Guernsey Bass Management Meeting

[Norm B]

Only by saying that Graham Picket is also a Dr

Yes, I was looking forward to hearing the logic behind that statement.

Since when has logic been necessary to post here? Many statements are made here and elsewhere with very little or no logic behind them at all but we are expected to either believe them or at least take them at face value. I recently had quite a long, sensible conversation with a commercial rod and line bass fisherman over a few pints. He was really anti BMP but that was because the "facts" he'd been given were just a tissue of lies. Once he believed that what I was telling him was the real BMP he thought it was a great plan for the long term but he was worried about how he'd survive the 18 months to two years before all the 36cm bass he was catching now reached 45cms. I told him to take out a loan or get a job for 18 months.

Edited January 5, 2006 by Norm B

[Leon Roskilly]

Sam,

 

Mike Pawson works for CEFAS.

 

Until recently CEFAS was the organisation that MAFF (Now DEFRA) turned to for any scientific advice on fish stock management, but although CEFAS is an Executive Agency of DEFRA, DEFRA are now able to source research from wherever.

 

That means that CEFAS now have to compete for funding from DEFRA.

 

Also CEFAS has to ensure that any work that they undertake is funded, so they need to identify areas where they can assist, and sell their expertise.

 

Until quite recently, Graham Pickett also worked for CEFAS but now works as an independent, sometimes being employed by CEFAS for particular work.

 

By the way, some of Mike Pawson's work on the BMP proposals was recently published in Fishing News, and the article is now available on the BASS website here

 

Tight Lines - leon

Edited January 4, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[Ken Davison South Wales]

I told him to take out a loan or get a job for 18 months.

 

Rather harsh, self-employed unsecured loan, dodgey prospects, any where between 8% and 12.5%, not a good bet.

 

Get a job, easier said than done if you have been fishing all your life.

 

Lets be honest he has to try and survive on 450mm plus fish.

[Leon Roskilly]

The whole topic is complicated way beyond my understanding but our fish problems may not have anything directly to do with people or with predation by bass and other top-level preds.

 

 

http://www.roguerivernews.com/articles/ind...323400&cp=11031

 

 

Overfishing of predatory species, which "appears to be rampant worldwide," runs the serious risk of destabilizing other marine species and disrupting marine biodiversity, researchers said in a report in the professional journal Ecology.

 

The findings contradict some of the basic approaches of modern fish management, which assume that competition between fish within a species is much more important in regulating populations.

http://www.pewoceanscience.org/press/press-article.php?ID=28

 

This study shows a profound change in world order under the sea,” says Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, which funded the study. “Years of unabated commercial fishing not only has changed the ecosystem in near-shore fisheries, but has had similar effects thousands of miles away in the open ocean.

 

 

Gotta agree with you Newt.

 

Marine Researchers are being paid to do research which is funded, and there are any number of thesis out there still waiting to be explored.

 

Most will never be pursued because there is no commercial or lobby group interested in doing research that doesn't tie in with what they want to demonstrate or use.

 

So we end up with many pieces of what is a complicated jigsaw.

 

No, worse than that.

 

Many complicated and incomplete jigsaws with people showing ill-fitting pieces that are not really part of the puzzle that others try to make them.

 

The success of the project to restore and enhance the striped bass populations of USA is primarily a story of huge economic success.

 

Lots of big fish swimming in the sea is of immense value to the Recreational Sea Angling Sector.

 

Those swimming fish have absolutely no value to the finfish catching sector, unless they are killed and landed.

 

They can take some, but having taken some, there is still a lot of money swimming out there, generating value only for the RSA sector.

 

Is it any wonder that research is published showing that there may be a problem with all of those fish swimming out there!

 

And we on Anglersnet, cherry-pick those jigsaw pieces to try to put them together in a pattern that supports our position, as do those that write into Fishing News trying to persuade the world of another view.

 

Who is right, who is wrong?

 

Who really understands so much complexity?

 

I just have a gut feeling that in general it is far more productive to protect and enhance a natural resource than it is to take too many liberties with it.

 

And whatever the biological situation is with striped bass, and the state of the ecosystem of the USA Eastern seaboard (although it may have some relevance to here) it would be most dangerous to assume that the two very different situations are comparable to any realistic degree.

