An Alliance Between Anglers And Commercials?

[Leon Roskilly]

See:

 

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.p...withdrawal.html

 

 

 

 

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business...5/pu05-0202.htm

 

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business.../docs/PE804.htm

 

 

Tight Lines - leon

Edited November 15, 2005 by Leon Roskilly

[Guest @AUTUMN@]

Is it a case of if you don't do what we want we will take our bat and ball home???? Just in time for next months Brussels meeting . The we being the cod crusaders.

 

This is something mentioned a lot lately and as you can see a lot of people are right behind it (mostly commercial fishermen I must add). Is the cfp a good or a bad thing?? I really dont know. It would have been nice to see what the situation regarding cod stocks was today if the CFP had been adhered to and enforced over the last few years, but unfortunately it hasnt so the current situation cant really be seen as a result of cfp but as a result of the failure to enforce cfp. One thing that is always clear to me when I here this lets leave Europe argument is the people calling for us to leave the CFP have no clear policy themselves.

If your going to call for us to leave the CFP you must be very clear about a good alternative that will work. Banning all foreign boats and allowing ours to take what is left is not in my book a good alternative.

[Guest binatone]

Hi,

Fishing wasnt as good as expected But perhaps other factors were at play. Increasing pressure meant the tide went out further than I would have liked (I would have chosen another venue had I known), and a big bright moon in the sky is never helpful. The lack of northerlies up untill yesterday may also have been a factor as I guess no fish had moved inshore through september and october. The fish I caught were all red residents which isnt a good sign for november as usually the fish are all fresh runners. Im going again tonight and hoppefully will fare better. The swell is still running and should increase again tomorrow.

 

With regard to inshore wrecks I'm no expert. Common sense would suggest the longer something is left the more chance it has to restock. This even seems to be the case with uptiding the ground even closer to shore. But I'm sure you would agree, an abundance of cod on the wrecks would see the return of the gill netters like in the 80's so I guess they would just get emptied out again damn fast anyways. Im sure what John says about the inshore wrecks is quite true to an extent and yes some may well be overfished. The wrecks at the tree's over met ground spring to mind as wrecks that are fished everyday through summer with every Tom dick and florence knowing how to find them. But I know big cod and he is one of the very best skippers you will come across in the whole country nevermind in the port . You just have to here how highly his regulers speak of him to know he is a top guy and although I can kick his ass on the shore I know there aint many would get near him as a boat angler. I know for definate that He has on his gps one hell of a lot of wrecks both close to shore and at distance which are certainly not overfished and when conditions allow often see him making some fantastic catches as illustrated in his fishing gallery Here: so I guess to claim all insore wrecks to be overfished wouldn't be quite true Infact a long way from it but I can understand how someone fishing further afield like John would hold that perception.

Thanks for that information @autumn@ yes I to have heard that big cod is a good angler and that came from another very good angler so I will take your word for that.

As for being one of the best skippers in the country?

I have heard a few comments about his weather forecast and how he sees the weather when he is off, but I cannot comment on the lad myself as where not often that near the land to here him on the radio.

Where did he get all his readings from that he has in his GPS? Does he not have a plotter? Would have thought it would have made it easier for him? Did he by any chance get all his reading from commercial lads?

When you say distance what do you mean? 20 miles? 50? 100? Just wondered what sort of range he works?

I think that everybody must have most of the readings for off Whitby for up to 40miles surely.

As for gill netters? What gill netters? I think that there is only one small boat that does it from Whitby now? Or maybe two?

The Grimsby gill netters are (when knot on standby work) working over the Danish sector and landing into Holland in the summer and further south fishing for Pollock in the winter. Again there are only two of them. So you should not have much problem there.

As for the photos? Did they get anything there second drop? Come on its not exactly three grand’s worth for a days fishing is it.

Back home (had a good trip, glad where not on a cod quota, as we would of caught it in first two hauls) now so might see you on cheese rock after all.

Good fishing and again thanks for the info.

[Guest @AUTUMN@]

Re : best skipper. After you and John lined each other up for a business promotion you cant blame me for doing the same when you so kindly lined me up for it. Joking aside I Know noone who tries harder. You dont see him throwing in the towel and heading home early everyday. If I had a few quid to spend on a 10 hour trip I know where it would be best spent.

 

Re: 3 grands worth???. You sound just like John. Remember Johns trips are often 2 or 3 days not 10 or 8 hours. Im not sure where BC gets his marks from and where they are so you will have to ask him if you want more specifics. Whats this about weather forecasts?? As any good skipper should I guess he always has 1 eye on the weather

 

I fished last night rather near cheese rock but the sea had fallen almost flat and I only got 1 bite which I missed. Going again tonight and will be trying somewhere beneath that posh hotel on the cliff top about 8 mile south . If ever you fancy it just let me know, I usually fish sept-jan whenever the conditions oblige.

[wurzel]

Hello Ken

 

quote

Maybe a blanket ban would be unreasonable, but some areas are netted to death.

 

A blanket ban would be unreasonable, pahaps a few areas popular with anglers could be negotiated as a net free zone on a local basis. the trouble is we all want to be on the hot spots. I don't like the phase "netted to death" It's not usually the case.

 

Quote

I was on Christchurch Ledge this summer on two occassions and there was thousands of yards of gill nets strung out along it, doing a drift was a nightmare.

