An Alliance Between Anglers And Commercials?

[Guest jay_con]

Sorry it is wrong of me to insult people. I am the first to complain when you do it to others.

 

[ 18. October 2005, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: @AUTUMN@ ]

[Guest jay_con]

Binatone. I was talking to a couple of x trawlermen recently about blinders. The subject being raised on here made me curious. They said that the item doesnt paticulally have to be a net. They said sacks can be used inseide the cod end. Then if the boat in question (not any specific boat as this is just hypothetical of course) gets boarded they just claim to have caught a couple of old sacks in the trawl, and who could say they were put there on purpose?. Is this a possibility or utter rubbish again?

[wurzel]

Utter rubish!

[Jaffa]

Autumn,

 

IME (some years ago now) I'd be wary of assuming commercials think "blinders" are okay. It used to be a real no go area; some certainly did it but it was frowned upon in a big way and I don't think it was at all common - there are chancers and ******* in every industry; even sea angling

 

While i was not surprised by the alleged quota busting, I would be if i heard blinders were commonplace... Take that for what you think its worth.

 

Question. If you were going to use a blinder, then why with cod? whose heads are always "bigger than their bodies? If someone is after haddock or whiting, and has an unrealistic mesh limit imposed on them i could see the motive. Whats the motive for the cod fisher?

 

Chris

 

PS. no worries Stavey - just running out of time...

[big_cod]

Binitone i read the whitby gazette this morning and had a little giggle to myself a certain person holding 2 haddocks is that supposed to tell you its knee deep in haddock here well you know as well as me that is not the case infact the haddock fisherie is at its lowest ever off this part of the east coast,i can count on one hand the amount of haddocks we have had on rod and this year there just aint any left ,every year past you could go out to the rig on the 18 mile and fish for haddocks and you could get plenty 50-100 if wanted but they got slaughtered by the large pair teams from up north last year and that has come out of local skippers mouths but remember bullshit baffles brains but that is how the front page of the whitby gazette reads.

[Guest jay_con]

But you cant deny they exist in big numbers elsewhere on the coast big cod if not on your oil rig. The ceefas year class studies do show them in abundance. Or did they make it up?

 

But as the report says, without another big breeding season the numbers are likely to decline.

[Guest johnfranz]

big_cod:

Binitone i read the whitby gazette this morning and had a little giggle to myself a certain person holding 2 haddocks is that supposed to tell you its knee deep in haddock here well you know as well as me that is not the case infact the haddock fisherie is at its lowest ever off this part of the east coast,i can count on one hand the amount of haddocks we have had on rod and this year there just aint any left ,every year past you could go out to the rig  on the 18 mile and fish for haddocks and you could get plenty 50-100 if wanted but they got slaughtered by the large pair teams from up north last year and that has come out of local skippers mouths but remember bullshit baffles brains but that is how the front page of the whitby gazette reads.

I think that the survey was done between Peterhead and the Humber.

There is more sea out there than what you seam to think? We had a good showing of haddock this last trip, best we have seen this year. (And that was blinder free) But then again we where not fishing on your sunken oil rig. May be if you where catching that many in a day you caught them all.

[Guest johnfranz]

@AUTUMN@:

Binatone. I was talking to a couple of x trawlermen recently about blinders. The subject being raised on here made me curious. They said that the item doesnt paticulally have to be a net. They said sacks can be used inseide the cod end. Then if the boat in question (not any specific boat as this is just hypothetical of course) gets boarded they just claim to have caught a couple of old sacks in the trawl, and who could say they were put there on purpose?. Is this a possibility or utter rubbish again?

If these are the ex trawler men that you get all your information from then it answers quite a lot to me. Complete utter rubbish.

[Nobby Ford]

I usually would sit on the fence for something like this, but having read the thread from start to finish it left me wondering a couple of things.

(I apologise for this being slightly off-topic from the original post).

What sort of figures are involved with the sell-through of fish taken by commercial fishermen? On return from sea, presumably the fish are off loaded to markets, wholesalers, and maybe processors and (again) presumably they will not buy/take more than they think they can productively sell/process. These are the fundamentals of business. I'm also assuming that a commercial boat will know in advance roughly how much can be offloaded. My question really is this; Is the increase in commercial fishing activity (leading to depleted stocks) due to supply & demand or, as we anglers generally perceive, an increase in greed of the commercial boats to drag the sea bed in search of anything that swims?

I believe that the demand for fish has increased in line with food trends, population growth etc.

If there were no market for fish, then commercial fishing would be gone overnight.

I take my hat off to everyone who has had the nuts to post openly on this subject, as it's obviously a fiery one. I don't think it's fair to slate commercial fishermen for making the most of a resource, when it seems that they share the same concerns as anglers.

If only Mr Blair thought that the Iraqis had decent fish stocks......

[Guest NickInTheNorth]

Hi Nobby

 

The only part of the equation you do not seem to be looking at is the most important part.

 

How healthy are the fish stocks?

 

The problem is that the commercials are fishing beyond sustainable limits. Regardless of what the market demands the fishery should be limited to what the sea can provide SUSTAINABLY.