Fishermen Not Happy With The BBC

[Guest challenge]

Sorry Challenge , I just believed a journalist like you often do when you preach your politics to us!!! (Schools and Hospitals wasn't it funded by Gordon)

Cheers

Hello

I never said that Gordon brown funded schools? I haven’t got much time for him or the labour party come to that, but I do have a lot more time for them than any other Maine stream political party in this country.

So before you go shouting the odds about me on other forums you again want to get your facts in some kind of order. But besides that, apology accepted just try not to spoil an apology with an excuse regards

[barry luxton]

Paul

What I think he is trying to tell you Paul (if you where to read his post again) was that you cannot take one small area of the North Sea and say that because there is no fish (or very little compared with other years) that there is very little fish anywhere else. The chieftain has proved that time and time again because he travels in excess of 150 miles in most seaward directions rather than just sticking to the local grounds with some marvellous results. Also I believe that there has been some fantastic shore fishing north of Sunderland again this winter with bag’s of 30lb plus being regular and have seen many cod landed over 20lb from the shore there this winter. Barry was saying that down south anglers have also had a decent winter. So I don’t think that he is smoking anything Paul just reporting from beyond the haze.

Regards.

 

 

Hiyer Challenge, no i don't think i did say i have had a good winter fishing because i haven't. Last three trips on the ground, i have been useless. Not frightend to admit that. Thats fishing, The tide and wind need to agree and also the fish need to be hungrey and not full of sprat before i can start to catch a few. Good for conservation though.

 

We are now moving onto the first of the wrecking trips and hope to do some decimation of the stocks very soon, also me freezers empty. regards Desperatly starvin barry.

[big_cod]

Paul

What I think he is trying to tell you Paul (if you where to read his post again) was that you cannot take one small area of the North Sea and say that because there is no fish (or very little compared with other years) that there is very little fish anywhere else. The chieftain has proved that time and time again because he travels in excess of 150 miles in most seaward directions rather than just sticking to the local grounds with some marvellous results. Also I believe that there has been some fantastic shore fishing north of Sunderland again this winter with bag’s of 30lb plus being regular and have seen many cod landed over 20lb from the shore there this winter. Barry was saying that down south anglers have also had a decent winter. So I don’t think that he is smoking anything Paul just reporting from beyond the haze.

Regards.

 

Sorry john but that is not the true story it aint what it was 10years ago anybody who say that is not telling the truth whether here or anywhere else round are coast a few decent cod of the northumberland coast doesnt mean we have a good fisherie a lot of this area on the east coast takes one hell of a beating for cod as you well know when you were commercial fishing you very rarely moved not to far away from these shores and catches around this part of the world by the trawlers over the years out shone catches anywhere up and down this coast.

 

paul.

[cleeclive]

Hello

I never said that Gordon brown funded schools? I haven’t got much time for him or the labour party come to that, but I do have a lot more time for them than any other Maine stream political party in this country.

So before you go shouting the odds about me on other forums you again want to get your facts in some kind of order. But besides that, apology accepted just try not to spoil an apology with an excuse regards

 

Point taken Challenge, the programme gave me a good excuse to be a bit provocative (ie light the blue touch paper and see what happens). Anyway its all been good fun and no offence was meant despite a bit of banter on Glen's site. I enjoy a bit of a battle and creating a bit of entertainment, its just a bit of fun as far as I am concerned , but with some quite interesting and serious debate as well.

I guess we won't change the system for the better though, and its cheaper than doing it the pub!!

 

Cheers

 

Clive

[cleeclive]

Hello Clive

I don't know much about global fish stocks only local fish stocks and despite constantly being told that the stocks I fish for are in serious decline, I have in 30 years not witnessed any such problem of declining fish stocks in fact quite the opposite, with the amount of celebrity anglers rushing around the globe catching top predators where ever they go, even Robson Green who handles a rod like a chimp does a musket manages to catch some fine fish where ever he goes plus several nature documentaries narrated by David Attenbough showing huge aggregations of not only prey but also predator fish, along with evidence that there is as much cod on the grand banks now as there ever was I treat any claims that global stocks are in trouble with suspicion and if it is made by any NGO I dismiss it as rubbish.

