samuel-cox

A skipper in my neck of the woods who runs two well known charter boats when the skippers are bizy, has just purchased a 26 foot gill netter. I do not know if it is fair to make a judgement as we are all intiteled to have as many jobs as we wish. Having said that I would of thought in todays enviroment it would not be good PR for the skippers of the boats he runs to have a commercial run their boat. As it happens he does catch plenty of fish for his parties, and you can bet he will try and catch lots of fish in his gill nets.

Mullet do not tast any where near as good as bass. They have similer looking flesh although bass fesh looks cleaner and tasts cleaner. Best left for sport. I sold mullet when I worked on a netting boat, we got 50 pence per pound. The biggest mullet I ever saw in our nets was 10lb pounds. That fish was werth 5 quid dead.

just looked at the Alderney web sit. Does any one know if these fish are dead, or were they returened alive? There is no excuse to kill these fish, they tast like crap for a start and fight like hell on light gear. This would not be good PR for the site if the fish are dead.

Sorry 202 havent received a E mail from you. Regards Sam

Are you fishing with john Rawle or on Terry Batts boat the Vicky Emma, these two skippers I think will hire tackle of good quality. They are both good skippers and you should catch a few cods and roker. Take faulkland island squid if you can get them.

202 Yes it was Nick b I was talking about. I worked for nick straight from school herring drifting catching 100 to 175 stone per day. I did this for three herring seasons and tree bass and mullet seasons. last time I went out with Nick we had to get up 45 minutes early to try and beet the small fast boats from your side of the ditch. I presumed they were the sones of X Mersea fishermen, sorry if these prosumptions were wrong, I will endevor to be more precise. Oh yes and I wouldnt dare to speek on behalf OF Nick B. He has his own opinions, of which some make sence. I also remember the name Dan Birch, do you know my Dad he hatesall gill netters and would see them all burnt at dawn, thanks to working with Nick B I feel I have a more balanced point of view.

Bass now days dont seem to migrate as such, rather just drop back into deaper water when it gets colder. Can anyone tell me where our mullet go. Im talking of Thames Estuary mullet.They are hear from April until late November.

Commercial fisherman should not be compared withn farmers. Farmers are subsadised not to grow crops and set the fields aside for the wild life. Fisherman used to be subsadised but this was stopped and origanly the govement gave them their lisences. The lisences are now worth money, and are bought and sold by fisherman. There has to be real efforts to conserve our fisheries, this is not for commercial fisherman but for anglers. The reason for this is as mentioned before angling is worth far more to the UK econemy than commercial fishing. Having said that we can still have a small well managed substainable commercial fishery if hard decisions are made soon. Shutting off estuaries to commercial fishermen, increasing mesh size, are both direction we should be heading. There is one commercial fisherman at Bradwell, he fills the gaps in the fishing with other work to make a liveing. He conciders his first job as fishing, although he has down sized from a 35 footer to a 26 footer in the last five years. 5 stone of bass is a good day around 35 fish. There are a new generation of fisherman at Mersea.The days when son followed father into fishing are still in excistance. But instead of working on the larger boats with their fathers they are buying small fast boat. These boat get to the inshore marks in minutes. They only go out at the right state of tide, and only use around 1000 yards of gear.The whole proses is normally over in 3 hours. This sort of fishing should be pushed further ofshore alowing the inshore marks to develop. This must be best for all concerned in the long run.

wheres that?

gill nets are fished differently in different areas. the average inshore fisherman down hear would be happy with 1, 7 stone box of bass per trip. @ 1.75 per lb that aint much. this is due to the compatition from farmed fish.

And Man Im Praying!!!!

The wheather is so bad hear on Dengie Marshes Essex that the wind has destroyed the tarp that covers my 23 foot boat project. We got very little sleep due to noise of the wind. Fishing may be good when it all eases off.

Yes I agree with you Winter, but I realy enjoi collecting my own bait, I always look after my crabing marks. Puting rocks back the right way that others have left on top of weed. This stops the weed roting. If people look after the crabing marks we can all enjoi good crabing.

shark fishing????

people need to be shown how collect bait properly mate. If you find a peeler under a rock, the chances are if you put the rock back there will be a peeler there the next time you look. Where in Cornwall are you.I fish Trebeteric, Trevos head, Padstow, Rock, Port Quin, Port Gavern all in the North. I love cornwall although went to Irland instead this year.

From the replies I've had, I realise a lot of people didn't know or understand about the above. So this is the story as I understand it. Trawlermen, normally fishing for summer soles, catch a lot of rubbish as part of their buy catch. This buy catch is normally shovelled over the side, along with dead and dying immature thorn back ray, sting ray, flounder, plaice, sea urchin, small edible and spider crabs and the peelers. It wasn't until an angler let it slip to a trawlerman that at times they could retail at a quid each, that they started to keep the peelers. After making a few pounds extra selling their once worthless buy catch, their thoughts turned to how to catch more and how to actually target them when times were hard. They started using smaller trawles and fishing the small warm creeks that peelers love. The trouble is that these warm creeks are also the nursery areas for bass, mullet, thorn back rays, flounder etc. By using these crabs anglers are paying to have their fishery destroyed at the foundations.

yes mate there is a such thing as peeler crab trawling. It all started with trawlermen who were not catching much and/or were not getting good returns for what they did catch realising that the peeler crabs(sometimes thousand at a time) that they caught as a buy catch were worth money. They got this market from anglers. They then realised that at times if they targetet the peeler crabs by using smaller nets they could trawl the small creeks, that just happen to be the nursury ground for lots of fish such as bass, mullet flounders ect. By using these trawled peeler crabs anglers are PAYING TO HAVE THIER FISH STOCKS TAKEN BEFORE THEY ARE MATURE!!!! Discusting hey

Just remember one thing when it comes to the next general election OUR PRIME MINISTER MR ANTHONY BLAIR IS A DAM LIER !!!!!!!!!

I realy thought it was illegal to gill net or fish comercialy in the estuaries of Cornwall.

My farther and I helped a bass expert called Donervan Kelly net the first 0 group bass ever in the uppewr reaches of the Camel estuary as part of his life study off bass. Theres proberly no one in the UK that knows more about UK bass than Don

I thought Cornwall had strict no go areas, un like very much of round hear.

I was bought up on the blackwater and have and do fish it regularly, the are lots of small bass, but thetre are some good fish to be had. You do have to chose the right spot at the right time. The Crouch has less pressure and also some fine bass fishing.

If gill netting was banned within 1 mile of the shore it woulndnt touch most gill netters. There has not been a real Pair Trawling for Bass BAN. The govement have baned it within a 12 mile limit where very little pair trawling for bass was done any way, Just a farsical thing to satisfy the ignorant, the govement trying to make us think its doing the right thing. Joke realy

that 1st bit was to Yakity yak about trevos head.

Good mackeral, wrass gars only fished there 3 times mostly been a bit further north of padstow, Rock Trebethric, port gavarn for good bass with strong northerly and Port QUIN is so pritty and the wrass fishing exelant.