Moral Dilemma

[Salar]

The commercial fishermen have something called a "by-catch", i.e. fish they are not targetting but get caught anyway, for example hundreds of undersized fish caught in the prawn trawls. Inspectors come along to make sure the by-catch is not excessive, so presumably there is an "acceptable" by-catch. Anyone know the rules applying to a by-catch? Would that cover the occasional undersized fish caught by an angler?

[madmarine]

Eat it sushi style while it's still warm/cold whatever, It 's ready salted and once eaten there's no evidence.

[Bob on Stronsay]

No such moral issue up here. If its edible then eat it. Its the only reason the locals go fishing in the first place.

 

The lobster fisherman and commercial boats do measure but they have to sell it on to a dealer on the mainland but no one else does.

 

I was out on a small boat last week and we filled up a box (Standard commercial fish box) with half to one pound coalfish and pollock, they all went into fish pies or cat food. The larger pollock of three to several pounds were eaten, done in a nice crispy batter and very nice they were to.

 

Seeing as a lot of locals (I am sure) would still go out seal clubbing if they had their way, the chances of them putting a fish back into the sea are very slim indeed (Scorpian fish excepted).

 

Rabbits are shot (And eaten by people and dogs) and most ducks and geese have to watch out just before xmas.

 

We don't have a policeman or fisheries officers but we only fish/shoot/take what we need.

 

We also have no fish and chip shops or any kind of take away so if you fancy fish, you catch it, cook it and eat it. There are 300 or so of us (With only a handfull going fishing) with about eighty miles of coastline so the pressure is not the same as on the south coast.

 

If your pound and a bit bass was caught up here it would be frying away in the pan and someone might say "Whats that" and someone else might say "I don't rightly know, a fish of some kind but it smells and tastes good".

 

Bob

[red dragon]

At the local power station at Aberthaw thousands of undersize bass are taken openly by thoughtless scumbags that help themselves at this bass nursery and have no regard for bass stocks or sizes. After approaching one of these idiots who was keeping fish as small as 10" he told me the local restuarant would buy as many as he could catch. So in a long winded answer to your moral dilemma, Throw it back well into the sea so natural recycling can continue. As some have already said the law does not listen to excuses. The law isn't in place for you and your situation but it will effect you just as heavily

[nigelnibbles]

ok lets add this to the equation. so what would happen if a member of the royal family were caught with an undersize bass, would they get the same £3000 fine???? food for thought

[chesters1]

it wouldnt be a member of the royal family ,it would be ones servent or gilly or whatever maybe they have a undersized fish footman for the job

[Davy Holt]

Hiya,

 

It would have to be A.

 

If it's back in the water there is a chance it will survive, no matter how bad it looks. On dry land it has no chance!

 

There is proof from tagging programmes that fish released, even though their captor thought it would die, have infact made a full recovey and have been re captured.

[Gillies]

I would go for © ... so at least the fish has not died and gone to waste. Kind of an insult to the poor wee fish I think if you kill it and leave it to the flying rats (aka Sea Gulls) or return it to the sea to die in misery ... and end up belly up on the surface.

 

If throwing back, I would say make sure its out of its missery and make sure its sinks to bottom so hopefully another fish can eat it and the natural lifecycle continues.

 

On a small fish that size if the hook is that far down, the hook has undoubtbly done so much damage to its vital organs, your aswell to put it out of its misery I would say. On a bigger species of fish such as the common skate or tope, due to biological structure etc of the fish and hook sizes normaly used when targeting them species. The damage is more often minimal and I'm sure it will survive another day as the hook has not damaged anything vital inside.

 

Thats what I think anyway, I may be wrong.

 

Gillies

 

PS: The royals could probably kill a thousand undersize fish and get away with it!!!!!!

[spasor]

What`s the problem?

If the fish is undersize? You put it back!! Even when I bring a fish up from the depths with a blown swim bladder. The answer is always the same. Prick the bladder and put it back!! Fish have a much better constitution than us humans?

At the expense of a load more abuse. Are all the members of this group that said `eat it` incapable of catching an `in size` fish?

I won`t keep a bass under 4lbs!! A cod is still a codling `till it reaches 8lb!! Even a whiting has to reach 2lb to be acceptable?

With all your ready acceptance to sign another persons petition. I sometimes wonder how many sea anglers are on this forum?

Surely we fish for the sport? Little fish should go straight back. Injured or otherwise?

After all. You all carry a list of size limits? If not. Why not. The list of sizes for all local areas is included in the NFSA diary!!

WHAT???????? You`re not a member?

Then stop whingeing about the state of our fishing. You`re the equivalent of the guy that walks into the pub on `New Year` and complains about the beer. When all the other customers have been happy to drink the pub dry over the past year?

With no appologies whatsoever!!

Paul.

[Leon Roskilly]

Salar:

The commercial fishermen have something called a "by-catch", i.e. fish they are not targetting but get caught anyway, for example hundreds of undersized fish caught in the prawn trawls. Inspectors come along to make sure the by-catch is not excessive, so presumably there is an "acceptable" by-catch. Anyone know the rules applying to a by-catch? Would that cover the occasional undersized fish caught by an angler?

'Bycatch' is of two distinct types - species and size.

 

A fisherman often cannot determine the species that ends up in the cod-end, especially where different species shoal together.

 

In acknowledgment of this, where they are allowed to use a type of gear targetted at one species, but find that part of their total catch contains other species, they are allowed to land a percentage of bycatch to target species. They can be prosecuted if the bycatch percentage landed is too high. Any additional bycatch cannot be retained for landing and has to be dumped. This acknowledges the problem, but is meant to deter cynical targetting of the bycatch species (though market forces can create situations where the allowable bycatch is worth more that the targetted catch. It's not unknown for fishermen to catch their bycatch, then go to fish for enough of the target species to legitimise it. There's a risk that they will get caught at sea, but their landings will seem to be lawful).

 

Bycatch of any species below it's minimum landing size (MLS) is not allowed, it all has to be dumped.

 

Very often fish will shoal in year groups, the juveniles in different places to the adults.

 

The draconian regs on MLS are designed to ensure that skippers do not cynically exploit bycatch of species below their MLS.

 

However, where different year groups do shoal together (cod, haddock etc), the commercials do go after the shoals, and often dump more than half of their catch, retaining only the legal sized fish, and to hell with tomorrow's catch!! 'If I don't do it someone else will!' mentality.

 

There's a huge debate about dumped bycatch and how to deal with it differently. No easy answers.

 

Recent scientific evidence shows that fish species that are (over)exploited in this fashion (eg leave the little ones, retain the big ones) respond evolutionary by reducing the mean size of adult individuals. The fish become smaller!

 

The industry was sanguine about that, believing that the tonnage would remain constant - but that does not now appear to be the case. Productivity of a fishery is reduced as the size of the fish reduces. This effect is apparent within 4 or 5 generations.

 

There is also concern about the reduction in genetic diversity within a species, when adults are efficiently targeted. The number of spawning size fished, carrying genetic diversity becomes a tiny proportion of the actual numbers. Loss of genetic diversity diminishes the species ability to respond to environmental change (such as global warming!) and may be a factor in why some fisheries never recover once overfished.

 

What would seem to be a better option is to have 'slot' limits (as in the USA). You put back the small fish that haven't yet spawned, and return the big fish that have proven to carry the genes that program them for survival.

 

Tight Lines - leon

Sea Anglers' Conservation Network

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/sacn

 

[ 21. October 2002, 07:50 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]