Cod crisis? What cod crisis?

[mr motorola]

An absolute fantastic read leon,

 

i can see from your research into the subject that you definately know what you're on about..(an erudite man indeed)

 

but can i put this to you, how up to date is the info that is supplied and is the information supplied put together by researchers out in the field or pen pushers in an office somewhere??

 

i am mad about fishing and regularly scour the net and magazines and such forth for sea fishing information (mainly cod fishing) and as an example i have come accross one article about fishing in Norway

 

http://www.catch-the-action.co.uk/Sea-Fish...rth-norway.aspx

 

now don't get me wrong (i'm not naive) the brochure will always promote their product as would anyone , but the commercials are landing 80 / 90 / 100 pound cod and are set to break the world record for a cod caught on a rod and line shortly.

So surely Scandinavia is not suffering the brunt as we are (maybe i'm wrong) and i do understand that the waters up there are heavily policed and protected , but surely if we are all sharing the same sea then we shouldn't be suffering like we are?

 

anyway what i am trying to say is ,

 

is it a matter that the cod have simply moved further afield due to climate change??

 

This could explain why the south of our island have suffered before the north of the island have.

 

This could also explain the drop in spawning stock biomass due to the fish moving further north

 

i'm sure you will correct me on some of the information leon and look forward to hearing your views

 

 

kind regards Carl

[seaside]

Thanks Leon.It has always frustrated me how the problem has never been recognised.When it was all starting to fall apart in my area particularly the magazines neither acknowledged or denied the problem it seemed like the entire sea angling world just stuck their heads in the sand er or more acurately perhaps the shingle!

 

These days when I talk to local young sea anglers about the cod fishing in the 70's and 80's they just look at me like Im stupid..........................................................................

.........................just like I did the old boys when they told me about the 50's and 60's.

 

Can the inshore fishing ever return to what it was? I really dont believe I will ever see it.

That was also the case for the Clyde area - great cod fishing until 1988 then it died, primarily (according to industry sources) due to overfishing.

 

The stocks haven't recovered and the latest advice on west of Scotland cod stocks, handed out at a meeting of all inshore fisheries stakeholders, is that "they are at an even worse state than other cod stocks ...... it is safe to assume that the bio-mass has continued to decline from a very low level, without let up, and the fishing mortality has been maintained at a very high level and probably continues to climb"

 

Unfortunately, as far as cod goes, offshore west of Scotland appears to be in no better state than inshore.

Edited October 10, 2006 by seaside

[Leon Roskilly]

Hi Carl,

 

Fish populations are constantly being surveyed on the ground, and of late that has meant taking informationfrom fishing vessels as well.

 

And landings are constantly monitored.

 

All the latest information is fed into computer models which draw maps, create graphs etc., and scientists try to extrapolate what is likely to happen in future by running those models under different sets of future circumstances (ie different levels of fishing, discards, temperatrure changes etc)

 

The models used are 'truth-tested' using information from the past to see if the models predict what actually happened, and so the scientists have a fair degree of confidence that their forecasts are accurate.

 

But unless you count every fish, everwhere, there will always be some doubt.

 

(Someone once said, "Counting fish is exactly the same as counting trees, except that you can't see them and they move about!")

 

But new sonar is giving survey vessels a much more accurate picture of what is moving about down there than was possible even in the recent past, and fish tagged with data-tags are providing far greater information about where fish go, where they spend their time, depth, water temperature and how the fish react to that etc.

 

 

The Continuous Plankton Survey, and new research to monitor who is eating who, satellite temperature maps etc are all increasing our knowledge of cod and their environment to a point unimaginable even 5 years ago.

 

So, yes, those doing the science have up to date information, often up to the minute information, and are able to feed the information as it arrives into their systems to not only see what is happening, but what is likely to happen in response to that.

 

(What I find frustrating is that so much of the information is not readily available in a form that can be digested by the rest of us, especially the politicians and managers, but is buried away in papers and data swapped between scientists who seem to think that just creating the information will lead to change, whereas they don't realise that they themselves are the only ones who can really understand what the information is saying, and should be the ones pressing for change).

 

(I should also say that I'm just an angler with no higher education, and in no way am I an expert in fisheries science or marine-biology etc)

 

 

The thing to remember is that North Sea cod is not a single population, but there are distinct populations which mix together at certain times of the year.

 

Each population has it's own home range.

 

If a sub-population is depleted, or even collapses, it is not a foregone that cod from other areas will re-populate the depleted areas.

