Cod crisis? What cod crisis?

[Guest challenge]

On and on it goes but noone willing to do anything. No point in this conversation here.

 

There is up to date research very specific to this fishery from 2003-2005 off our coast. It is pretty easy to locate on the cefas website. Discards are suggested as high and the fishery as being of a juvenile stock - what more info do you need. Im afraid at the moment this isnt significant in the minds of the eu or Defra - debating it here wont begin to make it so.

Would this not be a good opportunity to try and get some dialogue going between commercial and recreational fishermen in our area?

If we have some common goals then surely this would be a good foundation for negotiations in the future?

[mr motorola]

Would this not be a good opportunity to try and get some dialogue going between commercial and recreational fishermen in our area?

If we have some common goals then surely this would be a good foundation for negotiations in the future?

not being nosey , but , it sounds like a good idea

[clem]

On and on it goes but noone willing to do anything. No point in this conversation here.

 

There is up to date research very specific to this fishery from 2003-2005 off our coast. It is pretty easy to locate on the cefas website. Discards are suggested as high and the fishery as being of a juvenile stock - what more info do you need. Im afraid at the moment this isnt significant in the minds of the eu or Defra - debating it here wont begin to make it so.

You are right Glenn I thought It was being officially brought up with MPs or something ;any way this has come up again and its small news to the powers so at least these dittos will be here for ever and we will be vindicated (or not).

[mr motorola]

not being nosey , but , it sounds like a good idea

p.s. how did the filming on the boat for HEARTBEAT go???

did you have to put any make-up on?

[mr motorola]

another foto of those fillets we got (lol senior)

 

i've put the wrong god damn photo on sorry guys for the sickening sight

Edited October 7, 2006 by mr motorola

[JB]

The ‘spawny’ fishery.

 

Much has been said on the forum about the ‘spawny’ fishery, or ‘spawny’ fishing, which goes on in the latter part of the year off the north Yorkshire coast. So I thought that it might be of interest to some of you to understand how it came about, what went on in the past, and what possibly goes on now.

 

Inshore trawling started on the Yorkshire Coast in the early sixties. The industry grew very quickly, due to our government’s large amounts of financial encouragement for fishermen to get into trawling. Consequently, by the late sixties, there were approximately ninety boats trawling out of the ports of Bridlington, Scarborough and Whitby.

 

As they have probably done for thousands of years, the herrings moved down the east coast and arrived off the Yorkshire coast to spawn in the latter part of the year - usually from August onwards. They don’t always spawn in exactly the same place. I have known them to spawn from off Redcar to off Scarborough, but off Whitby seems to be a favoured place.

 

Because the herrings were settled for a while in an area, and full of spawn, they were slower swimming and an easy target for the cod. So the cod gathered in great numbers and gorged themselves on the herrings. These were not large cod, as you would imagine, but were mostly medium-sized fish - fish in the six to twelve pound bracket. These gorged, slow-moving cod were an easy target for the developing inshore trawling industry, and this time of year became financially important for them. I took part in many seasons of this fishery and saw many good hauls of cod.

 

Fishing for cod at this time of year was a daytime fishery. The boats went into harbour at night because the herrings came to the surface at night and the cod followed them. If you fished at night, you would mostly catch the then-plentiful haddocks which had moved in to feed on the herring spawn after most of the cod had left the bottom.

 

During all my time spawny fishing I saw very few small codlings at all, even though when I started fishing the legal mesh size was seventy millimetres. The reason for this is simple: cod are cannibalistic and you rarely get very small cod when there are large numbers of bigger fish around.

 

So that’s how it started; and it continued like that for many years. Alas, nowadays there is nowhere near the amount of the size of cod that were about in those days still remaining to prey on the herrings. Although I have no recent experience, it is now alleged that the fishing has changed to a smaller type of cod which no longer predominantly feeds on the herrings. Due to the lack of competition from the declining stocks of haddocks, these small cod mostly feed on the spawn.

 

Another difference between then and now, is that at one time there would be well over a hundred boats taking part in this fishery. Nowadays, the figure would be more like ten boats. If there is a large by-catch of undersized fish, logically the government should do something about it, seeing as they started the fishery in the first place. But I will not be holding my breath…

 

JB

Edited October 7, 2006 by John and Michele

[big_cod]

When i was a kid i used stand on the fish quay and watch the scottish drifters land herring in whitby there was always a few what would drop on the floor and as we were kids it would be a race to pick them up and if you were lucky make a couple of pennies from the visitors ,both of my older brothers worked on the scotch herring boats when they came to whitby there was many boats in them days and a lot of local lads would often try to get a birth on any of these vessels there is a photo in one of the local pubs of one of the local drifters with large catch of cod on the surface in the dark which was in the drift net obviously these fish had come well of the bottom in the dark to feed on the herring and believe me they werent tiddlers but that was in the days when the sea was full of everything .

what we have left is just a handfull of boats with far more catching caperbility than all those years ago chasing far less fish .

Edited October 8, 2006 by big_cod

[Guest challenge]

p.s. how did the filming on the boat for HEARTBEAT go???

did you have to put any make-up on?

Somebody did ask John what part he was playing. He said “as long as somebody signs this check; ill play any part they want me to play.”

[mr motorola]

Somebody did ask John what part he was playing. He said “as long as somebody signs this check; ill play any part they want me to play.”

[Guest challenge]

You think I am joking don’t you?

He also drank all the free coffee and cleaned the caterers out of chocolate biscuits before you could say green grass.