wurzel

Hello Barry I don't know of any spawning aggregations of cod that are a targeted fishery, perhaps some body does? I catch cod with roes in them then they suddenly disappear and return a month later with no roes where they go I don't know, I don't know whether they are even catch able while they are actually spawning I have never heard of large catches of cod that are running with spawn, so no I don't think it would make a difference, if you wanted to protect egg carrying cod then you would have to stop fishing from November to February perhaps March in some places, There would have been a lot of very unhappy anglers just off Harwich today if a ban was introduced . There has been a large closed area in the Irish sea approaches (Trevose Head) during spawning time for several years part of the cod recovery program, not made the slightest difference. I presume you are talking about the Varne. Again I doubt it would make much difference, exactly the same has happened to some of the offshore banks a bit further North, one was heavily trawled the others that are to steep and rough were not, the fish have disappeared from all of them at the same time so I believe it is to do with feed, the fish we caught on those banks were always stuffed with small sand eels now it's rare to see sand eels in fish and the same as the Varne there are plenty of fish close by on the ground and wrecks which are fished just as hard as the bank ever was. You think those cod were permanent residence of the Varne ?

Surely you are not that naive Leon. The constant reference by the balanced seas team to 20 endangered fish species, along with one daft bat claiming there was utmost haste needed to implement these MCZs before there was nothing left, gives the game away. As yet I have not read any thing that makes a notable difference between a MCZ and Natura 2000 sites.

Hello Leon Spoken like a true meeting junky who has total faith in the system. As you say socio-economic considerations may be taken into account but more likely not and defiantly not with in the bird protection directive areas nor in the Long and Margate sand protected area. I think you will find that all areas will have a Highly Protected area with in them somewhere and it is that area that the Stakeholders are supposed to pick. I will be surprised if they do though, English nature helped no doubt by DEFRA have set up a system and format of not too many meetings and a very tight schedule that won't allow time to discuss and argue over an area that supposedly suits all stake holders so they will be forced into making a decision they are not happy with.

I doubt that Barry, just like English Nature and Glenn you have no evidence.

Still the enemy and still a communist to boot Glenn. I'm not playing silly games either, your self and a large percentage of sea anglers along with the ngo's and English Nature have no idea on the mechanisms and logistics that cause good and bad years . I'm not going to bother going over old ground except in saying again that you play straight into the hands of the greens and their closed areas with your claims of decimated stocks, when it comes to cod a supposed endangered fish they won't differentiate much between RSA and commercial. I do know Whitby having fished there several times as an angler in the late 70's with the then super star Stu Jonson on Sea Trek arranged by the late Tut Uttley who loved the place so much he emigrated there buying his own boat.(not sure if it was for the fishing or the beer) We had some good fishing but despite hearing of fantastic catches we never had many fish over 10 lb most were 5 to 7lb. I then came to fish Whitby commercially about 17 years ago for 3 years and again had some very good catches of mainly 5 to 7 lb codling with a smattering of larger fish with one or two wrecks holding some bigger than average fish to over 30lb. I suspect if I came back and fished the same grounds and wrecks I would not find much has changed, no doubt the fishing has gone up and down in the dividing years but that’s the same for every body whether you have a fleet of super trawlers working on your door step or not and no amount of closed areas will change it.

So Big Cod not devastated at all it seems, not even close to devastation.

Perhaps he's a Charles Bloody Clover groupie and it's a hero worship thing.

Are you getting commission Leon?

Hello Big Cod No mention of "total devastation by the commercial fleet" on your Webb site. Quote "Boat Fishing at Whitby is Paul's passion and he says "There is some top fishing to be had from Whitby - probably better than anywhere else in the UK". There is no sign of total devastation further south we'll have to recommend Harwich as the premier Cod Port from now on then. You do angling or your self no favours making such comments, it plays straight into the hands of the environmentalists you are trying to ovoid.

It does now.

Never met an environmentalist that wasn’t

Hello worms With the AT government backed and part funded by WWF I doubt they will be kicking any doors very hard over this issue, who else is there? I haven't heard much noise from any body as yet other than the greens who all preach from the same hymn sheet, the commercial fishers are the same as the RSA we don't know what we are consulting on, what areas we are going to be excluded, what the objective are going to be for the areas in our area, Natural England says some methods might be allowed depending on the objective of the site that we might pick, they also say certain species will have special protection that I suspect won't be just in the NTZ, you just know that cod is one of them, evidently there are 19 other species in need of special protection, how do you consult on maybes ?

Hello Barry We are not working any where at the moment DEFRA have stopped us fishing, no thornback,no sole only 7 box's of cod for the month so we've took the boat out of the water for it's anual refit a month early. Next month perhaps.

