If you think commercial fishermen are your ‘enemy’...

[JB]

It seems the UK commercial fishermen are considered to be the ‘enemy’ on this part of the forum. And the majority who post show great resentment towards them, using phrases like ‘trawlers hoovering up large shoals of fish’, ‘factory ships’, ‘thousands of tons of discards’… and that word which comes up time after time, ‘GREED’.

 

It would seem that most of the resentment is aimed towards UK demersal (bottom) trawlers over fifteen metres.

 

Most of the fishing effort in my area is now directed towards shellfish, predominately crabs and lobsters. I do not see potting for crabs and lobsters as harmful towards anglers. In the main, potting should be beneficial to angling as it generally keeps trawlers off the very best of the fishing ground. There is the occasional incident of pots being towed away by trawlers, but nowhere near as many as there used to be. A net full of heavy pots is no good to a trawler man.

 

So I believe that if calling commercial fishermen nasty names, or even ‘going to war’ with them is the right thing to do, then it might be a good idea to find out just how many of them there are and exactly what they do. The idea that ten trawlers today catch as much fish and do as much damage as two hundred trawlers twenty years ago is just rubbish.

 

Most of the information posted on the forum seems to come from the Internet. How much of that information is merely propaganda?

 

So, how many over-fifteen metre UK trawlers do you think actually exist, fishing around our coast? More to the point, how many have you actually personally witnessed fishing the grounds you fish? How many over fifteen- metre trawlers fish from ports near where you live? Let’s try and build up an accurate picture.

 

P.S. If you have any questions on gill netting, talk to Wurzel. (Sorry, Wurzel!)

 

JB

[Leon Roskilly]

Statistics on the UK Fishing Industry at:

 

http://www.mfa.gov.uk/pdf/UKSeaFish2005.pdf

 

 

More information at:

 

http://www.mfa.gov.uk/statistics/default.htm

 

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nscl.asp?ID=8181

 

 

 

Also worth a look in:

 

http://www.nffo.org.uk/ (particularly the newsletters)

 

http://www.eefpo.co.uk/home (note the poll!)

 

 

 

Telling it as it is:

 

http://www.seafish.org/sea/blog.asp

[glennk]

Edited November 19, 2006 by glennk

[Steve Coppolo]

It's the under 10's that cause most of the problems inshore where most anglers fish.

[JB]

It's the under 10's that cause most of the problems inshore where most anglers fish.

 

Hi Steve,

It’s a problem we don’t have in our area. Almost all the under-ten meter vessels in our part of the world work pots for twelve months of the year. There are a few that work long-lines in the winter months and a couple who work gillnets for a short time, usually in the winter. But neither of the latter two methods catches much fish nor have any great effect on local angling.

 

JB

[Steve Coppolo]

Hi Steve,

It’s a problem we don’t have in our area. Almost all the under-ten meter vessels in our part of the world work pots for twelve months of the year. There are a few that work long-lines in the winter months and a couple who work gillnets for a short time, usually in the winter. But neither of the latter two methods catches much fish nor have any great effect on local angling.

 

JB

 

I'm not sure exactly what damage the under 10's do in my area. The sea certainly isn't teaming with them, and like you say, a lot of them are potting. There are one or two boats that are ruining things for inshore anglers, or to put it another way, inshore angling would improve quite a bit if one or two under 10's were to pack up. Unfortunately, it's these few boats that get the rest of the local commercials a bad name, and the blame for falling fish stocks.

 

Each area has it's own problems I'm sure.

Edited November 19, 2006 by Steve Coppolo

[Leon Roskilly]

From a letter by a commercial fisherman in this week's Fishing News, referring to the North Shields area:

 

..during the last nine days there have been unlimited trawlers from 10m to 22m trawling in the committee district inside of six miles with no permit, vessels over the maximum size to be inside of six miles, and twin rig vessels in there too.

 

Twenty six vessles were counted inside six miles on Tuesday 31 October and apart from one bad weather day there have been up to 20 vessles in there every day and no patrol boat.

[stavey]

It seems the UK commercial fishermen are considered to be the ‘enemy’ on this part of the forum. And the majority who post show great resentment towards them, using phrases like ‘trawlers hoovering up large shoals of fish’, ‘factory ships’, ‘thousands of tons of discards’… and that word which comes up time after time, ‘GREED’.

 

It would seem that most of the resentment is aimed towards UK demersal (bottom) trawlers over fifteen metres.

 

Most of the fishing effort in my area is now directed towards shellfish, predominately crabs and lobsters. I do not see potting for crabs and lobsters as harmful towards anglers. In the main, potting should be beneficial to angling as it generally keeps trawlers off the very best of the fishing ground. There is the occasional incident of pots being towed away by trawlers, but nowhere near as many as there used to be. A net full of heavy pots is no good to a trawler man.

 

So I believe that if calling commercial fishermen nasty names, or even ‘going to war’ with them is the right thing to do, then it might be a good idea to find out just how many of them there are and exactly what they do. The idea that ten trawlers today catch as much fish and do as much damage as two hundred trawlers twenty years ago is just rubbish.

 

Most of the information posted on the forum seems to come from the Internet. How much of that information is merely propaganda?

 

So, how many over-fifteen metre UK trawlers do you think actually exist, fishing around our coast? More to the point, how many have you actually personally witnessed fishing the grounds you fish? How many over fifteen- metre trawlers fish from ports near where you live? Let’s try and build up an accurate picture.

 

P.S. If you have any questions on gill netting, talk to Wurzel. (Sorry, Wurzel!)

 

JB

 

 

Hi john

 

Every where is different no doubt we have 400+ boats registered mostly under ten metres with about a dozen or so over (beamers and larger trawlers) the problem is impounded to a large extent by these stupid historical rights thing allowing large amounts of french/belgium trawlers to wreck havoc inside the 12 and in many cases the 6 mile limit pushing our inshore fleet further in on to the beaches to fish, you ask the hastings beach launched boys, i have got to say i totaly agree with them, there's a first!!

imo this historical rights for johnny foriegner should be scrapped and if that means forgoing a few rights for a few of the bigger fat cats that are left here? so be it, cheers.......

[Guest muttley]

Keep your friends close....and your enemys closer young grasshopper!!

[Jim Roper]

"QUOTE..during the last nine days there have been unlimited trawlers from 10m to 22m trawling in the committee district inside of six miles with no permit, vessels over the maximum size to be inside of six miles, and twin rig vessels in there too.

 

Twenty six vessles were counted inside six miles on Tuesday 31 October and apart from one bad weather day there have been up to 20 vessles in there every day and no patrol boat."

 

 

If enforcement is already too difficult, why introduce more unenforceable rules?