Anglers Blamed for Endangered Fish Stocks

[Clifftop]

Hmmm, lets see, pollack sells at £1/kg, turbot is £7/kg. How many pubs & restaurants buy pollack, how many buy turbot? What's the easiest way to make £100, 14kg turbot or 100kg pollack? I know which of those will fit in the car easiest, and which the local pub will buy!

 

 

 

Again, I appreciate that you're conservationally minded like many on here, but a lot of others aren't.

 

 

Hi, not knowing the law over there i ask the question, are recreational fishers allowed to sell fish.

In South Australia they are not and a fine is applied if caught. If we are 1 or 2 over the limit you may get off with a warning but if the fisheries have been watching you for a while and you are caught with lots over the limit or caught for a second time then you risk losing everything you used to catch those fish,for example

car and boat and all the fishing gear in the boat. i'm not saying that this deters everybody but i do believe that the majority of recreational fishers act responsibly and stay within the size limits and bag limits.

[seaside]

Hi, not knowing the law over there i ask the question, are recreational fishers allowed to sell fish.

In South Australia they are not and a fine is applied if caught. If we are 1 or 2 over the limit you may get off with a warning but if the fisheries have been watching you for a while and you are caught with lots over the limit or caught for a second time then you risk losing everything you used to catch those fish,for example

car and boat and all the fishing gear in the boat. i'm not saying that this deters everybody but i do believe that the majority of recreational fishers act responsibly and stay within the size limits and bag limits.

 

I'd agree that generally the majority of commercial and recreational fishers do act responsibly and stick within size/bag/quota limits - and it's this majority that suffers due to the greed of the minority who find it a worthwhile risk due to poor levels of enforcement and the paltry fines levied when they are caught out.

[Leon Roskilly]

Morning Show on Radio Guensey on Monday Morning 7am - 10am

 

All about the recent debate about fishing and angling and tourism .

 

You can listen live, or if you miss it 'Listen Again' at:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/guernsey.shtml

[Puffin]

Hello All,

 

Please excuse the long post. It is a copy of my posting on fishing-guernsey.co.uk yesterday on the subject of bag limit proposals on visiting charter boats by Guernsey Sea Fisheries.

 

 

Posted: Yesterday at 18:15

Originally posted by Andy Marquis

 

Are there any thought on the tourism side, particularly from those members who are not Guernseymen?

 

Cheers

 

Andy

 

 

Andy,

 

As both an angler and an Alderney Guest House proprietor and the Alderney States Member with specific responsibility for the Environment I feel I'm well placed to comment on the bag limit proposals which Sea Fisheries have out for consultation at present.

 

The basis for these proposals seems to be the unsubstantiated claims of some Bailiwick commercial fishermen that fish are being taken in commercial quantities and sold on the black market on return to the UK. Without concrete evidence this is nothing more than hearsay and is no basis for action.

 

Angling charter boats are in the game for the long term. Their skippers are not generally fools and realise that sustainability depends on properly managed fisheries. They do not have the option that many commercial fishermen have of switching to potting if wet fish stocks are depleted, therefore they have a more pressing incentive to conserve stocks. Most skippers already put this into practice, particularly on the Channel wrecks, by moving on once the anglers have had a good catch of pollack, despite protests from their party that they want to stay and catch more. The fish do not represent units of currency to them, a wreck that is fished out is just a set of numbers in the plotter. A wreck with plenty of fish left for another day is an asset.

 

The proposals themselves are an extremely blunt instrument.Skippers I've spoken to are not opposed to a bag limit per se, but it needs to be a fair and sensible limit. Two fish of the specified species per angler per trip is what is proposed. This takes no account of the length of trip so an angling party spending one night in the Bailiwick can take 2 fish each. Another party spending 7 nights, and therefore a great deal more money into the local economy will only be permitted the same 2 fish each. This is utterly illogical and guaranteed to damage the thriving angling tourism sector that has been built up over the last 10 years in Alderney. As a Guest House proprietor my business relies almost entirely on charter anglers, being 60-70% of our trade. If they are driven away by this clumsy attempt at regulation by Sea Fisheries I have no doubt that several Alderney Guest Houses will cease trading. So the Bailiwick's economy will lose the considerable sums spent by anglers in accommodation, food, drink, harbour dues, etc, etc. Alderney will also lose a critical number of tourism beds, making the island less able to cater for those who want to come here for other events, such as Alderney Week, the annual Hill Climb, Golf tournaments, Half Marathon, etc, etc. As you can see, the knock on benefits of retaining a thriving charter angling sector go much further than the benefits of "feather bedding" the commercial sector.

 

It is unfair to include catches from outside Bailiwick waters in the "catch allowance" if the justification for these measures is conservation of the local fishery. The inclusion of Pollack on the specified list is extremely odd for several reasons. Pollack are abundant in local waters and have little commercial value, so are unlikely to fall victim to the alledged black marketeering. Pollack provide great sport on the deepwater wrecks but it is usually not possible to return them alive. Therefore it is my view that they should be excluded from the bag limit scheme for the time being and excluded from the "no-filleting" rule.

