seaside

That was also the case for the Clyde area - great cod fishing until 1988 then it died, primarily (according to industry sources) due to overfishing. The stocks haven't recovered and the latest advice on west of Scotland cod stocks, handed out at a meeting of all inshore fisheries stakeholders, is that "they are at an even worse state than other cod stocks ...... it is safe to assume that the bio-mass has continued to decline from a very low level, without let up, and the fishing mortality has been maintained at a very high level and probably continues to climb" Unfortunately, as far as cod goes, offshore west of Scotland appears to be in no better state than inshore.

Glen, people who aren't willing to share pee me right off - no-one learnt how, when and where to fish without getting help from someone along the way ---- the take all and give nothing brigade ( and there's too many of them ) aren't even worth listening to, let alone taking any notice of. Even with all the basic info about a mark, there's still a lot of skill needed to try and work it --- stuff 'em.

But no dabs mate

Extract from that url " ...One skipper said that for a seven-minute tow he had 1,000 tonnes of mackerel alongside..." Let each fish weigh half a kilo and thats 2,000,000 mackerel in 7 mins !!!!!! Glen's point about the commercial fishing industry falling into the hands of the wealthy few is very well made A hundred years ago the Scottish pelagic fleet comprised around 950 vessels landing around 350,000 tons support ing over 20,000 jobs in Scotland alone. There was also an English fleet of around 400 vessels. It's now around 30 vessels landing around 250,000 tons and providing employment for less than 300 people.

The availability of something to catch may make a contribution.

But will it really change anything - in 2004-2005 the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency dealt with 1435 infringements .This included 999 cases of erroneous log book entries, ALL of which were given written warnings, from the remainder around 130 were submitted for prosecution and going by past figures about 100 will be fined (lfigures for 2005-2006 not yet out). According to the UK Audit Office " ...a sample of fines shows that typically a fine will be about 1.7 times the value of the infringement .. " . I wonder what the permissible bycatch of fish would be whilst I'm dropping a line for crabs :-)

The last figures I have for the Clyde area are: From 14314 trips 4107 tons of prawns landed 554 tons of fish landed 1886 tons of fish discarded - average length 20cm / 8ins 845 tons of prawns discarded The vast majority of the discards are whiting, then dab, pouting and hake - there aren't many cod left in the Clyde system.

Some things associated with the fishing business worldwide are objectionable, some, just downright despicable, but finning degrades all concerned with it. No one with any concience could fail to support Ian.

Now there you are quoting one of my favourites - J W Krutch He also said the following which I feel is really relevant to many of the things that we discuss on this forum, perhaps particularly so to the topic Ian Burrett started this morning regarding finning. "Civilized man has been more ruthlessly wasteful and grasping in his attitude toward the natural world than has served even his most material best interests. Possibly - as some hope - a mere enlightened selfishness will save it in time. Even if we should learn just in the nick of time not to destroy what is necessary for our own preservation, the mere determination to survive is not sufficient to save very much of the variety and beauty of the natural world."

Gross yourselves out - have a read of http://messybeast.com/cat-food-industry.htm

The bit by the spokesman that really hit the mark was where he accused the fishermen of being in a state of denial about over-fishing saying : "All this is a little pathetic. This is a form of censorship organised by a group of industrial fishermen who own very high-performing fleets and huge fishing resources, and they have no intention of allowing any challenges to large-scale, industrial fishing" and unfortunately, his other statement "They're sitting on a diminishing pile of gold, but as long as there's any left they'll go on drawing from it, until it's all gone." is equally true of all fisheries.

That url gives a really amusing write up on the things. Amazingly enough, people actually eat them.

Waitrose has today announced a series of new initiatives which they say are aimed at educating consumers on the importance of sustainable fishing. As a direct response to pressure on fish stocks, Waitrose will be launching the following four new initiatives relating to sustainable fishing, all of which Waitrose claim are currently unavailable at any other supermarket: · Phasing out fish caught by Beam Trawling, a method of fishing which Waitrose claims causes disturbance to the ocean bed.This could have major implications for the UK beam trawler fleet, particularly vessels based in South-west England · Renaming of Skate to Ray for consumer clarity · Using sustainable sources of feed for all farmed salmon it sells by 2010 and working with the Marine Stewardship Council to establish the world's first MSC accredited feed fishery · Switching over to mature flat fish across its fresh and breaded range of plaice and lemon sole Waitrose says the new initiatives highlight its place at the forefront of sustainable fishing. The move comes as consumers across the country are demanding that the fish in their weekly shop is caught in the most responsible way possible. According to a recent YouGov survey, 75% of people felt retailers should stop selling fish from endangered species and 72% of consumers said they were concerned about fish stocks.

Aye , much like boxing when goodness knows how many different ruling bodies sprang up, it's all to do with money, in their case 'world championship' fights attract bigger audiences and purses. In fishing, particularily in the US, multiple line/class/sex/method records enable manufactures / charter skippers / tackle retailers to punt their wares as being the best that money can buy. Given a big enough breakdown, even butterfish, string and bent pin would get in there. As for the closing of certain records, I'm all for it, particularily if the fish are on the threatened list and/or the only way to get that record would be a fish heavy with roe. Catch and return, where practible, but with limited take for the pot to me is the most sensible approach to fishing, filling bin bags just because you can is a nonsense; again where practible, charter skippers, RSA bodies and individuals should actively encourage the return of threatened species or those heavy with roe.

Perception is where I see the problem lies. There are many complicated issues surrounding fish stocks. Addressing these can only be done through reasoned discussion and some radical changes in stock management, unfortunately, what always happens is hard line positioning and emotional argument, by many in the commercial, pseudo-commercial and RSA groups ensure little or no progress can be made. The first problem I see is that too many people wear 20 year old rose tinted specs and are unable to accept that things are changing, there are some fishery issues that nothing can be done about, but unless something is done to address those that can be, then they will be lost too. The second, is a lack of political will to achieve a balanced approach, both at national and EU levels. To me, there's no way you'll get any real movement on the latter whilst the fishing interests remain as fragmented and polarised as they are.

