Help our North East Fishermen

[sam-cox]

Sorry John but I would rarther support the Harold Shipman mamorial fund!

[steve good]

Don't really know what an environmentalists take on this would be.

 

Personally I don't know which creates the bigger ecological impact when considering the entire supply chain of fish catch to customer consumption but you may be right when you imply that the way forward is even bigger and more effective vessels, though I must admit I'd hate to be the guy with the mortgage if the fishery collapsed again.

 

From a personal point of view, I'd just sooner see some of the quota transferred, as glenk suggested, from such as the Altaire to the smaller guys.

True, but then again no form of fishing for them is.

 

Hi seaside

 

the amount of mackerel involved for these few boats is far less than what anglers collectlly catch over the weekends

 

regards steve

[Leon Roskilly]

Some correspondance that I've received in the past

 

 

"Just to put some perspective to the number of mackerel killed by commercial boats and dumped, I have a story from the late eighties.

 

I was collecting small mackerel (pike bait size) from a vessel landing into Plymouth.

 

The boat was one of the smallest bulk catchers landing most of its catch (larger mackerel) to the big processor, Interfish.

 

My small truck at the time could take about 1 tonne and the agent advised me to be on the quay mid afternoon.

 

Interfish have a fish pump system installed on the quay so the larger fish were being pumped out of the hold directly into the factory.

 

Eventually the pumps closed down and it was my turn for loading.

 

The skipper used what we call a craning net -- a huge landing net suspended of a pulley--- and dipped into the fish hold of small fish, picking up about a tonne in one lift.

 

This was then unceremoniously dropped on to my fish boxes laid out on the quay.

 

I was left to roughly equalise the fish into the boxes and load them.

 

The skipper then asked if I wanted any more?

 

I said I couldn't carry any more and in any case the tonne was as much as I could process in one go.

 

The skipper said "OK, I'll have to dump what's left."

 

He then proceeded to lift five more tonnes and about a further half tonne out of the hold and just let go back into the harbour!

 

Those fish were mostly between 20 cm and 25 cm total length. Say 90 gramme fish.

 

For ease of calculation lets call them 100 gramme fish.

 

That's 55,000 mackerel dumped by one boat on one day!

 

On other occasions, Divers in Falmouth reported dead mackerel on the sea bed up to three feet deep.

 

Trawlers reported they were unable to tow because of dead mackerel spread over miles of ground.

 

I am not saying anglers should not worry about wasting mackerel, but just bear in mind that large pelagic boats will on occasions dump literally hundreds of tonnes if the size of fish in the shoal is wrong -- that's a lot of fish!"

"Just as an aside to *****'s point (above), we were carrying out some seabed sampling in Plymouth sound back in 1999, and around the Cawsand Bay area we were getting dead (but fresh!!!) mackerel in almost every other grab (size 0.1m sq), we then put the ROV down to ground truth the benthic grab samples and the seabed was littered with dead mackerel.

 

This was confined to just the Cawsand bay area, we never saw any further mackerel in our other survey areas (Torpoint, Breakwater, Yealm Estuary, Jennycliff Bay)."

 

 

But let's not forget that there are also plenty of so-called anglers who seem to go crazy when the mackerel are in, and can't stop killing them, sometimes just leaving their catch on the beach to rot.

 

And remember too that once a mackerel has been touched, it probably won't survive, even if returned immediately to the sea to swim away strongly.

 

The sea was once thought to be inexhaustible, we are now learning that it isn't.

 

But it seems that old attitudes are hard and slow to change, even when the reality is realised.

 

And that seems to apply to many anglers as well as fishermen.

[Steve Coppolo]

I can understand some responses, and don't disagree with some reasons given.

 

Why I'm backing this call for help is that the reason comes from farther afield.

 

Please take time to see why I'm backing it, by reading HERE

 

Sorry John, but that is just more of the same old gumph we see all the time when conservation measures are proposed.

[John E Ashford]

A section taken from the local news report.

 

The problem is that most of the North Sea quota of 320 tonnes for under-10m boats has been allocated to the area north of the borders. This is because the mackerel pass the east coast of Scotland on their way down here and there is supposedly a historical claim to the fish.

 

If the East Coast of Scotland does have supposedly a historical claim to the fish, is it not time we stepped into the future and reallocate the quota !!!

 

This way more fish would make the gauntlet run, get further down the coast, giving an equal redistributed allocation ratio for the North East boat fishermen.

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thus giving the Eastern Coast English Mackerel Bashing shore lined anglers less blanking days.

[seaside]

Hi seaside

 

the amount of mackerel involved for these few boats is far less than what anglers collectlly catch over the weekends

 

regards steve

Steve - I think we're a bit out of synch - I was responding to challenges' post questioning me whether environmentalists would prefer a small fleet of 'altaire' sized boats, or a larger fleet of 'wurzel' sized boats.

 

So my response " Personally I don't know which creates the bigger ecological impact when considering the entire supply chain of fish catch to customer consumption but you may be right when you imply that the way forward is even bigger and more effective vessels, though I must admit I'd hate to be the guy with the mortgage if the fishery collapsed again." related to thet question.

 

Also as I said "From a personal point of view, I'd just sooner see some of the quota transferred, as glenk suggested, from such as the Altaire to the smaller guys" in order to maintain a traditional fishery - as long as quota was transferred and that the fishery remained traditional and the opportunists didn't just dive in.

[seaside]

John E, I'm still trying to work out your reasons for promoting this call for help. Without wishing to cause any offense why should sea anglers help?

 

I'd be interested to hear the views of any anglers on the the local SFC, they should be able to give us a realistic assessment of the issues and whether or not we should support this call.

[Sharkbyte]

Reading through the summary of responses to the Bass Consultation I found what i was looking for!

 

North Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee OPTION 1 (Do Nothing)

 

 

With that in mind they can poke their Mackerel petition.

 

 

Had they behaved in the same way as some handliners and rod and line commercials on the South Coast, by giving some consideration to the future of fish stocks, things may have been different.

Edited August 10, 2006 by Sharkbyte

[ColinW]

It seems a hundred blokes supplementing their dole money have a lot more clout than thousands of sea anglers asking for a sensible bass size limit!

 

http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/BB_News.a...in_ID=3059&

[stavey]

Sorry john no can do matey, all commercial fishermen can get stuffed as far as i am concerned, there on their own as regards any help from me, and i hope any other sea sport angler come to that.............