Leisure Fishing in Whitby - As important to the towns economyas commercial fishing.

[JB]

don't forget the Need To Manage brigade are on your case,

 

There are already more of them than there are of us!

[stavey]

Hi Brian,

I am quite sure that, sooner or later, bag limits will be imposed on all recreational fishing. This is the trend throughout the world. In 1978, when I was a commercial fisherman working on the West Coast of Canada and Alaska, they already had closed periods and quotas for commercial fishing, and bag limits for most recreational species.

 

In my case, cod is our main target species. When bag limits are imposed, ‘catch and release’ will have to be practised; with anglers just keeping their best fish. Lighter tackle with single hooks or lures will become the norm. Riving them in over the rail three and four at a time will become pointless and a thing of the past.

 

Ian Burrett brought up this point of ‘catch and release’ with me a while ago, and it set me thinking. A small percentage of my customers were already practising ‘catch and release’ - I had a bit on my website about it, to encourage this practice. However, after Ian’s comments, I decided I should elaborate on this – with advice on how to handle fish, etc - and hope to find the time to do so before the winter is out.

 

In my experience, anglers don’t accept sudden changes, so timing will be everything. ‘Catch and release’ will have to be done gradually and charter skippers should be thinking about it now. They will need to educate anglers towards this practice, and this will take time. If a bag limit was dropped on us now, I believe it would cause damage to businesses.

 

It is said that every cloud has a silver lining. In the case of ‘catch and release’, I am likely to save fuel as I will not have to steam all over the North Sea looking for wrecks full of fish. We will be putting most of them back, to be caught another day.

 

JB

 

commendable words john, and it is nice to hear such from an ex commercial like yourself, i know you are not to keen on a netting restriction along the beaches but these sort of measures are the future! along with mpa's and sensible mls's a mesh sizes etc, and even commercial bans on designated species for sport anglers only, these and maybe more others will make our sea's around our little island a fish rich sustainable resource that it should be for all (wurzels favourite word) stakeholders in the hopefully not to distant future. it may even change your retirement plans john if it does become the case

[Guest binatone]

commendable words john, and it is nice to hear such from an ex commercial like yourself, i know you are not to keen on a netting restriction along the beaches but these sort of measures are the future! along with mpa's and sensible mls's a mesh sizes etc, and even commercial bans on designated species for sport anglers only, these and maybe more others will make our sea's around our little island a fish rich sustainable resource that it should be for all (wurzels favourite word) stakeholders in the hopefully not to distant future. it may even change your retirement plans john if it does become the case

Hi stavey, my eyes have been opened with this thread. I now totally agree with you on the subject of bag limits for anglers.

If Johns anglers on the chieftain are taking any thing near to what john suggests they are catching in a season then for the preservation of the commercial fisherman trying to make a living, catching cod in the central north sea , the sooner he is restricted the better.

As for catch and release? I hope that it works off Whitby, just hope that they don’t go around stabbing ling and then returning them to die on the sea bed rather than washing around on the surface.

[Guest @Winter@]

commendable words john, and it is nice to hear such from an ex commercial like yourself, i know you are not to keen on a netting restriction along the beaches but these sort of measures are the future! along with mpa's and sensible mls's a mesh sizes etc, and even commercial bans on designated species for sport anglers only, these and maybe more others will make our sea's around our little island a fish rich sustainable resource that it should be for all (wurzels favourite word) stakeholders in the hopefully not to distant future. it may even change your retirement plans john if it does become the case

 

Been doing a bit of research on this Stavey. The past few days Ive been on the local charter boat pontoon on Church Street where the majority of the towns charter skippers moor their boats. Ive been on their most days this week as Ive been doing a favour for one of the lads. Ive managed to catch hold of a lot of the skippers and they said they had heared about proposed bag limits. Some went as far as to say they were contemplating a complete rethink business wise. One chap in particuler was thinking of buying a cheaper boat and just catering for people wishing to take 3 hour charter trips. These were his words "I cant see people wanting to pay 40 quid to fish and only be aloud to take 3 or 4 fish away with them. It makes better business sense to do 4 3 hour trips than 1 12hour trip"

 

I was surprised they had heared of the bag limits as I thought I was clued up and I only read of them this week. I havent been able to get hold of big cod and ask his thoughts as I understand he has been away visiting family this week. I shall ask him on his return on what he thinks.

