Bring it On

[Brian Carragher]

Theres plenty of it going on in the area where I live so I can vouch for the illegal practice of hobby or dole anglers supplementing their income with a bit of black fish landing

[Jaffa]

Theres plenty of it going on in the area where I live so I can vouch for the illegal practice of hobby or dole anglers supplementing their income with a bit of black fish landing

 

Hi Brian,

 

Is that for salmon / seatrout or whitefish? If its whitefish, is it in your opinion, an important issue for those stocks ?

 

Chris

[The doctor]

Hello Nigel

 

How the hell are you long time no hear, are you still attending meetings where the most important item on the agenda is arranging the next meeting?

 

Hi Peter,

 

I'm well thank you and extremely busy with the offshore and FLO works. I don't come on here very often and post even less, too many WUM's with their own less than clear agenda's. No I don't attend such meetings, and haven't for some time now, bit of a disagreement with the party line, which I couldn't endorse from either a scientific or socio-economic point of view.

 

Any way as usual I feel I need to correct you on a few points with in your post.

 

Correct me on a few points or put your differing opinion across There is a difference you know

 

You are correct the number of under ten boats still in existence has not decreased, but the number that are fishing has also a lot have either changed to shell fish or where they fished for pressure stock or fin fish part of the year now fish all year for shell fish, their cards are marked it won't be long before some form of management will thin them out.

 

To a certain extent that is a point I concede, however, there is a reason for me using the period 2001 - 2008, and in particular July of each year as the comparative month. Firstly, the 'latent effort' as referred to by Sharpshooter is not included on the MFA vessel lists, as these list only reflect active vessels which have submitted log sheets for that month, vessels not fishing, are not included for that reason. The reason I picked July as the comparison month is that this is the peak month when part time vessels are likely to be fishing and therefore be counted in the dataset, if I'd picked December or February the figures would have been lower and not totally reflective. In 2001 the shift to shellfish was already heavily underway, so the comparison are broadly like for like, largely as a result of the primary stocks (cod) being at a much lower stock biomass than the present.

 

As for the rest of the under 10's the time scale you quote 2001 to 1008 is not correct, they only really started on the under 10's since the buyers and sellers came in force 2 years ago up until then things were not so bad for a under ten boat.

 

Are you saying then that the MFA vessel lists before 2006 are made up and that DEFRA/MFA only started keeping lists after the RBS legislation came into force I agree that prior to the RBS the under 10's were largely left alone, but with over 4,500 boats in the UK inshore fleet, fish stocks declining, some seriously, having no idea of what these 4,500 under 10's were landing was from a management perspective an untenable position. If just 30% were landing a ton of cod a week for 4 months of the year, that equates to almost the total European quota for cod in 2008, although I don't want to get into a discussion on the validity of whether that is suitable from a socio-economic or scientific point of view.

 

You say Quote '' but sustainable fisheries are not achieved by allowing free for alls,''

 

The shell fish fleet seem to have done alright and despite a free for all stocks seem to appear good.

 

But that really isn't the case, given that we have THE biggest shellfish port in the UK (Bridlington), the current thoughts are that effort is way too high, brown crab has been very much low in numbers for a few years now, and there are national discussions on how to improve lobster conservation. All of which is emanating from the industry itself which is hugely reassuring.

 

You also say Quote ''low fish stocks have to be managed,''

 

I'm sure I've asked you this before , What low fish stocks?

 

Unfortunately Peter, you've drawn the conclusion that I was saying that there are low fish stocks now, it was simply a statement that we now find ourselves in a situation whereby practically all the major commercial stocks are now being managed, as a result of low stock status in the past, not specifically at the present. It was a general comment that states without prejudice that were stocks are low in terms of biomass, then the only way to recover these stocks is through some form of management, be that a management or recovery plan. How you determine what 'low' equates to, largely depends on your status or position. Most fishermen will state that fish stocks are in a good to excellent condition, most environmentalists or greens will say the opposite.

 

Anyway, I hope you are well, its about time we had another few beers and put the world to right again.

[thedogs]

A lot of the inshore effort has been cut on the Blackwater due to the amount of weed. Some fishermen are blaming the farmers. The thought behind this is that the water coming down river contains nitrates that have washed from the farmers fields. This coupled with relativly shallow water and a longer season means the weed builds to a level that stops the use of gill nets by mid to late July.

 

Now I for one wont be thanking the farmers, even if indirectly thay have contributed to the increasing weed problems. There is no excuse for pollution, even if it does help leave some bass for me to catch.