BBC's Trawlermen

[corydoras]

Why not manage the sea the same way as farmers manage farms? A wise farmer does not plant the same field year after year with the same crop, he rotates his crops and leaves some of his land fallow. Why not divide the sea up into 'fields' and designate some areas as 'fallow' where fishing is banned for a period of years. Of course this would need to be policed. Each maritime member of the EU could take there turn at policing the fallow areas. Any fishing vessel found fishing in a fallow field gets an exocet up its flue.

[Guest challenge]

Why not manage the sea the same way as farmers manage farms? A wise farmer does not plant the same field year after year with the same crop, he rotates his crops and leaves some of his land fallow. Why not divide the sea up into 'fields' and designate some areas as 'fallow' where fishing is banned for a period of years. Of course this would need to be policed. Each maritime member of the EU could take there turn at policing the fallow areas. Any fishing vessel found fishing in a fallow field gets an exocet up its flue.

Very good point corydoras.

Sounds good to me, are you going to explain it to the fish or should I?

[corydoras]

Very good point corydoras.

Sounds good to me, are you going to explain it to the fish or should I?

Sorry you've lost me now?

[JB]

I get my fuel at the same discounted price as the local trawlers because I take similar volumes - although not quite as often, thank goodness. Many other boats taking smaller amounts of fuel pay more.

 

Looking at our records over the years, this is what we were paying for our fuel at this particular time of each season:

Price of red diesel 25/07/02 £0.1620/ litre.

Price of red diesel 24/07/03 £0.1795/ litre.

Price of red diesel 22/07/04 £0.2275/ litre.

Price of red diesel 28/07/05 £0.3395/ litre.

Price of red diesel 27/07/06 £0.4045/ litre.

 

Incidentally, our trip prices have not increased since 1st July 2001. To date, we are still absorbing the increase in fuel costs ourselves.

 

JB

[Holmesy]

Why not manage the sea the same way as farmers manage farms? A wise farmer does not plant the same field year after year with the same crop, he rotates his crops and leaves some of his land fallow. Why not divide the sea up into 'fields' and designate some areas as 'fallow' where fishing is banned for a period of years. Of course this would need to be policed. Each maritime member of the EU could take there turn at policing the fallow areas. Any fishing vessel found fishing in a fallow field gets an exocet up its flue.

 

Farmers plant 2 or 3 crops a year in the same feld, there's no such thing as "fallow" or"set aside" unless the farmers are paid to do it. We should pay fishermen not o fish ? I thin we should remove all subsidies and let the market settle who's succesful and who isn't. We should also count bycatch against a boats quota, the succesful boats would be those that didn't land "chat" fish, the unsuccesful ones would die off. The market is the only thing that can save fish stocks. And by the way, farmers drive on the public highways, its how they get from field to field, come to Norfolk or Lincs and see how far you get before your stuck behind a tractor.

[A Norfolk Boy]

let the market settle who's succesful and who isn't. We should also count bycatch against a boats quota, the succesful boats would be those that didn't land "chat" fish, the unsuccesful ones would die off. The market is the only thing that can save fish stocks.

 

Interesting. Very interesting.

[seaside]

I was looking at a couple of prawn trawls on the quay at home the other day as some lads where repairing them. You find it hard to believe that they catch round fish. They only stand a few inches from bottom rope to head line. But this programme proved that they still do catch fish.

Did you notice that one boat was more or less having clean hauls of prawns yet the other was getting a lot of by catch? Both boats working more or less the same area? With more or less the same nets?

 

The last figures for bycatch that I have for the Clyde are for 1998 and show

 

Tons

4107 --------------------- Prawns landed

845 --------------------- Prawn discards

1886 --------------------- Fish discards - mean length 19cm

554 ---------------------- Fish landed

 

Over a 17 year period the average discard ratio was around 70% equal to around 1750 tons/yr.

 

Discarded fish were in the main Whiting present in 100% of haul samples down through Dab, Hake, Pout, to Plaice, present in more then 70% of hauls. Mortality rates of the discards are said to be between 20 and 30%.

[corydoras]

Farmers plant 2 or 3 crops a year in the same feld, there's no such thing as "fallow" or"set aside" unless the farmers are paid to do it. We should pay fishermen not o fish ? I thin we should remove all subsidies and let the market settle who's succesful and who isn't. We should also count bycatch against a boats quota, the succesful boats would be those that didn't land "chat" fish, the unsuccesful ones would die off. The market is the only thing that can save fish stocks. And by the way, farmers drive on the public highways, its how they get from field to field, come to Norfolk or Lincs and see how far you get before your stuck behind a tractor.

So now your a bleedin' expert on farming as well as fisheries policy! Vous et vraiment emmerdant. Set aside and fallow are two different things. Set aside was a naff EU policy that paid farmers for not growing anything. Crop rotation means growing a different crop on a field each year, and occasionally leaving a field fallow for a year. Leaving a field fallow can mean either growing nothing on it or growing a green manure on it. Traditionally this would be clover, and would either be ploughed back in or one would let cattle or sheep graze on it.

 

If you read my post I did not mention anything about paying fishermen not to fish, just that we designate areas where fishing is not allowed and rotate them from time to time. Of course I unlike you don't have a PhD in Fisheries Management, but it seems like something worth thinking about.

 

Yes farmers are allowed to burn red diesel on the roads to get from field to field. What do think they would do? Have two fuel tanks?. What they are not allowed to do (although I am sure that they are many who do) is to fill there cars with red diesel.

 

Educate me, what are the three crops that you can grow on the same field in the same year?

 

The quota system needs to be totally changed. It leads to silly situations where fore example, a boat has used up all its cod quota, but still has a quota for cod roe. So the skipper goes out catches a big load of cod, takes the roe because he has a quota for that and dumps the cod over the side. He can't land it as he is over quota.

