RSA Representation

[Local Fisherman]

In over 40 years of fishing, I've never come across a single angler selling fish. So, either I've lead a very sheltered life, or it has indeed been blown out of all proportion. As no fisheries officer that I've asked has ever prosecuted a single angler for selling fish, I'm tempted to believe it's the latter.

 

Steve you must of lead a very sgeltered life. This is the very reason the Commercial sector are very upset with the RSA. The Black fish market is a massive problem throughout the UK. Prosecutions rely on proof.. and proof is very hard to come by with so few fisheries officers.

[Local Fisherman]

In over 40 years of fishing, I've never come across a single angler selling fish. So, either I've lead a very sheltered life, or it has indeed been blown out of all proportion. As no fisheries officer that I've asked has ever prosecuted a single angler for selling fish, I'm tempted to believe it's the latter.

 

Steve you must of lead a very sgeltered life. This is the very reason the Commercial sector are very upset with the RSA. The Black fish market is a massive problem throughout the UK. Prosecutions rely on proof.. and proof is very hard to come by with so few fisheries officers.

[barry luxton]

Steve you must of lead a very sgeltered life. This is the very reason the Commercial sector are very upset with the RSA. The Black fish market is a massive problem throughout the UK. Prosecutions rely on proof.. and proof is very hard to come by with so few fisheries officers.

 

Absolute tosh, The rsa do not sell, get this right. If there is any selling it is done by a minority of unlicenced commercial anglers who are selling into the commercial market. Where is your proof that the commercial sector are upset with the rsa, were is the proof that this apparent black selling goes on.

Ever considered gill tags that would sort out the thieves who ever they are. Defra gets 100 mil per year and the sfc's get thier own monies from the taxpayer on top, if it was a huge problem don't you think they would sort it out or is what you say pub talk and hearsay. How big is this problem, do you know how big is massive. Have you seen the sfc protection vessels, they are quite impressive, are you saying that they don't know how to do thier job? On the other hand there does appear to be a regular amount of commercial prosecutions, mostly they plead guilty when caught. Do you think it is a bit one sided then. Over to you. FWIW i have never seen any selling on board a charter boat in about forty years.

Edited September 21, 2007 by barry luxton

[H.A.]

This is the very reason the Commercial sector are very upset with the RSA. The Black fish market is a massive problem throughout the UK.

 

Some of you 'Local Fishermen' types need to sort this out in your heads ....

 

many commercial bass fishermen are licensed rod and liners; fair dues!

 

Recreational Sea Anglers (RSAs) are anglers who do not sell fish.

 

Some commercial (ie they sell fish) rod and line boat fishermen and netsmen sell bass (and other fish) without being licensed.

This is illegal and the law should be enforced and the transgressors brought to court by the M&FA, BFOs and SFCs.

 

Anyone selling fish, licensed or not, is part of the 'commercial sector', and are not RSAs.

 

Edited September 21, 2007 by H.A.

[Local Fisherman]

Absolute tosh, The rsa do not sell, get this right. If there is any selling it is done by a minority of unlicenced commercial anglers who are selling into the commercial market. Where is your proof that the commercial sector are upset with the rsa, were is the proof that this apparent black selling goes on.

Ever considered gill tags that would sort out the thieves who ever they are. Defra gets 100 mil per year and the sfc's get thier own monies from the taxpayer on top, if it was a huge problem don't you think they would sort it out or is what you say pub talk and hearsay. How big is this problem, do you know how big is massive. Have you seen the sfc protection vessels, they are quite impressive, are you saying that they don't know how to do thier job? On the other hand there does appear to be a regular amount of commercial prosecutions, mostly they plead guilty when caught. Do you think it is a bit one sided then. Over to you. FWIW i have never seen any selling on board a charter boat in about forty years.

 

Barry .......... Your sad and not in touch with reality. Ask your skipper you go out with from the south coast port you fish out of frequently how big this problem is. If you still dont believe me let me know when your next out from the well known south coast port & I will come down to the watering hole you frequent & tell you in person.

 

This is how much you do not know about the Commercial sector....... Tags are in use already by Bass rod n line fleet in Cornwall & Dorset. These Tags indicate the fish have been through slush ice & were caught on handline or rod & line.

 

The damage done by the few RSA who keep on at DEFRA & other Government departments is now coming back around to bite RSA on the A#*e. You cannot say you were not warned by your own people.

 

The real problem is:

 

RSA will not accept that their own illeagally sell fish. If theres an angler caught like in Wales last year he suddenly become an unlicensed Commercial fisherman. Sooy gents but you cannot have all you own way by twisting words.

