Gimme a B! Gimme an A! Gimme a double SS!

[kishkash]

Top couple of days in the water up here lads. Hope some of you have been able to take advantage of the weather.

 

The bass and macks have started to take the plugs and seem to be very hungry at the moment - they seem to have arrived over night as we have been nearly every day over the past few weeks.

 

A friend in croyde scored big on wednesday on his paddle board so we new we were close to the booty.

 

My best mans (getting married tomorrow) bass had a whole crabs claw in its belly and a squid tube - nice!

 

pictures here:

 

http://www.myfishingkayak.co.uk/

 

cheers

[YakDiver]

nice photos

makes me quite envious

[spuds]

Great pics,Well done.Did you catch them by trolling or spinning?

Where did you launch from.

Regards Spuds

[Zzippy]

Some nice scenic pics there.A couple of nice bass too.

But what was the second pic?...The livebait you were useing?

[paintfly]

Top couple of days in the water up here lads. Hope some of you have been able to take advantage of the weather.

 

The bass and macks have started to take the plugs and seem to be very hungry at the moment - they seem to have arrived over night as we have been nearly every day over the past few weeks.

 

A friend in croyde scored big on wednesday on his paddle board so we new we were close to the booty.

 

My best mans (getting married tomorrow) bass had a whole crabs claw in its belly and a squid tube - nice!

 

pictures here:

 

http://www.myfishingkayak.co.uk/

 

cheers

 

Nice fish kishkash. That definitely has me straining at the leash now. What bait were you using? That looks like a good launch, is that Croyde?

Oh and congrats and best wishes for today.

[Norfolkdan]

What's a bassss?

 

Nice catch, well done.

[kishkash]

Hi chaps

 

(good call norfolk)

 

The launch was Putsborough and all caught on a combination of floating divers and sandeel imitations.

 

Heard some horrible news form a friend over the weekend about one of our local reefs. Two guys were netting and took a shed load of bass - they were caught/shopped and prosecuted but had still taken the fish.

 

Friend said it hasnt been the same since.

[paintfly]

Hi chaps

 

(good call norfolk)

 

The launch was Putsborough and all caught on a combination of floating divers and sandeel imitations.

 

Heard some horrible news form a friend over the weekend about one of our local reefs. Two guys were netting and took a shed load of bass - they were caught/shopped and prosecuted but had still taken the fish.

 

Friend said it hasnt been the same since.

 

Sadly, I'm sure this is happening all along our coasts, as we speak.

[Simon Everett]

Kishkash,

you have now discovered first hand why you need to conserve the bass you catch - they are very localised in populations.

 

If your reef has been netted don't expect numbers to come back for some time (unless you are lucky and the netters only got the first returners).

 

Bass are very territorial and the population is very localised. We have one fish that has been caught 5 times now over a period of 4 years - she is tagged that is how we know it is the same fish. EVERY time she has been caught in the same 50 yards stretch of coast.....!

 

From the tagging studies we also know that bass stay closer inshore to breed now than historically - the local commercials know this and target the spawning shoals off Hartland and the other N. Devon points around the Torridge estaury. They already know the spawning grounds and are sytematically wiping out the bass population there - which is why over the last 10 years the average size of bass caught has been going down and down - they are very slow growing.

 

That fish of yours in the sink is about a 4lber I would guess and is exactly the right size fish to take for the table, but show restraint and only take fish of this size DEFINITELY DO NOT TAKE ANY FISH BIGGER THAN 5lbs because it is always a female. Taking ONE femal over 6lbs is the same as taking 40 females of 2lbs - because of the damage you are doing to the population and breeding possibility.

 

That 4lber of yours is about 8 years old - which means to replace it will take 8 years - and in 8 years a lot of fish get caught.......a 10lb fish is closer to 25 years old - which means to grow a new one takes TWENTY FIVE YEARS. Imagine the damage a netful of 8lb - 10lb females does to the overall stocks....

 

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that as an angler the few you take does no damage either - because it does have an impact, not as much as acommercial, but impact nonetheless.

 

The small one in your pictures should definitely have been returned - to have the least impact on YOUR STOCKS you need to educate as many of your fishing friends as possible - and get them to educate their friends too - taking fish of 3lbs - 5lbs only has the least impact on the future stocks - and as these are your fish, not ours whether you heed this or not has no impact on me because the fish off N. Wales are a different populaion to yours....

 

Great fishing area you have, lovely scenery around there - and tope too if you go after them. Read the tope thread and see what you could be fishing for aswell as the bass - Bude to Ilfracombe has a good population of decent sized tope!

 

Good luck to you - but please do your bit to try and conserve the stocks. Bad news about the netters - good that they have got caught. Any chance of you finding out what the punishment was and telling us? I bet they got no more than a £500 fine and confiscation of their tackle and boat - an old dinghy worth about £500 too. If so, their fine is equivalent to ONE nights haul.......they will be back with anther boat and net within a couple of weeks - so kep your eyes open and report them (or any others) if you can.....There are areas where the bass have been completely wiped out by netters - it takes years for them to come back.

[Moonyaker]

well put.

 

My first post on here , (being naieve) was on the subject of Gill Nets.

 

The thread got very heated very quickly. A gill netter was getting upset about peoples attitudes to gill nets. When I tried to find the thread a day later it had dissappeared and must have been removed by the Moderators.

 

The point I wish to make is that these pages do get read by the netters who are damaging the bass stocks, as well as the Conservation minded who we are happy to share our good fortune and fishermans tales with. Thus, unfortunately, we do need to be careful in our posts not to give away information that could also be useful to those that do not share the same views on such matters.

 

I know...yawn! yawn!