Challenge - I think if you look a little more carefully I was quoting the leader of one of the west coasts commercial organisations.

No large squid fishery inside the Clyde area. As for prawn trawling, the stocks are being overfished as demersal guys move to prawns, especially guys from the east coast. The local association in trying to restrict the over exploitation made the point that "... The prawn stock has remained in the coastal grounds, but the average sizes of prawns have been considerably reduced, and creelers now operate 5 to 10 times as many traps as before to obtain the same quantity of prawns". There is now a very high discard level due to the market being flooded more often. Note that 65 tons is true and comprises fish of 8 to 34 cms --- all undersized fish --- Only 20 tons of sizeable cod were landed in 1998, a half of what was landed in 1991, a third of what was landed in 1985. The Minches and the Firth of Clyde are largely bereft of cod, and west coast trawlers now fish well offshore to obtain adequate catches. It is believed that trawling to catch schools of cod in the Irish Sea is preventing spawning cod from reaching the Firth as they did in former times.

It's very difficult to get specific figures for Cod in the Clyde so far back, however, for Scotland as a whole in the 20s' around 400,000 tons of fish were landed, of which around a 120,000 were herring and 150,000 were cod. Those figures stayed pretty stable until the introduction of industrisl fishing and the russian klondykers and then total landings peaked around 1985 when they were 610,000 tns - last year the total was 427,300 tns with pelagic being approx 250,000 tns and of course mainly mackerel. In 1926, the catch of 3.3 million cwts. of denersal fish valued at over 3 million pounds was landed mainly by trawlers with a total of 1.7 million cwts. Great line steamers landed about 288,000 cwts, and seine netters, mostly motor vessels landed about 100,000 cwts., while small and hand liners, both motor and sail landed about 322,000 cwts. Of course since the 20s there have been many changes in the fisheries, from sail to steam to diesel; from seine to trawl, terrific increases in horsepower, hauling capability etc., as well as significant changes in markets, the entry into the EU etc., etc. Additionally there have been tremendous changes in the makeup of fish populations through over exploitation of skate, spurdog and others, along with increased numbers of dogfish etc.etc. All these changes make comparative studies extremly difficult and somewhat questionable. What one can say is that the Clyde herring and cod fisheries no longer exist; the Clyde Cod spawning grounds were closed in 2002; each year around 65 tons of cod of 8 to 34 cm are dumped as bycatch in the prawn fishery. Nowhere I know in the Clyde area is considered as an RSA mark capable of delivering 5+lb cod on a regular basis.

What happened was very well summarised by Austen Brown (Clyde Fishermen's Association) - a commercial fishermans association. “ I will give you a short history of how we have got to where we are. Most of the fish-stocks problems have arisen from the deployment of technology over the past 30 years or so. Cheap fuel has allowed more power to be used to tow bigger nets. The invention of bobbins and rock hoppers allowed fishermen to explore vast areas of hard ground, which had hitherto been breeding-stock reserves similar to the no-take zones that are proposed by some of the Cornishmen. Multiple rigs now allow larger white-fish boats to operate profitably pursuing ground fish and prawns, thereby undermining the markets that are relied on by many of our member fishermen. The invention of the semi-pelagic trawl has almost completely annihilated the former deep-water breeding stocks of cod, hake, haddock and whiting in our area. Fish now have nowhere to hide; they are chased from the shore to the deepest water and virtually everywhere is towed. “ I agree that fisheries should be more conservation minded, but the continual pressure on price by the large buyers along with traditional attitudes to fishing spawning and nursery areas means the base stock is continually hammered without any regard to the future.

Glen - I've never known disagreeing and/or debate being an issue to anyone with a mature approach - we all tend to get a little tunnel visioned and an alternative viewpoint can often be very beneficial. What I personally find unacceptable (and not suggesting you do this) is people sitting at the back, sniping away, personalising issues and intimating that they could do a shed load better - but when push comes to shove, they really aren't willing to make the commitment and won't do diddly squat to help - all they really want to do is recycle their individual prejudices and agendas. Anyone is welcome to disagree to the above.

All anglers were asked to support the Bass MLS activity, irrespective of the fact that the vast majority of sea anglers don't see much, if anything, of Bass themselves. The whole activity, like the angling summit, was supposed to be seen as the beginning of a wider process aimed at a broader range of species and activities. For those non-Bass 'junkies' who did gave their support, all they've seen is the debate descend into a vitriolic slanging match which will do no good for the perception of RSA, nor will the excessive personal attacks help create a groundswell of support from uncommitted anglers for any future proposals. Sam, this is not a personal attack, but you have an incredible ability to rant at others, though I've not yet seen you take any positive action. Obviously you feel that you or your dad would be a better figurehead, so why don't you set up your own focus group, say - Sams Federation of sleeping/eating/sh**ting Bass Anglers and see what support you can gather to drive your agenda.

In for option 2

Over the last 20 years there are 100+ LESS on the west coast of Scotland.

The part we feel that is missing here is the process by which IFGs will consult, but that may become clearer when we follow it up. Either which way, the door has been opened and we need to step up --- volunteers needed for the South East and Western Isles - please email or pm me.

We all 'feel' that RSA contributes strongly to the Scottish economy but no-one truly knows to what extent. This survey should provide the necessary information to help ensure we get the levels of representation and investment we deserve. OK, to ensure we give the best feedback, I'm looking for volunteers to help ensure the objectives in para 3 above are met - to join in please email or pm me.