Perhaps you have a depleted local stock in mind that we could discuss.

 

The lack of fishing boats in the Uk harbours are not a sign of depleted stocks only a sign of neglect from a unsympathetic government who sold out to the EU. You must have visited Ostend when the fleet was at sea the main port is Zebrugge, considering Belgium has only 35 miles of coast line it has a good sized fleet of mostly beamers, you forgot to mention Holland who have a very large fleet of beamers that work the North sea a much bigger fleet than Lowestoft and Grimsby had put together birthed just 90 miles east of Lowestoft.

Half the Lowestoft beamer fleet were decommissioned the other half along with all the quota was bought up by Dutch owners to work as what is called flag ships which means they are Dutch owned but work on UK quota.

 

Being under ten meters my quota is managed by the government all other UK quota is in the hands of a lucky few.

The government is under the gaze of the EU commission and is defiantly looking to drastically cull the inshore fleet.

The government used to say " we must match the fleet to the available stocks" now they say "we must match the fleet to the available fishing opportunities" and the opportunities are very small.

 

Your remark" Sorry maybe the government has given it all to the French and Spanish to catch!!! "

Is closer to the truth than you may think, Spain is pushing hard to gain access in to the North Sea under the EU's " access to a common resource" directive and will get it sooner or later perhaps they are making room for them.

If France treated their fishermen like our government have treated us the country would have been brought to a standstill.

 

I agree there is a lot of waste in some fisheries, I remember reading about the reducing of discards with square meshes over 20 years ago and thinking that’s a good idea and it is still not much more than an idea . Why?

 

Off to sea for a couple of days I’ll reply to your reply when I get back.

 

Hi Wurzel I hope you had a good trip and managed to top up the coffers a bit.

 

Re Robson Green and Attenbough, don't be too kidded by what you see on the screen (this is where I have just shot myself in the foot bigtime!!!) They may well have spent days or weeks getting the shots to show us on the telly. I bought the box set of Attenboughs blue planet and the last sequence explained how some of it was done. They did spend a lot of time sitting around to get some of those shots. I did have the wonderful experience only once of experiencing fishing for yellowfin in a tuna boill while these guys were murdering a school of sardines. It was an amazing experience and trolling through the frenzy we hit a couple of 25kg yellowfin every time. We had to leave it after around 8 fish it was just total slaughter with sardines everywhere leaping out of harms way.

 

Coming back to UK fish stocks, it is very easy to discard the scientists based on what we see on our own local patch, and I had often been prone to take the fisherman's side on this one. It was in the early 90's that I became involved in research and started to view science very differently, and that was when I started to learn a bit about how it wa done. Basically stcck assessment is based on time series datya collection of the following:-

Plankton and larvae surveys

small fish surveys at set locations annually

trawl surveys

catch statistics

market sampling

I am no expert on how the scientists do their sums, but the annual time series data shows annual fluctuations and trends in stock biomass

 

Obviously 10 years of heavy black fish landings through a big spanner in that aspect of the data collection.

One could also argue that the plankton and small fish surveys may be being undertaken in the wrong place for reasons of climate change or changes in fish migration patterns that have been observed by other stakeholders. However if the locations for sampling are changed it is as though they are starting again and all previous data is invalid.

The key parameter in all good fisheries research is minimising variables because you are then no longer comparing like with like.

So what do we do:-

base our stock assessment on the observation of fishermen in localised areas who have an economic vested interest in murdering fish.

or

 

base our stock asessment on time series data and recognised scientific assessment techniques that have been undertaken for many years and show conlusive trends but not necessarily accurate in specific numbers.

 

I am afraid that I put my money on the latter approach despite its flaws, and this has demonstrated an unfavourable picture for many stocks.

 

It is also important to remember that the current fleet is a fraction of what it was 10, 20 and 30 years ago progessively. Whilst efficiency of of vessels in terms of power, gear and electronic technology has advance through this period, there is no way that the current stock levels could sustain the fleet that we had 20 years ago.

