Lucky First 2 Casts!

[Rapala]

Hey AB, I hear Floridas a pretty good place for you to take your boat at the moment....

! ! !

lol

[maidstonemike]

Once again the poor old angler gets it in the neck for eating a fish or two.

We are constantly told to improve our diet by eating more fish.

Trawlers scoop up hundreds of tons of Bass, they go to the fishmongers, people buy and eat them.

Netters from the shore catch huge quantities of Bass, amd sell them.

A dedicated angler, who spends vast amounts of money, time and energy, enjoying his passtime, is slated when he catches and eats the odd Bass.

It's clearly not this angler who is damaging Bass stocks, it is commercial pressure, leaving so few Bass in the sea, that the Bass angler must feel guilty about eating his very hard earned prize.

Do Salmon anglers and trout anglers not see their fish as a prize for the table?

Direct you critisism to the commercial sector, and let the angler enjoy his very occasional treat.

[JRT]

DJMCJERICO you obviously do not understand the issues. Bigger bass = big breading females = more eggs = better stocks. Killing a large female obvously does have more of an impact than killing a pre-breeding fish. Most fish over 5lb are females.

 

maidstonemike, most trout fishing is from stocked put&take lakes so killing fish is not an issue. Most WILD trout and salmon fishing is C&R, certainly on the rivers that I fish. If a salmon is taken then it usually a smaller male.

 

Finally no one is saying that there isn't a problem from over-fishing from commercials, netters, charters etc. but sea anglers are part of this picture to!! How can we push for constraint and control of these if we don't show willing to do the same? One rule for ALL.

 

And for people who use the "I spend £X on bait/tackle so I am within my right to kill fish to recope this cost" argument then you are idiots. Why go fishing? It's cheaper to go buy your fish from the supermarket. Surely fishing is all about getting ya string pulled, not fishmongering.

 

Do golfers fill in holes after they have played them so others can't play them? "I payed for my membership/clubs/travel so that hole is mine!"

 

The reality is you won't be catching ANY decent bass soon unless EVERYONE stops killing the bloody fish, not a hard concept really?

 

JRT

[chappers]

surely its to do with sustainable management and the control on commercial pressure in days gone by there were plenty of fish to go round and anglers could almost be garaunteed to catch a few decent fish, us anglers are now catching and taking a fraction of the fish we used to and not necessarilly through choice i may add.

Its the commercial catches that have seen a massive upturn since the upturn in technology and the inherent demand for fish.

It should be obvious that the demise of several fish species is due to commercial/environmental pressure and not angling pressure.

So as long as we are not going to the beaches and committing wholesale slaughter then I don't see the problem in taking a couple of bass whether they are 2lbs or 20lbs.

 

In the US when the striped bass fisheries collapsed, they didn't ban angling they banned commercial fishing for them and now the stocks have rocketed back up and sustainable catch limits and seasons and even days of the week when you can fish have been set.

This is what we should be doing rather then bitching and passing the buck.

 

As citizens we DO have a right to take fish from the sea for food, as to whether we as citizens of the earth morrally have the right thats another matter and down to the individual to decide.

Edited October 25, 2005 by chappers

[Rapala]

Spot on that JRT.

Mike and all the pro-fish-killers - if you re read whats been said in most of the pro C&R postings you will see AB hasnt exactly been given one in the neck here. He is very lucky to live where he does as the fishing is superb.

Most people already know tagging has proved the bass are territorial and will return to the same areas year after year. While all around our shores the bass are getting hammered by the commercial sector, those 2 fish max he says he will take a week will eventually add up to being an increasingly significant proportion of the local stock.

AB obviously believes there is enough in reserve for HIS 2 a week not to make any difference, thats his opinion and he's entitled to it. The thing is if WE ALL took 2 a week it WOULD make a difference. Its not a limitless resource.