Hello Worms I don't think that is how it will work, they won't allow 1.4 million anglers a say. Divide and conquer is the name of the game. From the literature and correspondence I have had it seems every body is shadow boxing blindfolded at the moment as nothing is being admitted to have been decided yet, all the responses I get are it will have to be discussed and decided by the stake holder’s representatives that represent each different areas around the country. So if you are lucky you and the anglers of your area might influence your stakeholder reps for your area but I doubt it will make one jot of a difference, Finding sanctuary along with Balanced Seas are just the party whips for Natural England they are there to whip the stakeholder reps into shape and arrange the meetings and keep every thing tight with in the format they have decided, for some reason they seem to think that all the different stakeholder reps will get along fine with each other and angler reps will come to an a agreement along with commercial fisher's reps and every other stakeholder rep imaginable that suits every body. It's my experience (with DEFRA) that what will happen is that 3 or 4 areas or issues will be tossed into the fray that nobody wants but will be somehow forced to decide on one, I hope the one picked is not your favourite hot spot , species or method, it will undoubtedly be some bodies they will not allow or ask the reps to decide on a sterile patch of ground or a species that nobody wants. It’s their democratic way of getting what they want and it’s no good complaining after wards if you are not happy with the decision , they just say “ the decision was your rep’s not ours “ At the end of the day this is going to be another layer of fish stock management and not much else as I said before I don't expect the fishing industry especially the inshore fleet to come out of it very well, but Worms I think you are dancing with the Devil thinking that getting rid of the commercial fishermen is worth a little pain in return, a trap some RSA reps have already fell for. But how to ovoid it I don’t know . FWIW I think having an environmental group involved with fish management whether commercial or RSA is like getting a group of vegan bunny huggers to run a live stock farm.

Hello Worms They say they MAY not are Quote Some sections of the site (particularly within the deeper areas around Inner Dowsing and The Well) are actively trawled which may also cause physical loss of the habitat features. quote Trawling for shrimp also occurs in this area. Thus these fisheries may pose a significant risk to the biogenic reef feature in particular. Or have you got absolute proof that trawling is causing loss of habitat in those areas, What the hell, truth has little to do with it does it? You are happy to go along with it in the belief that you (RSA) will come out on top, but at what price? I have no doubt that anglers will fare better in this battle than the inshore commercial fishermen, it was quite clear at the meeting Wednesday night with Balanced Seas that the main objective is fish management and any conversation with English Nature soon come around to damaging fishing practices, the same goes for the EU bird and save a sandbank directive. The government need sand and gravel that's a fact, do you think they will cancel the Olympics or stop building because they can't get enough ballast? They have signed up to produce so much renewable energy they can't and won't stop the wind farm sites already planned and are already being built, but they can and will stop commercial fishing where ever they can , and angling will be heavily managed or like Elton says interfered with even excluded from some areas. Have you got a favourite spot you are willing to be excluded from in the name of conservation or are you just an armchair pirate?

quote "Recreational sea angling (RSA) is a successful part of the British fishing industry," That's an interesting development ????

I supose you think you do?

Hello Challenge Thats a fact! I suspect you will merge with what we know as the MFA and with a few reinforcements become quite a police force.

] Hello Challenge The attachment picture (if it worked) is of a singe I came across in a remote general store on the banks of the Yukon river Alaska (one of about a dozen shacks 100 miles from any other civilisation) I thought it reverent as we seem to be heading towards the same sort of management as America only worse and even more draconian. Do you think that the new EU regulation of fixed penalties will be ideally suited and put in place for the purpose to police inshore fishermen and anglers? I believe all fishery officers will be fully trained in the use of a ticket machine.

How the hell did you come to that assumption Ha!!

You need to keep that quiet Big Cod as Halibut are on the endangered list and along with your large catches of endangered cod Natural England will designate all the grounds around Whitby as a Highly Protected Area (defiantly no take zone).

I suspect to see more rubbish like this in the lead up to the implementation of MPA's.

No they won't Barry, because it was mainly sole they caught, they are all under ten boats I suspect the amount quoted of £400,000 is the gross amount of fish caught for the year between 4 or 5 boats so not all of it would have been black fish, they were only taking back what was nicked off them in the first place.

And you call me an idiot. What's to confess? For a start there are no undersized codling in that video in fact I'm not sure there were any cod at all. The only reason that fish were discarded was due to management industry rules not by fisherman’s choice, 20 or 30 years ago the fish would have been landed and that boat would actually have caught less fish and probably spending less time at sea for it's trip, that’s management in the name of conservation. And as far as I'm aware Challenge was not aboard.

Hello Glenn I used the term "inshore" because it's their catch figures on the cod rsa will likley be compared with. Why should you have a problem with the offshore fleet? there ain't enough left to make a difference. I don't think the NFFO have done a good job of defending the industry at all, one reason why there is hardly any industry left. Even if you get in somebody willing to put things as they actually are (What ever that is) there is no garintee anybody will take any notice espesually if it suits thier purpose not to.