johhno

And you for writing rubbish psuedo yorkshire dialect

The rocks to the north (Black Head) and south of Portpatrick can be real fun spinning for pollack; Portpatrick harbour entrance for saithies ( coalies, billet , whatever you call them ), flatties and the odd mullet.

Ian, you are probably right ,, and I even said so in my original mail, but I'll wait a while before making any final judgement. My email to my MSP is on its way.

Ah I see, just a bit of a difference between didn't see any and not enough to fish for commercially

Ian - If they can ignore the questions raised around McKie then ignoring RSA is small beer for them. IMHO, the only way to get them to focus on our issues is to make it a political issue ie: it will cost them votes. It's really strange that at a time when they are investing in trying to get youth interested in trout/salmon fishing they are not really interested in RSA - perhaps the TV and other media who gave time / space for that excercise could be encouraged to present the alternative view. I know there's been a great deal of discussion on the FishScotland Forum on involvement but I don't think the SFSA really have the heart for direct action - consultation, meetings, procedures etc; and too readily get led astray by the weasel words out of Holyrood. That may be a bit harsh but I really don't see the SFSA achieving a great deal.

Looking back at an article from 1957 by DF Kelley he says ..... " Bass frequent both rocky and sandy ground. They are particularly fond of estuaries - especially the shallow sandy sort, rich in Launce, Lug and other natural food. Unfortunately, such rivers are wide open to the scourge of seine netting: a nights depredations by netsman can ruin a river for a whole season. Deeper estuaries with mud bottoms are favoured by shool bass in winter and spring." Perhaps your friend was looking in the wrong place or just had the mis-fortune to go after netters had done their stuff.

All those that can bring in catches like 2 million mackerel in a 7 minute haul, see http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=210372006. Instead of these 'supersize' vessels why not have more 'family' or 'indvidual' packages, wouldn't that see a lot more people employed.

It's not just for Bass but you may find http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publica...rts/default.asp helpful

True

Ah, but they had to so Dolly could be cloned !!

Everyone to be overawed by the professionals All t'be capped by't pros

From Fishing News "IRISH pelagic fishermen are to lose 6000 tonnes of their mackerel quota this year because of illegal fishing by some boats, reports Tom MacSween Marine minister Noel Dempsey made the announcement on Monday this week after a Fisheries Council in Brussels. He said there would be further penalties amounting to a total reduction of another 34,000 tonnes over the next few years - almost the entire Irish mackerel quota. The minister's comments came after he met EU fisheries commissioner Joe Borg to discuss the laws being introduced under Ireland's controversial Sea Fisheries Bill. He said the quota clawback follows inspections of pelagic factories in Scotland." Full article at http://www.fishingnews.co.uk/heighway/arti...d=1140445906050 Once again it is being said that many should suffer because of the actions of a few 'rouges' ~ seems to me that there are an awful lot of rouges out there.

Absolutely right and those that continue to bury their heads in the sand will be just as successful as those who weren't going to move from pounds, shillings and pence and all other changes, they'll be just anachronisms in a changing world.

Aye, this morning there was snow all over the rocks at low tide.

I think a great part of their success is that they do not waste effort and energy in peeing contests with the function they are targetting, as we have seen many times, that kind of approach does not move the argument to anywhere near closure. Instead they focus on mobilising the people who are likely to support their argument, either through personal commitment, through apapthy or through fear as in the case of politicians and votes, or buisnesses and revenue.

I agree the sums don't add up, but adjusting the VAT rate would become a bureaucratic nightmare, what is and isn't fishing gear hooks, line, rods, reels probably easy to say yes - sequins, beads, torches, umbrellas - i don't think so. Why shouldn't the government be encouraged to invest in conservation, if all sea anglers told them they wouldn't get their vote unless they did, then it would happen and you can be sure the minimum of 'jobsworths' would be created.

There are several piers/estuaries which are already under the control of fishing clubs, generally the pre-requisite for this to happen is that the pier is in private ownership. My favourite was the Admiralty Pier at Dover. The last I heard was you can either get a full membership around £15pa or a one-off trip at £6. It's a few years since I fished there last but they used to have a 'burger bar' on the pier, toilets and the place was kept clean. The fishing was pretty fine too. Of course for fee paying to be acceptable to most anglers, there of course must be fish there to catch. Dover used to attract 20,000+ per year, so if you can create the right physical and fishing environments you can be sure people will use and pay for it, but there has got to be fish there to make it work.

Seems like a really neat idea, have you caught any other types of fish ?

aye but there's Italy to come yet

Tear the blooming thing down and flog it for scrap then perhaps this inane wittering will stop

Whitby must be a blooming awful place to live

But what do you consider to be the commercial fleet, trawlers, seiners, long-liners, potters, drifters, etc ; where do you draw the line ? How about the income derived from the secondary commercial industries associated with those activities, they need to be factored into your sums.? How do you make sure all licence fees get ploughed back into fishing - your road tax doesn't all get back into the road systems. One or two people on here say they would be quite happy to pay £40, can't see the holiday angler paying that for a couple of days handlining off the end of a pier. Nor also children, the disadvantaged, unemployed etc - means testing now !! Licence checkers approaching people in the middle of the night and demanding what ? I don't see that either. What would the penalty for non-compliance be - this bit should appeal to G Brown esq. Various governments and fisheries bodies have so far shown no real intention to bite the bullet with illegal fishing methods/practices, my guess is they'd say thankyou for the money, put out a shed load of sound bites, create a few cross party focal groups, initiate a few white papers, refer it all to Brussels etc etc. After all that I'd then forsee lots of appeals to The Hague. The whole thing is too untidy and unworkable, there are approx 18000 kms of coastline around the UK.

Fraid your sums are way out, you've forgotten NI, marketing,training, hardware, software, overtime, maternity leave, sick pay, inter-departmental cross charging, and all other 'over and above' items and if you can get 40 Managers/Directors/Specialists for £3M I suggest you go see Alan Sugar. Using your figure of £40M and the numbers of people above, you'd no doubt reduce unemployment a tad, but I doubt there'd be any money left over to actually improve fishing

--> QUOTE(Norm B @ Feb 23 2006, 08:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Aren't charter boats and tackle shops entitled to make a living from the fish in the sea too? Why must the commercials be the only ones to make a living from the sea? The UN ruled that the fish in the sea belong to the 'commons' ie; everybody and that the fish should be managed for the benefit of all, not just one sector. Ah but if just one group goes out and catches everything for everybody, then that's far more efficient, loads of effort, energy, time and resources (except one of course) saved; it would also save all that tiresome form filling and those accurate returns. This does leave the slight problem of how to make up for the VAT and secondary spend losses, but I'm sure Gordon can come up with a suitable stealth tax to take care of this. As that well known store says - Once it's gone, it's gone. We can then look forward to the Open Starfish Catch And Return for which there will be suitable trophies.

Don't they sort of contradict each other. I guess it depends on how long it takes to catch sufficient fish to make the net sink; perhaps if the there weren't too many fish and the spider and brown crabs were on their mettle, then they'd be able to keep the net floating and catching their meals for them.