 

I don't know the area, if you find out what the target species was I will be able to explain the fishery to you.

are you sure the were not pots.

 

Thirty years ago you would not have seen a net out there and you know why, layout, losses and finacial returns.

 

Thirty years ago mono nets were considered new fangled, nothing to do with the reasons you say, fishermen on the whole are very slow on the uptake of new ideas. When I fist bought nets some of the locals laughed , said I was mad, laughed even more when I could not catch any thing in them, I persevered and they stoped laughing, some even bought some nets.

 

Quote

Gill nets can be summed up as cheap and deadly and that is why they are deployed to saturation point.

 

Thats the anglers perseption, some are cheap, these tend not to be so effective, so to make up for it you need to work more of them, I prefer to work the most effctive nets for the job, that way I don't need to work so many to catch the same.

 

Even an idiot like me could set one and catch fish

 

Ah! but could an idiot like you catch enough to earn a living.

[Jaffa]

Hi John, your posts make good reading as usual.

 

Hi Chris,

“Weird, wonderful Whitby”. I guess the same can be said of most of the small Scottish fishing villages. Whitby certainly is (or rather, was) weird - possibly due to its isolation.

Pretty much. All very weird and different in their day, but it seems there are a lot of similarities between Whitby and say Arbroath.

 

Whitby in 1968 had a small fleet of low-powered trawlers/seine-netters. In the winter they would trawl, in the summer they would mostly seine net. This small fleet eventually graduated into a large fleet of high powered trawlers, working rough ground gear, mostly within the 3 mile limit. It still amazes me that the inshore ground stood so much hammer for so long.

 

Pretty much the same story here, although it might have been a different had the three mile limit been retained (it was removed sometime between 1980 and 1984; just at the time rockhoppers were being introduced ) .

 

 

As for the charter angling business, it went from a few commercial cobles taking anglers on weekends and holiday times, to a fleet of approximately 50 boats full time in the summer season (with an overall combined daily catch on fine days of approximately 1000 stone of cod); and then back to the small fleet we have today. Most of the remaining charter skippers do the job as a “lifestyle”. Few do it as their main living. So, all in all, Whitby has possibly evolved in a very similar way to the east coast Scottish ports.

 

We never saw that level of charter fishing and it has pretty much always been a "lifestyle" or part time thing. The economics of chartering seem pretty tough; i know a couple of locals gave it up when new environmental legislation meant they could not beach the boats to defoul them. A small thing but that's the kind of margins they were on...

 

Even the "fulltime" charter boats like the Girl Katherine get by doing bits and pieces of other stuff as well; safety boat when the local bridges need repaired, taking tourists to see the cliffs etc.

 

There's not much left full that you could call a fishing fleet now. The local fishermen's association yard looks on its last legs, both boatyards have shut, the few remaining merchants get their supplies from Aberdeen. There are a few creel boats still doing fine (until you or someone gets that supercrabber ) , a couple of prawn boats ( that the extremists want stopped because they take a bycatch of small cod), and that's about it . Hard to believe it had a thriving , and imho "sustainable" fleet in 1980, with twice daily markets, a thriving local processing industry, and a good family/ community life as all the boats parked up Friday .

 

Mismanaged to death

 

 

Chris

[Guest binatone]

Re : best skipper. After you and John lined each other up for a business promotion you cant blame me for doing the same when you so kindly lined me up for it. Joking aside I Know noone who tries harder. You dont see him throwing in the towel and heading home early everyday. If I had a few quid to spend on a 10 hour trip I know where it would be best spent.

 

Re: 3 grands worth???. You sound just like John. Remember Johns trips are often 2 or 3 days not 10 or 8 hours. Im not sure where BC gets his marks from and where they are so you will have to ask him if you want more specifics. Whats this about weather forecasts?? As any good skipper should I guess he always has 1 eye on the weather

 

I fished last night rather near cheese rock but the sea had fallen almost flat and I only got 1 bite which I missed. Going again tonight and will be trying somewhere beneath that posh hotel on the cliff top about 8 mile south . If ever you fancy it just let me know, I usually fish sept-jan whenever the conditions oblige.

Hi @autimn@ I am sorry if you thought that I was trying to promote john and Michele’s business? I don’t think that they need the likes of me or this forum and neither does big cod. I was the one who mentioned three grand a while ago on another thread.

Still I do believe that there is a bit of competition between charter skippers, but I always say that competition is healthy.

There was know competition when I took anglers to sea from Whitby in the early seventies, but then again there were more anglers than boats. But the comradeship between skippers was just great.

[Guest @AUTUMN@]

And still is I believe.

[big_cod]

Binatone do you know that %99.9 of wrecks aback of the 50mile were jigged by commercial jiggers long before anglers started fishing them.

[Guest binatone]

Binatone do you know that %99.9 of wrecks aback of the 50mile were jigged by commercial jiggers long before anglers started fishing them.

Know I did not big cod automated jigging boats? Have seen one in Whitby many years ago. Where did they get all there reading from? Or did they have sophisticated sonar?

But then again you would need readings.

99.9% that’s a lot of wrecks. Are you sure? Can’t say I have ever come across any boats using them on this coast anyway. Did they get anything? They cannot have done or they would still be at it?