 

Tight Lines - leon

Edited January 4, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[wurzel]

Hello smudg1

Quote

I don't care what anyone says if they think there are more bass around than there used to be must be stupid and if they think that large numbers of 12" fish is healthy they must walking around with their eyes shut.

There is only one way to prevent overfishing and that is to stop fishing.

 

Quote from Dr Mike Pawson

the adult stocks in the Channel and on the west coast appear to have approximately doubled over the period 1990 - 2004.

 

Hello Leon

 

Quote

And we on Anglersnet, cherry-pick those jigsaw pieces to try to put them together in a pattern that supports our position, as do those that write into Fishing News trying to persuade the world of another view.

 

 

OH dear! makes us sound like policticians

 

In this case we are both right,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just more right than you are.

[Steve Coppolo]

[Norm B]

Rather harsh, self-employed unsecured loan, dodgey prospects, any where between 8% and 12.5%, not a good bet.

 

Get a job, easier said than done if you have been fishing all your life.

 

Lets be honest he has to try and survive on 450mm plus fish.

But if your income is going to double in 18 months it's worth it. He'd still be catching 45cm now so he'd have some income when the MLS is raised to 45cm, he'd just lose the 36-45cm fish for a while. No self employed person is guaranteed a set income anyway. Market forces, weather, slumps, they all impact on other self employed people so why shouldn't he have the same.

[sam-cox]

Sam,

 

Mike Pawson works for CEFAS.

 

Until recently CEFAS was the organisation that MAFF (Now DEFRA) turned to for any scientific advice on fish stock management, but although CEFAS is an Executive Agency of DEFRA, DEFRA are now able to source research from wherever.

 

That means that CEFAS now have to compete for funding from DEFRA.

 

Also CEFAS has to ensure that any work that they undertake is funded, so they need to identify areas where they can assist, and sell their expertise.

 

Until quite recently, Graham Pickett also worked for CEFAS but now works as an independent, sometimes being employed by CEFAS for particular work.

 

By the way, some of Mike Pawson's work on the BMP proposals was recently published in Fishing News, and the article is now available on the BASS website here

 

Tight Lines - leon.

 

 

So Leon, they work for the Govement (DEFRA) and their results and opinions are ment to be independent?

DEFRA once MAFF I thought was there to protect the fishery for the commercial fisherman, so if Im wright then they are not independent.

 

On a seperate note I have met Graham Picket many times and fished with him, he is a smashing bloke, I cant talk of DR Pawson though as I have never met him, from what I have read on this forum he seems a little dangerours to the BMP.

[stavey]

Sam,

Be a little patient (err, haven't we been patient for decades? ). Things seem changing in the right direction. As recreational angling develops more scientists will be involved in the this field. We can't blame individual scientists for being one-sided as far the most of the funding to fisheries science and management have been targeted the commercial fisheries sector only. 'You are what you study and do' We need more scientists making the recreational sector their prime field. Scientists and universities go where the money is available. What else can they do? I see already -with more to come I am sure- an increased interest among scientists and students in the recreational sector. But to be able to making a full time career within the recreational field there has to be some money available. The Gov. could help speed up the process by providing more funding now.

 

 

Perhaps us sea anglers should put our hands in our own pockets? instead of spending more and more money on the latest super duper fishing outfit to catch less fish in the sea, or using dozens of rods at a go to catch one or two baby cod? such a stupid mentality to have in my opinion, cue newt...........................

[Toerag]

I cant talk of DR Pawson though as I have never met him, from what I have read on this forum he seems a little dangerours to the BMP.

 

Yes and no. I was at that meeting too, he said a lot of things that aren't in the CEFAS/ICES reports. Things such as 'you will catch big bass from a mark to start with, but as the mark gets fished out all that's left is small bass' - We have seen this happen to many of our marks. Things such as 'The bass on the UK side of the channel tend to stay there, and only mix with the 'French' bass at spawning time' - so the french won't be hoovering up our bass all year round.

 

You have to remember that the DEFRA consultation has come out the original BMP, modified by Dr.s Pawson & Pickett with their knowledge of the fishery and scientific data. They were als oinvolved in the setting up of the nursery areas.

 

I would say that he's not a danger to the BMP, but he is realistic. As I have said on here before, the 45cm MLS will provide the best yield from the fishery, much the same as harvesting a crop at it's maximum size before it goes mouldy.