 

That will only happen when a sub-population explodes in numbers in it's own home range, so that there is insufficient resources within the home range to maintain the growing population, so they are forced out into other areas where there are surplus resources that can accomodate them.

 

In the present circumstances, even where the fisheries are being managed well and there is a good abundance of fish, those fish will stay in their home range.

 

So if we fish out a sub-population in the North East, we cannot look to a well managed cod fishery in Norway coming to the rescue of our own fishing.

 

If a sub-population is being overfished, even collapses, they are gone.

 

Even though another area has a healthy population.

 

 

(An example is the cod sub stock in the South West, which is healthy enough, though not great. If cod were leaving the southern North Sea purely because because of rising temperatures, you would expect the SW population, that has no problem with a higher water temperature, to either move further north itself, or to extend its range into the areas largely vacated by southern North Sea cod. But the don't. They stay in their home range in the South West).

 

 

The other thing that we need to consider when we talk of Spawning Stock Biomass, and which doesn't seem to be taken into account by the models, is the 'quality' of that SSB.

 

ie 1,000 tonne of cod SSB back when we had an SSB of some 250,000 tonne in the N.sea was comprised of a population with a very different structure to today.

 

Lots of big veteran spawners (older fish carry more spawn, and their fry are much better at surviviving), and a natural ratio of male/female fish. Cod matured later and grew larger (constantly taking out larger fish causes a genetic shift in the population leading to fish maturing earlier and not growing so big. Because there were plenty of large veteren spawners, there was a greater genetic diversity in the population, which means that the population could adapt more readily to changing environmental conditions.

 

What we have now is an SSB that is:

 

- Comprised mainly of fewer, and earlier spawners

 

- Smaller fish that do not predate so effectively on the species that predate upon cod eggs and cod fry.

 

- A distorted male/female ratio (females are usually larger than males so fishing to a small mls means that females are removed from the population in greater numbers and at an earlier age than their smaller male brethren).

 

- a weakened genetic pool, with fewer fish contributing to even very successful spawnings.

 

So that 40,000 SSB is quite inferior to the cod SSB of past years, and is unable to fuel recovery as well as a similar SSB would have been able to manage in the past.

 

That's among the reasons why it is so important not to allow the stock to collapse.

 

It won't simply bounce back, as it was thought would happen in the past.

 

Those who put their faith in the belief that 'cod breed like rats' are not understanding the true compexity of the situation.

 

As many who are still waiting for the collapsed cod stocks of the Grand Banks to recover are discovering.

[big_cod]

would the people involved with this forum debate be in agreement that the cod crisis is limited to inshore waters?

 

David not carl, so what you are saying is cod fishing inshore is crap if that is right what carl your nefew told a friend of mine and you know who that is who is another skipper that he had 3 stone of fillets on his trip with you, now when he came with me last october on a 10 hr trip he would have very similar if not more but carl and harry they stopped fishing at 11am and said they caught more than enough and that was at 16 miles like i have said many times on this forum there is still some excellent cod fishing here at whitby at no great distance from the shore if you know where to look david.

 

PS printed a couple of posts off to show the other skippers tonight as we have a meeting it will make great reading.

Edited October 10, 2006 by big_cod

[WALCOTT]

I think MR Motorola that there is fishing for inshore and the offshore option..we are talking about the same type of fishing (COD)..one you go for the day and the other you know and it will not be guarnteed to catch...it also depends how the person fishes aswell...you cant say going on a long trip will fill the boxes..I have had some lovely fish (COD) just 20ml from Southwold...I don't think you caught a Cod that was big enough to photo on the last trip...it's a good job that all your mates filled them boxes with prime fillets of cod.....local charter boats need all the support they can get..ie the local fishing people...it's the b......d gov and councils what hurt them...coming from a small village I look at it this way...when you pull up to board Chieftian(thats all I know)..parking..you would think there was a option for people to park etc..no the chaps out there with his ticket book...cheers to all

[glennk]

No worries at the moment Graham its well known in Whitby that we dont have a traffic warden at all. I'm surprised the last guy ticketed you there as the last warden was fairly leanient (I speak in relative terms as the last 2 before that were right b*******). That area of town is very tight though with lots of traffic around the bridge area and a bit of a bottleneck at the exact area you talk of with the taxi rank and disabled parking bays. Its a shame you had a negative experience but parking here is at a premium mate and the locals feel just as hard done by as the visitors - about time we had park and ride and residents parking schemes.