[Brian Carragher]

The above point that you've made was the exact thing that I alluded to on an earlier post on this thread. On the 1 mile net thread that has now disapeared I made the point in response to a point about a 2 fish limit on charter boats, that charter boats in the past had offset running costs by keeping all the catch barring two fish per angler and could legally sell on the fish quay, the remainder of the catch.

 

As this is no longer possible to the vast majority of charter boats as they are not commercially licenced and therefore will not get any quota entitlement as they have no record of commercial activity, they only hire their boat out to enable anglers to catch fish, bag limits will be enforced and the charter boat fishing section will be well and truly stuffed

[big_cod]

Hi winter been down at portsmouth mate arrived back late friday .

What you are saying is quite true rumours have been rife regarding the subject of bag limits, now if this is true it may well affect the costings as what you charge for a fishing trip, some boats charge £40 for a days fishing and some are charging in excess of £200 for a fishing trip now if you can only take three cod per trip i think anglers may well have a good look at the finances and say things are a little expencive why pay all this money for just a few fish well who can blame them.

[Guest @Winter@]

You wouldnt sell that lovely boat you just invseted all that cash in though would you?

 

P.s just pmed you about tonight as I dont want to hijack m y own topic.

[stavey]

Been doing a bit of research on this Stavey. The past few days Ive been on the local charter boat pontoon on Church Street where the majority of the towns charter skippers moor their boats. Ive been on their most days this week as Ive been doing a favour for one of the lads. Ive managed to catch hold of a lot of the skippers and they said they had heared about proposed bag limits. Some went as far as to say they were contemplating a complete rethink business wise. One chap in particuler was thinking of buying a cheaper boat and just catering for people wishing to take 3 hour charter trips. These were his words "I cant see people wanting to pay 40 quid to fish and only be aloud to take 3 or 4 fish away with them. It makes better business sense to do 4 3 hour trips than 1 12hour trip"

 

I was surprised they had heared of the bag limits as I thought I was clued up and I only read of them this week. I havent been able to get hold of big cod and ask his thoughts as I understand he has been away visiting family this week. I shall ask him on his return on what he thinks.

 

 

Hi winter, i understand what these charter skippers are saying, but what would be an exceptable bag limit do you think? now baring in mind in this, (your area) whitby for example, cod are the main target for these bag limits yes agreed? now if you and we were able to get something in place like B.A.S.S. are doing and hopefully will get implemented with our help etc, as well as the commercials (in their eyes) accepting some sacrifices like nett bans/mpa's etc, we sea anglers have to do something similar to help uphold are argument for such! and bag limits would be the most obvious i can think of agreed? if not sea anglers are going to have to ask themselves what they realy are? ie, are we realy rod and line fish hunters who go just to feed ourselves? or are we sport anglers who go for the enjoyment and like to reward are efforts with a nice fish meal now and then? if we so choose to desire????

[Guest @Winter@]

Discussed that somewhere on here the other day Stavey. The bass Crew are setting off down the road where the destination is Sport angling. To get there various measures have to be put in place and then when things improve fish wise the anglers hopefully will be willing to sign up to bag limits. Cod angling hasnt even set off down that road, infact the road in question isnt even in the design stage. So how will you get anglers to accept bag limits unless of course as wurzel says they are to be forced on you. Cod angling remains sport for some hunting for others. As there are no longer any cod down there Stavey is this a concept you can take on board ???

[zziplexboy]

If there were a bag limit in place on shore and boat it wouldnt hurt my shaoe fishing one bit...at the mo I would be delighted to take 2 fish per trip......however if you are talking boat then I would not do my usual 4 /5 trips a year for definate and how does that make the charter skippers feel because I know I wouldnt be on my own in this

Quote

"now if you and we were able to get something in place like B.A.S.S. are doing "

Are you for real...you dont speak for me!!