing government policy that could see us bogged down with red tape and restrictions. If you can be bothered I would suggest you do as I have and write to your local MP warning that not all sea angling reps speech for all anglers and in fact some hardly ever go fishing! I think our sport is in more danger from these reps than it is from commercial fishermen. I have never had a rep like Tom Pinbough or Leon Roskilly ask me what I want and what I would except, have you? __________________

Hi Steve, I can only say that I do not want to be represented by those who know less than I do regarding sea angling and commercial fishing. I will say that I do know very little of how DEFRA operate and some reps seem to know more about this than they do about angling. So I suppose I would concede to you that balanced with the guiding from rsa reps that do know about sea angling and commercial fishing the team should work to good effect. But it doesn’t Steve does it? What has been achieved in the past 12 years? Zilch that’s what! I now feel that rsa politics has to operate on a very local level, where the local sea anglers who have the local knowledgeof their own areas needs, can get involved. To carry on as things are with elitist groups like BASS try and lead the rest of the UKs Sea anglers like sheep should be over. As for the NFSA, well it was their idea for the rsa strategy wasn’t it?

There are meant to be about 1,000,000 sea anglers, of which if I remember rightly 1200 replied to the bass mls consoltation. I have probably got the numbers wrong but I remember as a percentage it was perthetic.

Hello Aunttibob. You see this puts me in an awkward position, one of these men is a good friend of my fathers and every time I jab at him it’s like I’m hurting my Dad to. My family have enough to worry about right now without my adding to it. But once things have straightened out a bit (if they ever do) I will be gunning for him who ever he is. There is no doubt that our fishery needs to be better managed and even less doubt it has been very badly miss-managed for around forty years. But there is some good fishing to be had still and its not quite as bad as most RSA rep would have us believe. And it really isn’t going to get any better in the hands of sea angling rep who know jack **** about sea angling or commercial fishing and who’s only skill is to snipe at commercial fishermen. Sea anglers came together like never before to show our government they didn’t want a RSA licence. Sea anglers didn’t ever do the same in regards to conservation. So that tells me most sea anglers don’t want to be represented by anyone when it comes to anything let alone be represented by RSA reps that know very little. Just one more thing boburaunti, if you are a strong believer in naming and shaming, then why not use your real name. That way the likes of me can’t bring you out of the shadows can we Mr Pinbourough

Im not going to name and shame just yet, however I was talking to a rsa rep last week he told me he only fished once last year. Surely in order to reprosent sea anglers one has to be passionate about the sport and only fishing once per year hardly reprosents a passionate angler. Other rsa reps also lack the knowledge like water craft, fish movement and even a basic knowledge of how commercial fishermen in their area operate.

But many of the rsa reps have naf all knolledge about angling.

I did hear that netted fish were being sold as line caught, dont know how true this is.