[Guest challenge]

David not carl, so what you are saying is cod fishing inshore is crap if that is right what carl your nefew told a friend of mine and you know who that is who is another skipper that he had 3 stone of fillets on his trip with you, now when he came with me last october on a 10 hr trip he would have very similar if not more but carl and harry they stopped fishing at 11am and said they caught more than enough and that was at 16 miles like i have said many times on this forum there is still some excellent cod fishing here at whitby at no great distance from the shore if you know where to look david.

 

PS printed a couple of posts off to show the other skippers tonight as we have a meeting it will make great reading.

Surely this man was only passing on his opinions? For you to edit his posts and take those to a meeting of a boatman’s association is out of order.

What are you trying to do? Get him black listed from association boats?

Motorola like all on here is surely allowed his opinion on how he finds the cod fishing situation today? He did not attack you or any other inshore boat.

He did not say you where a “conman giving Whitby a bad name” and encouraging other members of this forum “to spread the word.”

Remember Paul?

He is only one of thousands who fish with us, WALLCOTT is another, and he has totally different opinions.

Personally if I had the money and time I would do my cod fishing in Norway.

Regards.

[Newt]

Surely this man was only passing on his opinions? For you to edit his posts and take those to a meeting of a boatman's association is out of order.

What are you trying to do? Get him black listed from association boats?

 

Postings on public forums are so public challenge. Once you've written a thing on here, it is not your property.

 

Basic common sense says if you don't want your opinions spread around, don't post them.

[mr motorola]

David not carl, so what you are saying is cod fishing inshore is crap if that is right what carl your nefew told a friend of mine and you know who that is who is another skipper that he had 3 stone of fillets on his trip with you, now when he came with me last october on a 10 hr trip he would have very similar if not more but carl and harry they stopped fishing at 11am and said they caught more than enough and that was at 16 miles like i have said many times on this forum there is still some excellent cod fishing here at whitby at no great distance from the shore if you know where to look david.

 

PS printed a couple of posts off to show the other skippers tonight as we have a meeting it will make great reading.

hello Paul

well where do i start with your reply?

 

for 1 ..my name isn't David its CARL

 

2... I HAVE NEVER EVER SAID THAT INSHORE FISHING IS CRAP !!!!!!

 

and i will never say that to anyone i speak to , be it on a forum or face to face . plainly due to the fact that i don't believe that fishing inside is crap!!!

 

if you want to interpret what i say is that, then feel free to believe it ,(BUT IT ISNT TRUE)

 

all i was doing was simply basing my fishing from the port as to what i believe i have seen over the past 20 years of fishing from it!!!

 

Yes i was on the fishing trip you are questioning , (as you know we usually fish with stuart but couldn't get with him as his boat was out of the water REMEMBER?)

and yes it was good fishing indeed , and yes we did say we had caught enough and to take us back in . And we did commend you on finding us all that fish WELL DONE !!!!!

 

What i was saying in my post was that the fishing (inside ) has dropped off QUALITY WISE from 10 / 20 years ago .

 

WOULD YOU AGREE??

 

And i would also like to mention that if you have done as you said you were going to do....printing my posts and showing them to fellow skippers then fine (but make sure they are my posts and havn't been edited)....would they agree with the fishing from inside dropping off from 10 / 20 years ago ( WHICH BY THE WAY ) is what my previous previous post was in referal to.

 

If i and others are scolded for , what i can only think of as (speaking their mind) then so be it , and if i may be snubbed or turned away by some of the skippers for a day out fishing from your port then fine.

 

i will take my hard earned money elsewhere to people who appreciate and enjoy taking anglers out for a short holiday and the chance of catching some fish.

 

I know that you fish yourself whilst with a charter, so you must enjoy it as much as i do if not more!!

 

but remember BIG COD as i know myself being self employed is,

 

if you look after your customers then they will always come back to you !!!!!!!!

 

What i feel right now towards the people i know from your port is , why all this bitchiness over fish?

 

i fully understand that it is your life , it's what put's food on the table , but why try to intimidate an innocent angler for what his thoughts are?

 

i wish you all the best for the future and hope it picks up , lets get back to the good old days of fishing!!!!!

 

AND ONCE MORE JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

 

my name is CARL

 

and i never ever said that fishing inside is CRAP!!

 

KIND REGARDS Carl

Edited October 10, 2006 by mr motorola

[Newt]

What i feel right now towards the people i know from your port is , why all this bitchiness over fish?

 

Carl - I have wondered somewhat the same thing and have about concluded there is something in the air or water supply or similar.

 

Hopefully if your posts are going to be printed and taken to a meeting, this last one will be included.