 

It is only to be hoped that what you are seing in terms of stok levels is a good sign of recovery.

 

We only have science that can give us a credible assessment of what is sustainable to catch The only alternative is to sack the scientists and leave the management of fisheries to housekeeping economics. (When you havee caught tem all you go bankrupt and the stocks recover and then the cycle starts agian.

 

Do you have a better alternative

 

Cheers

 

Clive

[Guest challenge]

Hiyer Challenge, no i don't think i did say i have had a good winter fishing because i haven't. Last three trips on the ground, i have been useless. Not frightend to admit that. Thats fishing, The tide and wind need to agree and also the fish need to be hungrey and not full of sprat before i can start to catch a few. Good for conservation though.

 

We are now moving onto the first of the wrecking trips and hope to do some decimation of the stocks very soon, also me freezers empty. regards Desperatly starvin barry.

Hay Barry I do apologise, who am I to artificially fill up your freezer ha ha. No it was somebody else I was talking to on another forum. Yea I bet you are ready to get out to sea again and I am looking forward to some sterling reports. It’s certainly been thin on the ground with the shore lads in this neck of the woods this winter but much better further north. Will have to sort a trip out with you this summer it has to be done. Would love to do some anchoring up over wrecks. Again apologise for my mistake regards

[Guest challenge]

Sorry john but that is not the true story it aint what it was 10years ago anybody who say that is not telling the truth whether here or anywhere else round are coast a few decent cod of the northumberland coast doesnt mean we have a good fisherie a lot of this area on the east coast takes one hell of a beating for cod as you well know when you were commercial fishing you very rarely moved not to far away from these shores and catches around this part of the world by the trawlers over the years out shone catches anywhere up and down this coast.

 

paul.

Why would a commercial fisherman want to lie to you about what he catches in the area he has (more than likely) worked all his life? If the man says that the cod fishing has doubled or trebled with him in the past ten years why should you not believe him? Because it’s not being caught here Paul? When I was taking parties out with JB on chieftain there was tons and I mean tons of cod but we where travelling all over the North Sea to catch it. We where along side a little boat today who was longlineing, there was sprag after sprag coming on board not 5 miles away from the Whitby boy, again a different means of fishing. One of the things that made fishing easy Paul when I was commercial fishing was that there where the amount of boats at it that made it easy for someone to come across a good fishing in the large area of the North Sea. But now days there are so few boats in such a large area that it isn’t so easy and before you say anything about modern technology I assure you that nothing has yet been invented to find fish. Regards.

[Jaffa]

Omg the Whitby haar descends again

 

The two of you know more about fisheries than most the people on this forum. Any chance you could sort it out? Because its getting boring to be honest.

 

Sorry, I'll get me coat.

[barry luxton]

Hay Barry I do apologise, who am I to artificially fill up your freezer ha ha. No it was somebody else I was talking to on another forum. Yea I bet you are ready to get out to sea again and I am looking forward to some sterling reports. It’s certainly been thin on the ground with the shore lads in this neck of the woods this winter but much better further north. Will have to sort a trip out with you this summer it has to be done. Would love to do some anchoring up over wrecks. Again apologise for my mistake regards

Top middle or bottom of the channel, you would be more than welcome. Link to my mates site, been fishing with him for thirty years. Don't catch the eel on the shads so yes the anchor does have to go over. Doing a two dayer in april with him, got mates coming from cornwall, north devon and oxford, looking forward to that one already. Got a few more to get the juices flowing.

 

http://www.ourjoe-l.co.uk/

[wurzel]

So what do we do:-

base our stock assessment on the observation of fishermen in localised areas who have an economic vested interest in murdering fish.

or

 

base our stock asessment on time series data and recognised scientific assessment techniques that have been undertaken for many years and show conlusive trends but not necessarily accurate in specific numbers.

 

 

 

Clive

 

Hello Clive

 

Not keen on the murdering bit, I expected better from you.

 

I agree the science is very inaccurate and is flawed in many ways and is often added to with state of fear statistics and threats of total extinction of some species by ngo's and even government agencies to justified their policies.