His local bass stocks might seem very healthy at the moment, but I wonder how he'd feel if they werent. My guess is he'd still take his 2 fish a week even if they were the only 2 he caught, but thats just my opinion. Its not a desisory attack on AB, its what I believe most non-100% C&R anglers would do in his position.

Anglers who regularly kill fish for the table all hide behind the "what they take is so small in comparison to what gets caught commercially" agument, and will always refuse to see the bigger picture. They will never get it. They will blame the commercials til the cows come home.

Without wanting to sound "holier than tho" as one of the posters put, it is upto people like JRT, SB and myself to try and educate with the bare facts of the issue, and try and teach this one basic principle; it ALL adds up!

 

Some of the posters on this site (they know who they are) are extremely active at the sharp end of the conservation effort in particular the Bass Management Plan and deserve so much of our appreciation with the dedication and effort they are putting in. Thanks to them we are now in a better position than ever to get our voices heard and for the 1st time ever to make a massive impact on the quality of our fishing. we all really need to stick together as responsible anglers to provide a united front.

If everything goes to plan then in a few years time there might be bass-a-plenty and no-one will bat an eyelid when someone wants to post a picture of a good catch of 2 bass he wants to show off on the web, but the thing is he might not be bothered doing that cos catches like that could be commonplace.

 

In the meantime its surely better for all our sakes to keep pictures of dead (or shortly to be dead) bass off the internet, and in the process try to educate younger anglers about the values of C&R.

[JRT]

Chappers, I hear you.. but I still think anglers killing every decent fish caught is unsustainable and just fuels the argument from the commercials that we just want the fish for ourselves. What about the rod&line commercials they could jsut say they are angling.

 

Our rights to catch and keep fish is a different issue to sustainablity and does not reflect the current situation.

 

I watched one of my favourite marks get wiped out by inshore commericals this year. It's dead now, maybe it will hold a few fish next year but all the decent fish have gone.

 

You try walking down a beach on the East Coast USA with a bag of fish. They understand that anglers do impact stocks.

[Wobblebob]

AB,

 

Just like to say, 2 nice fish M8 and Bon Appetite

[Rapala]

JRT.

You probably arent saying that AB keeps all the decent ones he catches and to be fair to him living where he does I doubt very much he does, (cos his family would probably kick him out cos they'd get sick of the stuff!)...but there sure are a lot of guys out there who do think nothing about keeping every decent bass they catch. In fact the more decent it is the more likely it is to get kept. Big Car Syndrome etc!

Getting back to the original post, if I went out and had a 6 and an 8lber off the rocks on my first and second casts then yeah I'd think that was pretty special too....especially where I fish.

I'd certainly agree that there are a lot more of around that size whare AB fishes, but dropping on em both like that there,...from a boat,...aint such a big deal really when you think about it. If they'd both been doubles then maybe yeah?

Got lucky once myself and had 2 big bass on successive casts with a lump of plastic and had to slap myself pretty hard shortly afterwards to make sure I hadnt had a quick kip and dreamt it up.

Obviously much better to do that than slap the fish.

! !

[chappers]

JRT and Rapala we don't have any strict controls apart from quotas over here and I only have limited experience of fishing in the US but I am aware of the problems a while back with regards to the striped bass on the east coast of america.

There was a problem with the stocks of striped bass and something was done about it, in the areas I have experience of, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, measures where put in place, a closed season was put in place for commercial fishermen as well as certain days of the week that fish could be landed, including for anglers a limit of two sizeable fish per day per person, with no closeed season.

I am not trying to say that these figures should be implemented directly but we should be doing what they do over there and looking at areas and species in their own rights.Then some one like ABM can take two fish per day form his , bass rich area but may not be able to take more than 1 or 2 whiting per week. My point is that limits sholud be set according to the areas and the sustainable fishery available to that particular area.

Even when this is not the law then surely it is up to each of us as to whether our consience allows us to break the code of sensibility that cuurently exists.

[Norfolkdan]

Great fish mate, well done.