Ed Russell

By the way Ed are you a commercial fisherman yourself? At the moment, i'm doing a bit of landscape gardening, but more usually i'm building. Living in a seaside town, employment options are limited. Work in the tourism trade for minimum wage, or go to sea is the main choise, apart from moving away. I feel quite lucky to earn a decent wage ashore. I can therefore sympathise with those who must go to sea to provide for their families. I'm sure they are more worried about paying their council tax, keeping the kids in shoes, and putting food on the table, rather than setting about the total destruction of the marine ecosystem. I was taught to fish by dad at a young age, and have been hooked ever since. Used to be well into fishing for pike and coarse fishing, but my heart has always been in sea fishing, because at the end of the day, it is mostly free, and you can eat what you catch. At the moment, i just nip out with the rods whenever i get the chance, which is all too infrquent. Ed.

Commercial fishermen are consistently bad mouthed by rod and line anglers. As anglers we have no more right over what fish is there than they. When i look at a fishing boat, i see a man, or men who work long hard hours and risk their lives on a daily basis to put bread on their families table. As an angler i fish to pass the time and relax. There is no pressure on me to provide for my family by catching fish (which is a good job as they would have all starved a long time ago). Fishermen have a reputation for killing everything, but talking from my own experiances, of the fishermen i know, they have more of an interest as at the end of the day, their livelihoods depend upon future fish stocks. To answer the question originally stated, i think that commercial fishermen and anglers will have to work together if any good is ever going to result from the current situation. Much has been said in anger by both parties in the past; and this needs to be forgotten, so we can all look to a brighter future. I think that it is not so much of can we work together, more that we MUST work together. Ed.

morning all. First post, wish me luck.... If you are at sea on a private boat, you should have at least a hand held vhf. Fishing in close especially, you maynot get a signal (cliffs etc). A vhf broadcast (of only a few seconds) can be fairly accuratly, and quickly pin-pointed by the coastguard, a mobile phone signal cannot. A dsc vhf set (digital select calling) is worth the exta money as it provides the vessel with a panic button facility, which when pressed and held (5 secs) will transmit the vessels ID and last known position (GPS intigrated, or manually entered, say every hour or so) on vhf channel 70 to a coastguard, and every other vhf set within the vhf range (atmosephere dependant - normally about 40nm-ish) The set then changes itself onto channel 16 for you to talk. If you have time to do so. (and on every vessel who recieved the dsc alert) Get a second hand, hand held VHF in free-adds as a minimum. Remember to use it for normal ccommunications (other than mayday or pan-pan) is illegal. (low chance of getting caught. I know loads of fishermen who have been fishing all their lives and dont have a short range radio ticket) It is however important that the know how to use it, and the correct emergency proceedures in case of emergency, either your own vesssel or another in the area; so the course is very worth doing. For yourself and others around you. Coastguard do not advise the use of mobile phones as there are apperently cases where they have hampered rescue operations. I still take my phone to sea. Ed.