I have to agree the over all picture of a stock assessments , whether it is has decreased or increased, is on the whole accurate.

Now for the big crunch, I don't agree and can not see how fishing has influenced these fluctuations in stocks, it just don't add up.

I'm not saying fishing has no effect at all, I suppose it must have some especially more on a very local basis.

I'm not saying I know all the answers and every thing falls in to place according to the law of Wurzel because it defiantly doesn't and I am very willing to discuss and look at other views, I'll try and explain my stock assessments according to my theories and experience.

 

During the 60' 70 and into the 80's and large stock of cod caused mainly by the gadoid explosion of the 62-3 winter but also continued good recruitment caused by lower sea temps through out that time, fishing was good despite a large fleet quickly developed to fish for them, but as I remember there was a total ban on herring fishing because the herring stock had crashed in the same period, of cause over fishing was blamed but in reality the lower sea temperatures were to blame for very poor recruitment and nothing what so ever to do with fishing pressure, a stock with poor recruitment will sooner or later crash whether being fished or not.

Through the 90's global warming( I believe in global warming it's the causes I'm not so sure about) started to kick in and it was obvious cod were decreasing good years of recruitment were getting less and further apart , I came and fished from Whitby for three years because the cod fishing further south was becoming less reliable, at the same time herring stocks were expanding and sole stocks were increasing ten fold, the sole were increasing despite a large fleet of beamers targeting them along with a increasing French fleet of trammel netters, as one French netter said " you are still fishing for cod!!? Are you mad the sea is full of soles " we were starting to see an increase in bass recruitment again despite heavy fishing from several quarters most of all from French pair trawlers fishing on winter aggregations.

As I remember several of the Whitby fleet were changing over to prawns as that was another stock that seemed to be increasing and there were reports of a very strong year class of haddock about to come into the fishery further north.

But other than a blip in the late 90's early 20, incidentally following a colder than normal winter for that period, cod continued to decline.

Another stock I noticed decline was plaice, but I have a theory that the stock moved more than declined but it was influenced by sea temperature.

Now I feel, sense if you like that things are changing back again, the last 4 or 5 years have seen winter sea temperatures drop lower than previous years and cod have again started to have better recruitment and I predict a very good year class will emerge from this winter, plaice are again showing on the dogger bank in huge numbers despite heavy fishing pressure from Dutch beam trawlers, but bass recruitment is low herring recruitment is low sole will decrease if not die as they did during 62-3 winter, they didn't need a recovery plan just a warmer sea to recover.

 

So Clive if over fishing is the cause of the demise of a stock how can another stock fished for just as hard increase? Surely if over fishing is the cause of stock collapse all stocks would collapse when this is clearly not the case, despite heavy fishing pressure some stocks like sole, bass and haddock have not only increased but increased substantially.

Bass is a very good example of a stocks resilience against fishing pressure, being slow growing and very late maturing still managed to increase despite heavy fishing pressure, how come?

 

I know Big cod will come on here and remind me of the slaughter of cod off Whitby and Fambough Head and that’s what done in the cod stock, to pre-empt him. Big Cod needs to be able to look further than the Whitby Bell Buoy.

 

If these trawlers are so efficient you would think they would scoop every thing up in just a couple of tows and be gone else where, this is not the case often these trawlers are working the same grounds for weeks some times the whole season until the fish disperse due to their normal migratory pattern.

And then there is my theory that you can have several boats working an area say 30 or even 40 square miles off Flambough head these boats are working on say 20 box's of cod a tow and you might have 15 or 20 boats all working that area but at the same time there are grounds all over the North sea, thousands of square miles of sea that would have say 2 or 3 box's a tow on them not being fished , not worth big boats fishing them and the total volume of fish in those thousands of miles including wrecks and oil rigs far exceeds that what is being hammered by the boats working just off Flambough head in what in reality is a small area and the fish in that area despite being in a dense shoal is only a small part of the over all stock..

 

Over to you Clive

 

But leave the references to murdering out.