 

The "no-filleting" rule in itself is quite reasonable. Generally Bass, Turbot and Brill are not filleted on board anyway, as most anglers like to have the whole fish to show off to friends and family when they get home. Heads and frames of these species also make excellent stock so it makes no sense to fillet them on board.

 

The proposal for a discard ban shows that Sea Fisheries realise there is a serious flaw in their proposal. Anglers who have caught their two bass or whatever aren't going to want to turn round and go home. If better sized fish are caught there will be a temptation for the less scrupulous to dump the previous catch.

 

At the end of the day a well regulated fishery is to everyone's benefit but these proposals are not a good example of regulation. Sea Fisheries need to look again at this and be absolutely certain that they look beyond the short term and beyond the rather narrow best interest of the commercial fleet.

 

I would suggest as an alternative to Sea Fisheries' proposals that an immediate increase in Minimum landing Sizes be implemented for bass, brill and turbot. These are the species that all parties seem to agree are under pressure. Over time, by allowing more fish to breed more times before becoming fair game, the increase in MLS will make less fish legally available for the commercial fisherman and the angler to take and lead to greatly improved recruitment meaning more fish for all. Anglers in particular would benefit from fairly early in the process. I, like many others, am quite content to catch and return a lot of smaller fish rather than fish all day and catch nothing. Increased numbers of smaller fish being returned will mean increased sport, whilst still having the chance of landing a monster too.

 

Returning to bag limits, with an increased MLS there would be less need for these to be so draconian. A limit of 2 fish of each species per angler per day could be applied, irrespective of the length of stay in local waters. This would bring with it a requirement for the skipper to notify either Guernsey or Alderney Harbour office in advance by radio or other means prior to starting to fish each day that they are in local waters. This would not be the deterrent to anglers spending longer here as tourists that the current proposal is.

 

The two fish per day rule could, and should be applied not only to visiting charter boats but to all angling boats, including the "after-work-beer-money-fishermen" that are doing so much damage on your Boue Blondel.

 

 

Bill Walden,

Alderney States Member,

Proprietor, Bonjour Guest House, Alderney.

[AlderneyBassman]

A lot of good common sense written there Bill, well done!

[Leon Roskilly]

Latest News at:

 

http://www.anglers-net.co.uk/sacn/latest/i...=575

Edited May 15, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[maverick of Poole]

Bill

 

Good to hear some sense coming from some sectors of the CI. Your post makes the most sense I've heard in a long while, perhaps that’s because your on the pointy end whilst others are looking through funny coloured glasses.

 

Any serious sports angler would have no problem with sensible sizes and bag limits but may have a problem with the draconian ill thought out proposal on the table at the moment. Whatever decision they make needs to be seen to be fair and not favour one user of the resource over another or I'm afraid you may be right in your assumption that charters to the CI will dry up

 

Good luck

 

Martin

[Stoaty]

As an angler that goes to Alderney a couple of times a year. I cannot find anything in Bill Waldens post that I would disagree with.

 

Sensible limits like these (maybe 14 fish in 7 days is too much!) need to be backed up with strong penalties for those who break the rules. Then in the long run everyone benefits.

[Toerag]

Hi, not knowing the law over there i ask the question, are recreational fishers allowed to sell fish.

In South Australia they are not and a fine is applied if caught. If we are 1 or 2 over the limit you may get off with a warning but if the fisheries have been watching you for a while and you are caught with lots over the limit or caught for a second time then you risk losing everything you used to catch those fish,for example

car and boat and all the fishing gear in the boat. i'm not saying that this deters everybody but i do believe that the majority of recreational fishers act responsibly and stay within the size limits and bag limits.

 

 

 

In the UK it is not the captor that is licensed, it is the boat. The vast majority of full time charterboats are not licensed, so any fish caught on them may NOT be sold. Anglers on charterboats which are licensed to fish commercially may sell their fish. These boats fish commercially with gillnets, longlines etc. in winter and tend to be in ports with little or no winter charter trade ie. Scotland, Cornwall, Channel Isles and are identifiable by the registration letters painted on the side at the bow and stern eg GU144, WH737 etc.

 

The difficulty is catching someone selling their fish, it's not normally worth tailing someone from Weymouth back to Oxford or wherever they live and waiting to see if they sell their fish to the local pub/restaurant. The fish aren't sold at the quayside.

 

Even in the case where fish are caught on a licensed boat and sold legally by the punters when they get back home, most sales are not declared for tax purposes as they should be. To my knowledge, only one UK boat visiting the CI is licensed, the Weymouth bass boat 'Mojo'.

 

 

 

Bill - you say that the charter skippers look after their marks, if that's the case why do they bother steaming all the way over here? Could it be that they've fished out the marks on their side of the channel?

[Stoaty]

Bill - you say that the charter skippers look after their marks, if that's the case why do they bother steaming all the way over here? Could it be that they've fished out the marks on their side of the channel?

 

We come for a fishing holiday. We come because the fishings different. In my area it's all shallow and mud and sand. It's nice to fish along side the scenery and rocks. Isn't that what fishing is about?