Overfishing of Cod predates trawlers

[Jaffa]

Big cod, i've heard this stuff for 25 yrs and yet every time anyone looks at the Danish sandeel catch the byctach is extremely low.

 

Suits a lot to blame it though.

 

You have evidence they are catching a lot of small cod or just assuming that because they are on the same grounds they MUST be ?

 

[ 04. March 2005, 09:22 PM: Message edited by: Jaffa ]

[Leon Roskilly]

But they do take some bycatch.

 

Fishing News 22/29 December 2000

 

"Industry leaders were furious at a decision at last week's Council of Ministers to hold back 6,000 tonnes of North Sea whiting quota in case it was needed for the Danish industrial fishery white fish by-catch"

 

"Fishermen are letting whiting go for them to be caught in the industrial fishery. The Commission is totally incosistent in calling for cuts in every white fish species and ignoring sandeels"

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Jaffa]

jim doyle:

jaffa is it not the case that norwegion boats pretty well "hoovered up" one of the biggest sandeel fisheries just of the tay? The russian factory boats were not serviced and taking fish from brit boats, the huge cod of the inner clyde basically fished to extinction, am I missing some thing or were these things not done for profit with a total disreguard for the fish stocks? they couldnt help themselves,if I was in the same position I would probably do the same thing if it was putting food on my table, but that dosnt stop it being short sighted.

The Norwegians did? I know nothing of that, whats the story?

 

The clyde cod, damn right that was wrong but the point is we need the right enforcement in place; people always do what they think they have to do.

 

Confused about where the Russians come into things though; they were always here for fish for human consumption. What do they have to do with the wee bankie sandeel fishery (i presume thats the one you mean?)

 

:confused: :confused:

 

Chris

[Jaffa]

But they do take some bycatch.

 

Fishing News 22/29 December 2000

 

"Industry leaders were furious at a decision at last week's Council of Ministers to hold back 6,000 tonnes of North Sea whiting quota in case it was needed for the Danish industrial fishery white fish by-catch"

 

"Fishermen are letting whiting go for them to be caught in the industrial fishery. The Commission is totally incosistent in calling for cuts in every white fish species and ignoring sandeels"

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

Care to give that in terms of % of total catches Leon, or is it like the row over "stop and search" targetting muslims in the Uk since 9/11 where the numbers of muslims stopped and searched went up 300 % or from 2 to 8 a day!

[big_cod]

jaffa do you know the main diet of a cod is yes guest it ,a sandeel and cod will quite often go midwater to feed, they do not stay on the bottom i have seen photos of driftnetters herring fishing in the 1960ss and when they have pulled the ring net together what you have is a load of big cod swimming near the surface feeding on herring where ever the sandeels are the cod will be swimming very close they would nt want to miss dinner

[Leon Roskilly]

Jaffa,

 

Do you know of David Hill, an Englishman who has lived in Denmark for over 30years in Esbjerg, an industrial fishing vessel skipper for 25 years?

 

He had quite a bit to say about the Danish sandeel fishery in Fishing News in early 2001 in letters and articles.

 

e.g.

 

"The damage the industrial fisheries for feed fish do to white fish stocks will never be properly assessed and the true story of just what goes on in the industrial fishing industry will never be published until the whitefish fishermen demand to know the truth"

 

Also FN reported:

 

Total landings in 1999 from the Danish and Norwegian small meshed industrial fisheries were recorded as 1.1m tonnes.

 

Of this 11,532 tonnes were demersal whitefish, comprising 4,000 tonnes of haddock, 5,000 tonnes of whiting, 2,000 tonnes of saithe and 532 tonnes of cod.

 

Mr Morely said: "Sandeel stocks fluctuate considereably ..........

 

They were also talking about a 3 year study to be carried out by CEFAS, due to report in June 2002.

 

 

Ah! here it is: http://www.cefas.co.uk/publications/partne...project%2D1.pdf

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 04. March 2005, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Ken Davison South Wales]

One of the things I don't understand is why fish is feed to pigs when we still have a grain mountain to get rid of.

 

Feeding any animal on unnatural food stuff is wrong and this is clearly shown in cattle and poultry disasters and in neither case was it necessary it was purely to boost profits.

 

The term commercial is applied to any business that trades to make money whatever the commodity is. I'm a commercial as my wife and I own a small garden centre and trade in plants and sudries.

 

It only defines those who do it for a hobby and those who do it for profit.

 

It does not define all commercial fishermen as non-caring about the enviroment.

 

Any type of fishing be it commercial or sport should consider the consequences of over kill. The scale is irrelevant because the end result is the same a waste of natural resouces.

 

Taking a leaf from Chester 1 book "I blame all goverments".

[MainBassMan]

Jaffa:

Large ships?

Build 20 titanics - then watch - an empty sea VVVVVVV soon!!!!

[wurzel]

Thank you Jaffa for a balanced veiw.

 

I've never met a greedy fisherman,I,ve met a few succesfull ones.

 

Big Cod and @winter@

I fished from Whitby for 3 years about 10 years ago, and have some fond memorys of the place, I certainly had to earn my respect from the locals,

who were hard working, and some of them very good fishermen. Next time you are on the quay ask about the Yvonne Anne.HH118

The fishing was very good and I earnt a good living while there. I can not remember seeing 1000's of boxs of cod a day, most bigger boats only landed once a week usally on a friday, if a couple of pair trawlers landed after a 10 day trip at the same time you might have had 1000 boxs of fish on the market,half would have been cod the rest haddock and whiteing, the rest of the week the only fish on the market were from us small inshore boats.

 

I noticed that 1000's of box's daily turned into 1000's of tons daily in 2 posts, they do say anglers tend to exagerate a bit.

 

The reason quotas are ignored ,usally because it is not posible to live on them,

 

I remember a local telling us that "if theres nay fish left at Whitby theres nay fish left in the world"

 

By the way, we often fished the wrecks with the rods, using light rods and single red gills we had great sport with good sized pollack, the locals useing several muppets a grapple hook and a rod like a broom stick only caught codling, some of the best wrecks were only a couple of miles out from Robin Hoods Bay.

 

Best Regards Wurzel

[Guest jay_con]

Hi wurzel, Im sure Big cod will Know you and you him, he's probably one of the locals you talk about. If you want to talk about Boat fishing have a chat with him there arent many better boat anglers around (he's a crap shore angler though )

 

Things changed at whitby wurzel. Big changes came within the time span you talk of. A lot of the families you talk of who owned the trawlers have left the industry or have been shoved out. Large companies now have interests in lots of boats. The means of catching has fallen in to the hands of a few, things are far more business like now. No longer does a trawler head off out to sea and out of sight for days on end with the main purpose of providing a living

for the owners family and the family of his crew.

New boats were built and launched with catching potential far superior to those they replaced .

Whitby harbour is now no longer home to the 30 plus trawlers that were once here. It is now home to 8 or 10 superboats built at 59 and a half foot to avoid laws designed for bigger boats with a catch rate far in excess of those 30 boats.

No longer Do the boats use a single trawl they all

discovered pair trawling.

 

The main aim of the game here now is profit and to make it as quick as possible before the whole thing goes pear shaped. The select few who bought up the industry have made big bucks. They monopolised the local fishing industry.

 

You should see it, youd be sickened. Pair trawling teams up and down all day and hardly ever out of sight, How they havent towed away the bell bouy is beyond me.