Buyers and Sellers Register

[Guest chocolate starfish]

you have to be buying or selling over a certain amount to have to be on the register(if it's actually being enforced in any way), the only law he is breaking is probably tax evasion.

 

Tell that to al capone

[Steve Coppolo]

Wouldnt introducing a bag limit for that reason be sort of similar to introduceing a curfew after dark to stop burglers ? The innocent are effected and that isnt my idea of how we should do business.

 

Why should I have bag limits placed on me to make life easier for those who should be stopping such activities.

 

 

Spot on.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

I thought that all fish landed from licensed boats were going to be traceable i.e. tagged in some way.

 

Surely the way to stop the sale of fish from any other source would be to check the purchasers invoice for the goods, no invoice no traceability handcuffs on

[Leon Roskilly]

I thought that all fish landed from licensed boats were going to be traceable i.e. tagged in some way.

 

Surely the way to stop the sale of fish from any other source would be to check the purchasers invoice for the goods, no invoice no traceability handcuffs on

 

 

It's matching up the fish in the freezer to the invoice that is a problem.

 

You have an invoice for 50kg of bass, and a freezer containing 50kg of bass.

 

Fine.

 

Except the bass that you have an invoice for was sold weeks ago and the empty freezer re-stocked with some cheap bass sold to you at the back door with no paperwork.

 

Then emptied again and .........

[Leon Roskilly]

I thought that all fish landed from licensed boats were going to be traceable i.e. tagged in some way.

 

 

One of the proposals in the Bass Management Plan is to cap effort on bass.

 

(At the moment, even though there is a landing limit of 5 tonne per boat per week, there is no limit to the number of boats or amount of gear that can be deployed to catch bass)

 

The cap would be applied by requiring all fresh bass to be tagged with a numbered carcass tag (a bit like a cable tie that goes though the gill and out the mouth. Similar to the voluntary tag being used by handliners in the South West as a mark of quality line caught wild bass - see http://www.linecaught.org.uk/tags.htm ).

 

 

Such a carcass tagging scheme has proven very effective in other parts of the world, ie for salmon in Ireland.

 

Tags would be made available only to fishermen who have a track record of catching bass, and would limit the number of bass that they can land.

 

It was on that basis that the BMP suggests that a bag limit on anglers could also be introduced, putting a limit on both the commercial and recreational catches of bass.

 

It will be interesting to see if Phase 2 of the Bass proposals, when put out for consultation by DEFRA, contain only the suggestion that bag limits should be applied to the recreational catch, with nothing to further cap the effort of commercial fishing for bass, whether licensed or unlicensed.

Edited October 4, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[Leon Roskilly]

Buyers and Sellers Legislation only applies to fish bought from a powered boat.

 

It's introduction was to help in stamping out the market in black fish, principally huge catches, but it also covers the 'back door' sales into pubs , restuarants etc.

 

It has proven very successful, producing audit trails where none existed before.

 

It has proven particularly problemmatical for the under 10 metre fleet.

 

In the past, the under 10 metre boats have not had to declare landings, and although they have quota for some species, this was difficult to keep track off from an enforcement perspective.

 

However, they have now realised that they could be in trouble should the audit trails generated by the buyers and sellers legislation show that they have been exceeding their quota.

 

They are now pointing out that the quota that they have been given is not enough for them to remain viable as a business, and that it hasn't mattered much in the past as no real check was made, but now the shortage of quota is going to hit them, so they need a bigger share of the quota. But the over 10's are unwilling to concede available quota to the under 10s.

 

The problem for anglers who fish mostly for non-quota species is that some species such as bass, flounder, mullet etc have no quota, so once an under 10 has reached their monthly quota for cod etc, rather than just carrying on knowing that no one is counting, it is likely that they will switch effort to non-quota species such as bass.

 

Of course a TAC, and resultant quota for bass would perhaps stop that, but then introducing quota for any species had always lead to institutional overfishing of that species as boats fight for all the quota they get, despite scientific advice, and fish to the limit of the quota given (with inherent discards of undersized fish etc), in an effort to prove a track record so that they are allocated maximum track record on the species in future.

 

We really do need the carcass tagging proposals contained in the Bass Management Plan to be implemented to cap effort on bass.

Edited October 4, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[Steve Coppolo]

I think to gauge whether the act has been successful or not, we need to answer these questions.

 

How many commercial fishermen actually bothered to register? And has the fish buyers and sellers charter actually lead to any prosecutions?

[Toerag]

I think to gauge whether the act has been successful or not, we need to answer these questions.

 

How many commercial fishermen actually bothered to register? And has the fish buyers and sellers charter actually lead to any prosecutions?

 

excatly, and judging by the reply Leon got to his query from the Sea Fisheries guy there aren't going to be any prosecutions.

[wurzel]

I think to gauge whether the act has been successful or not, we need to answer these questions.

 

How many commercial fishermen actually bothered to register? And has the fish buyers and sellers charter actually lead to any prosecutions?

 

Hello Steve

 

Most Commercial fishermen don't need to register, they are catchers not buyers or sellers.

[Steve Coppolo]

Hello Steve

 

Most Commercial fishermen don't need to register, they are catchers not buyers or sellers.

 

Hello Peter

How does that work then? I thought they had to register to sell their fish to their merchants? This buyers and sellers malarkey is obviously another load of nothing from Bradshaw and DEFRA then, if catchers don't have to register.

 

P.S. Went down to water lane to day for some perch. Didn't have any perch, but caught several nice pike.