Edited August 3, 2006 by corydoras

[Leon Roskilly]

http://www.cefas.co.uk/Publications/techrep/tech134.pdf

 

 

Summary

 

This report summarises marine fishing activities during

2004 by commercial fishing vessels ≥ 10m LOA registered

in England and Wales, as seen by the Cefas sea-going

observer team of 8 based at Lowestoft, Scarborough,

Whitehaven, Weymouth and Newlyn.

 

The report was

prepared for two reasons: (1) to pass on knowledge about

fishing learned at sea during 2004 to others associated

with, or interested in the fishing industry, and (2) to assist

planning of the Cefas catch sampling programme in future.

 

Because Cefas observers were restricted for practical

reasons to vessels ≥ 10m LOA during 2004, the focus of

this report is on that sector, even though there were many

smaller vessels (< 10 m LOA) operating around our coasts.

 

The observers’ main task was to monitor discarding and

retention of fish in accordance with the Data Collection

regulation 1639/2001 of the European Commission, as

well as associated fishing effort at sea.

 

The fisheries were

split into 6 regions: the NE of England, the East, the SE,

the SW and S Wales, N Wales and the NW, and the ‘NE

Atlantic’ relating to English and Welsh vessels operating

overseas. Each regional section gives background on the

main fishing ports and markets in the region, the main

types of fishing in 2004, officially recorded fishing effort

and landings, fishing activities in terms of days absent (at

sea) by port and by individual vessel, as well as comments

by the observers on perceived influences on fishing.

 

There

is then a summary of the activities of, and results from the

observer programme, fishing industry views, and other

technical points learned relating to fishing or fish biology.

 

Official Defra statistics imply that fishing effort by

English and Welsh vessels ≥ 10m LOA declined in most

regions and in most gear categories in 2004 relative to

2003.

 

Part-time or virtually inactive boats occurred in many

fishing ports.

 

On the other hand, landings of many species

remained similar or increased slightly, suggesting that

some species were being fished more efficiently in terms

of landings per unit of effort. In some cases, fishers varied

their target species because of a down-turn in the species

they usually fished.

 

Cefas observers achieved a reasonably even coverage

of much of the English and Welsh fishing fleet ≥ 10m

LOA, including vessels operating overseas, during 2004.

 

Roughly 0.5% of trips made were observed for many,

but not all gear categories in the 6 sampling regions.

 

Discarding was observed to be highly variable during 2004,

as usual, with more than 50% discarding of the catch (in

terms of numbers of fish) being commonly observed for

a few commercial species.

 

Discarding was seen to vary

with gear type from place to place, and is known to vary

with other factors, e.g. the varying occurrences of fish,

different fishing and catch processing methods, and due

to damage occurring during fishing.

 

The report makes an

assessment of the contributions of vessels < 10 m LOA

to total landings and effort by the fishing fleets in the 5

coastal sampling regions, and finds that the < 10m vessels

were often more significant than vessels ≥ 10 m LOA.

 

 

 

8. Discussion

 

.........For the time-being we know from the results in this

report that discarding of several important commercial

species, including some whose stocks are low, can

frequently exceed 50% of those caught.

 

Trawling in

various ways, being efficient but poorly selective, is

responsible for most of this discarding.

 

The observer

programme offers an informal communication channel

with the industry having the potential to assist the design

of management measures for reduction of discarding in

ways that can be acceptable or even welcomed by the

majority in the industry.

 

In general, fishers do not like to

catch and discard fish that are of no economic value, cause

extra work on deck, and cannot contribute to future growth

of the stock because they are dead.

 

This report for 2004 indicates that marine fishing by E &

W registered vessels ≥ 10 m LOA was generally in decline.

 

Fishing effort decreased in many gear categories and in

most regions.

 

There appeared to be many vessels tied up

for much of the year.

 

Exceptions, in the sense of slight

increases in effort in a few gear categories, occurred in the

SW, Northern Ireland, and Spain.

 

Despite this, landings did

not show consistent trends downwards in comparison with

2003, suggesting that landings per unit of effort increased

somewhat and that fishing for several species therefore

became slightly more efficient in 2004.

 

The targeting of

different species was common practice when fishing on

the usual species became less productive, as was the use

of different gears at different times of year.

 

Another result from this report is that vessels < 10m

LOA were an important component of regional fishing fleets

in 2004, in several cases more important than the vessels

≥ 10 m LOA.[/b

 

In 2005, Cefas was trialling ‘self-sampling’

programmes that would encourage skippers to sample

and report on their own discarding practices.

 

This could

help reduce the practical problems associated with putting

observers on small vessels although it cannot provide the

same level of scientific verification for the data.

 

Cefas observers achieved sampling rates of between

0.5 and 1% of fishing trips made by vessels ≥ 10 m LOA in

many gear categories and in most sampling regions.

 

This

fairly even coverage implies that our observer resources

were spread out reasonably well to obtain maximum

information about the fisheries, a significant achievement

given the practical difficulties of arranging and meeting

fishing trips for observation - with poor weather, lack

of fishing, mechanical or crew problems causing many

postponements and cancellations.

 

Nevertheless, some

gear categories did escape observation; we hope to

remedy this in future years.

Edited August 3, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[Steve Coppolo]

Why not manage the sea the same way as farmers manage farms? A wise farmer does not plant the same field year after year with the same crop, he rotates his crops and leaves some of his land fallow. Why not divide the sea up into 'fields' and designate some areas as 'fallow' where fishing is banned for a period of years. Of course this would need to be policed. Each maritime member of the EU could take there turn at policing the fallow areas. Any fishing vessel found fishing in a fallow field gets an exocet up its flue.

 

Trouble is, fish move around and crops don't.