Conservation ? what a joke....

[wurzel]

Luck has nothing what so ever to do with it.

The water tempreture is down due to constant northerly wind and there are more cod showing in some areas, what little wreck fishing I've done we have caught a few more this year than last year, there are still a lot of very small codling close to the shore.

 

hello Leon,

Reports of anglers catching plenty of large bass from the Dover area confirmed on angers net catch reports, commercial anglers in the area have been doing quite well, I had a few casts wiv me rod in the week and caught a few,one about 6lb, things aint so bad.

[Guest jay_con]

Ok ill rephrase that.

 

SKILL - not luck

 

 

Last year I did very well cod wise whilst the majority of others didnt fair so good, some people never even caught one. It was a very poor year indeed for the majority.

 

I put my good catches (but really relatively poor) down to years of practice.

 

Now if you base cod stocks on my experience alone I could easily say the sea is full. If you look at the larger picture you soon realise that aint the case.

 

Hardly objective evidence of a stock increase of any significance wurzel. But nice try all the same.

[wurzel]

Got to think positive, or sell the boat.

[Guest jay_con]

Not a big problem though wurzel I doubt you rely heavily on cod for an income????

[MJB]

wurzel:

large bass from the Dover area confirmed on angers net catch reports, commercial anglers in the area have been doing quite well, I had a few casts wiv me rod in the week and caught a few,one about 6lb, things aint so bad.

Wurzel,

 

25 years ago a 6lb Bass was just another Bass. Now it is something to be very excited about. How many double figure Bass have you seen? There are lots of Bass around, but these are small, from strong year groups since the late nineties. Sadly they are quickly approaching MLS and will end up in a net before they've even had chance to spawn. You harvest what you sow, but if these fish aren't protected to spawning size the harvest will eventually dry up.

[Guest jay_con]

Was talking to a local netter last night who tells me that the local trout/salmon netters are getting very excited about bass and have found there is good money to be had. I was naive enough to assume they were untargeted. Sounds like my new found sport is nackered before it gets going. I caught my first one last night. Hope it wont be the last.

[Leon Roskilly]

MJB:

There are lots of Bass around, but these are small, from strong year groups since the late nineties. Sadly they are quickly approaching MLS and will end up in a net before they've even had chance to spawn. You harvest what you sow, but if these fish aren't protected to spawning size the harvest will eventually dry up.

Yes, the few large fish turning up now and again are hardly worth celebrating compared to what once was!

 

One problem is that it only needs a relatively few bass to spawn, to produce a new generation.

 

Not so long ago, UK juvenile bass (at the northern end of their range) rarely did that well as whole year groups were wiped out in the estuaries in the frequent cold winters.

 

A succession of mild winters over the last several years have seen most year groups coming through (rather than just 1 in 10 as happened when winters were colder).

 

But in the time when winters were more often harsh, there was not a lot of exploitation of bass, so fish grew bigger and it was the larger number of big fish then, spawning year after year, that kept the population going (a bass will spawn 15 times, living for 25 years and maybe reaching more than 20 lbs)

 

Unfortunately, the mild winters that enable relatively few spawners to produce succeeding generations has coincided with an increasing market for bass; pair trawling; and monofilament gill netting, so those large repetitive spawners have all but disappeared and we are largely relying on a proportion of 1st year spawners for subsequent generations.

 

(With a Minimum Landing Size of 36cm, most of the fish taken will not have spawned. The pair trawlers are taking the spawning shoals at this first spawning - at 42cm roughly 50% of females will be ready to spawn for the first time)

 

So ICES advice is that this 'recruitmant' bass fishery is 'sustainable'.

 

So long as we keep having mild winters!

 

With few fish allowed to grow large, all it will take is a succession of three harsh winters to wipe out the current plentitude of small bass.

 

Not good for anglers or commercials.

 

(And remember, those small bass are competing in the market with 60,000 tonne of cheap farmed bass produced in southern Europe. Wild line caught bass of 42cm and greater fetch a much greater price lb for lb than the baby bass now being taken)

 

But it's not all bad news.

 

There's now good evidence that bass are increasingly spawning inshore now, with perhaps less than 10% being taken outside of our inshore waters, so any conservation measures that we introduce are unlikely to benefit foreign fishermen at the expense of our own.

 

The 2002 year class is reckoned to be as much as 10 times larger than any previous bass year class (unfortunately many of those fish will reach 36cm this Autumn).

 

However, there is likely to be a consultation later this summer where DEFRA will be proposing a 45cm Minimum Landing Size for bass, with an increase in mesh size to go with that (and to prevent those smaller fish simply being taken as bycatch)

 

If that proposal goes through, then in 12 - 18 months, we should be seeing a good increase in both the number and size of bass being taken both by anglers and by commercials.

 

But it will need as many people with vision as possible to respond positively to the proposals.

 

There will undoubtedly be those who will be against any change.

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

 

ps some further information:

 

Age: 2 %Mature: 0 Weight (Kilo): 0.1 Length (Cent): 21.5

Age: 3 %Mature: 0.03 Weight (Kilo): 0.439 Length (Cent): 35.3

Age: 4 %Mature: 0.23 Weight (Kilo): 0.637 Length (Cent): 39.9

Age: 5 %Mature: 0.43 Weight (Kilo): 0.718 Length (Cent): 41.6

Age: 6 %Mature: 0.57 Weight (Kilo): 0.8195 Length (Cent): 43.4

Age: 7 %Mature: 0.9 Weight (Kilo): 1.0045 Length (Cent): 46.5

Age: 8 %Mature: all Weight (Kilo): 1.182 Length (Cent): 49.1

Age: 9 %Mature: all Weight (Kilo): 1.4595 Length (Cent): 52.7

Age: 10 %Mature: all Weight (Kilo): 1.7055 Length (Cent): 55.5

Age: 11 %Mature: all Weight (Kilo): 2.1275 Length (Cent): 59.7

Age: 12 %Mature: all Weight (Kilo): 2.4275 Length (Cent): 62.4

 

 

Bass can live 25 years, spawning 15 times and grow to over 20lbs.

 

Male fish do not grow large

 

The current MLS (36cm) is well below the age of spawning

 

It's interesting that bass shoal together for life. As the shoal gets older, it gets smaller as shoal members get taken, leading to the claim that big bass are solitary. They are not, just lone survivors. (Before intensive exploitation, if you hooked a big bass, you'd most likely catch another if you cast again quickly).

 

Young bass tend to be nomadic, but settle down in one locality as they get bigger. If you want to keep catching big bass, put them back and tell no one. When word gets out, it's not long before all the big bass that live there are taken, gone forever.

 

 

See also: http://www.anglers-net.co.uk/sacn/article23.htm

 

[ 07. August 2005, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[MLD]

I have been an angler for 40 years. I used to catch plaice, sole, flounders without any problems. Now, I hardly ever see one. As far as I am concerned, that means that these species are vanishing. Don't care what anyone else says, that is the reason. These fish are very scarce compared to twenty or so years ago. The main reason is overfishing by greedy grabbing couldn't give a stuff about the future as long as they rake in the money now, commercial fishermen.

[wurzel]

I would vote for the increace, but dont hold your breath waiting for DEFRA, 12 to 18 years more like.

[wurzel]

MLD

I take it you are not a fan then.