Bass size

[thurso angler]

Having visited this forum for a few months now(great it is too!!) i was wondering about bass sizes as up in the north of scotland the only bass i catch on my local beach is around 1lb with very little of bigger size a 3lb fish being HUGE, but i see from many of all your trips double figures are common? are there bigger fish in my area or are they all small? would i have better sucsess trying for them from my boat in open water as opposed to the shore?? answers please.

[macky]

in yorkshire the bass average 1-3lb and a 5lb is a good one but there is the occasional 9-10lb

 

double figure bass aint all that common in the south from freinds i have that fish for them, but they are worth fishing for.....

im still yet to get one over 5lb

 

but who cares how big they are, there nice sport fish if fished for on the right gear

 

light carp rods, 2oz leads and 25lb braid the way i fish for them and a 1.5lb scoolie fights like hell in shallow water with a surf on...lol

 

mack

 

[ 29. September 2004, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: macky1 ]

[dale]

in the sw there are a few double figured fish caught but they are rare.

most fish fall into the 1-2lb range with a few 3lbers and a good fish is 5lb.

61 caught this year. 3 fish at 5lbs.

think the water needs to warm some more.

hopefully the ban on pair trawling will help.

[dale]

that's sw scotland....

[Leon Roskilly]

The main problem is that the Minimum Landing Size (MLS) for bass is just 36cm (around 1lb).

 

Gill netting and pair trawling have ensured that few fish get much bigger before they are harvestd.

 

Which is a shame because an MLS of 42cm is required to ensure that 50% of females will have spawned at least once.

 

(This is a fish that can live some 25 years, grow to over 20lb and spawn 15 times, if allowed. Older fish produce better spawnings with much more viable and geneteically healthy young)

 

The 2002 year group was reckoned to be the best recorded, perhaps 10 times that of any previous year group.

 

That year group is now taking anglers baits, leading to complaints that the bass seem to be getting much smaller.

 

They aren't, it's just that so many of that year group are hitting baits before the bigger fish can get to them, it just appears that there aren't so many larger fish around as usual (given the trawling and gill-netting).

 

If we can protect that year group, we should be seeing some really good bass sport in the years ahead.

 

Currently camapaigners are ugently trying to get the MLS raised to 42cm by 2006 (when the 2002 year group start hitting 36cm), then finally to 55cm, when there should be plenty of a 5 - 8lb bass around a few years later.

 

Remmebr, the more letters that anglers write, the more the politicians and managers are inclined to listen to anglers plans. In part, the future is in our hands.

 

Tight Lines - leon

[thurso angler]

Thanks leon thats very informative.

 

Around the far north we have no comercial fishing for bass be it gill nets or trawling, so i dont understand why we dont get more big fish as there only hunters are man/rod and seals??

[Grant]

The bass are pretty nomadic (see the UK BAss site for the results of tagging), and I reckon, like most things, the better bass are more difficult to catch!! I personally dont think they get to live for longer without being a bit smarter, or thats my excuse!

[Guest jay_con]

i thought the size limit was 41 cm. It is here. Or at least that is the size limit for our fishing club. Biggest i ever caught was 40 cm and it was said to be undersized. Ive heared of 2 large fish around whitby in recent years - a 12 pounder and an 8 pounder.

[Salar]

thurso angler:

 but i see from many of all your trips double figures are common?

Whats this, and angler believing angling stories? 'course doubles are common down here, anything under 5lb we consider nuisance fish

[Leon Roskilly]

Bass need water with a temperature of at least 9c to spawn.

 

In the past that's meant that all UK bass populations have had to head down to the South Western Approaches to form spawning shoals, vulnerable to netsman on the way down, and (if they survived the pair trawlers that found the spawning grounds just a few years back, after wiping out the bream that the boats and method were built for), vulnerable on the way back.

 

Now, with global warming, recent tagging evidence shows that many bass are now spawning within the 12 mile limit (which is why the ban on pair trawling and similar methods is going to be so good). It's suspected that some are spawning off the Essex coast.

 

As the offshore spawners are hammered hard, the inshore spawners form an increasingly greater number of the population as evolutionary pressure comes into play.

 

 

When the fish hatch, they drift back inshore at the planktonic stage and take up residence in the shallow, but food rich, inshore areas, especially in estuaries and near the warm water from power station outfalls.

 

In the past, more often than not, whole year groups of bass fry would perish here, in harsh winter weather. Again global warming has meant that most now survive every year which, along with the establishment of protected bass nursery areas, is why we now see so many bass around our coasts. (But because most fish are being taken so small, a succession of several bad winters could almost wipe the species out around our coasts - we need to manage bass so that the population contains a high number of mature fish to ensure their long term sustainability).

 

The fish stay in the estuaries for around 4 years before heading off to spawn.

 

Bass shoal together for life, so if you catch one, it's likely that it's shoalmates of around the same size are not too far from where it was hooked.

 

As Juniors, they tend to be nomadic, but as they grow older, they seem to settle down in a specific area.

 

(How many times has it been heard "I used to be able to catch some beauties here, my freezer was full of them, but they seem to have disappeared now"!!)

 

Nowdays big bass are reputed to be loners. Not so, it's just that the one big bass, by itself, is the last survivor of it's shoal.

 

If nature had her way, after hooking a large fish on a lure and returning it, a cast back to the area that it was hooked should produce another big fish.

 

Maybe, one day.......

 

If bass do become a recreational species and are protected from the netsmen.

 

Only we have to demand that.

 

Not 'they', but 'you' have to demand it.

 

Winter, the 36cm is the EU MLS, the voluntary NFSA MLS is 39cm and the BASS MLS is 41cm (I think that's right). Some Sea Fisheries Committees have imposed a higher MLS than the EU minimum for fish caught in their area (its amazing how many boats come in with smaller bass caught elsewhere!)

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 29. September 2004, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]