 

Theres a few RSA that like to spout off alot about subjects they do not know about. This leads to the same names starting threads on various website forums. I did notice that one websites conservation section got so out of control that they shut it down for leagal reasons.If there is not a blackfish problem why did the Welsh Assembly say there is in their Bass MLS replies. I have watched boats day after day fish for Bass off a well known south coast port. If they wanted a few for the table they would only be out for a few hours. But no they are there day after day. There are only so many fish you can fit in a domestic fridge / freezer. So where are the rest going???? I will tell you. They are being sold to food outlets, pubs, clubs ect through the backdoor. You will of course claim that this does not happen. But you need to wake up as this is the biggest problem the south coast of the UK has. This is also why Devons sea fisheries committee is going to introduce bag limits.

 

But as per usual you get one Commercial guy who is willing to talk on a thread and all you do is abuse him. Well Im sorry but these threads are suppose to be disscussions not slagging matches as you seem to have made this.

 

Let me ask you a question? When you go out fishing with your buddies on the southcoast, howmany fish do you all keep? especially relevent if you go wrecking, and please dont try & pull the wool over my eyes as I know what you catch & bring back. I saw with my own eyes anglers taking black dustbin bags full of Bass off boats in April this year

 

Then you get the following in a DEFRA consultation. If 350,000 anglers catch a 1kg Bass each once a year thats 350 tons of fish. If they all do this twice a year thats 700 tons. once a month its a frightening 4200 tons. As the Commercial fleet only lands around 400 tons a year who does the damage to the stocks???????? I know what your going to say to this but as another individual who wears both hats (NO NETS...... only rod & line) you will all slag me down anyway as you donot want to enter into sensible disscussion,..........

[Leon Roskilly]

If someone is fishing with the intention of selling their fish, whether using a rod and line or a net, they are fishing for commerce. They are a commercial fisherman.

 

If they don't have a licence and are fishing from a powered vessel, they are selling their fish illegally.

 

There are laws against that.

 

If someone is fishing recreationally, they are not fishing for commerce, merely keeping what they need and not selling it on.

 

That's why the phrase Recreational Sea Angler (RSA) has been coined, to differntiate between those that fish for pleasure and a feed, and those who fish for profit, ie fish commercially.

 

There are over 1 million recreational sea anglers in England and Wales, and only a tiny proportion are illegal commercial rod and line fishermen.

 

Just as there are millions of shoppers, only a few of which leave a shop with goods for which they haven't paid.

 

Using the same logic, is it right that every shopper is searched upon leaving a store because they might have goods for which they haven't paid?

 

The problem is that even if a reasonable bag limit of say 6 bass is introduced, how long before that is reduced to 2, perhaps by people who have an agenda not for dealing with illegal commercial rod and liners, but to restrict the catches of all genuine recreational sea anglers.

 

And even if the problem of illegal sales were to be solved, how would that aid conservation?

 

So long as their is a market, that market will be supplied, whether cheaply through illegal sales or more profitably through sales of fish caught by licensed catchers.

 

It makes no difference to the dead fish.

 

There is no quota on bass, so as many boats as wish to can put out as many nets as they are capable of handling.

 

As quota runs out on other species, or the species themselves become unavailable, there is nothing to stop more and more licensed fishermen turning to the species, devastating the valuable recreational bass fishery even more.

 

(DEFRA landings record bass worth £3.2 million being landed, for the sake of the consultation and recognising that under 10s weren't required to produce landing figures, that figure was inflated to £7.5 million. The Recreational Bass Fishery is valued at £100 million, and is capable of expansion with minimum bass mortality).

 

Anglers are not saying that they should not have bag limits for good conservation reasons, and many would welcome a package of measures that cap the effort on bass from both the recreational and commercial sectors.

 

But they will reject limitiations placed upon the recreational catch which is purely to make the job of enforcement easier so that more fish is available to the licensed sector, and to protect the market of licensed sellers with no worthwhile overall conservation benefit.

 

Controlling the amount of fish available to the market by capping both recreational and commercial effort would not only substantially reduce the mortality of bass, and thereby developing a much more robust fishery with a far better structure (ie more bigger fish surviving which themselves produce more spawn, offspring that seem to survive better and increase the genetic diversity of the stock), but would also mean a much better price for licensed commercial boats, increasing profits for less effort with a more assured fishery to exploit.

 

One of the ways to do this is by a system of carcass-tagging (which could be made to work taking into account farmed-fish, the catches of pair trawlers and imported fish - no system is 100% infallible, its whether it is workable and achieves the overall objective that is important).

 

So, forget standalone bag limits for hundreds of thousands of genuine RSAs, that's far too much of a draconian sledgehammer to crack this particular hard to see nut.

 

But lets have some meaningful needed conservation measures, perhaps with bag limits as part of an overall package, that limits the overall catch applied proportionately to all who access the fishery.

 

 

The thing is that neither genuine Recreational Sea Anglers or genuine licensed commercial fishermen have anything in common with unlicensed commercial rod and liners.

 

They are hated by both.

 

Unfortunately knowing acceptance of illegal practices has been far to rife in the past, and in that regard the commercial sector has far more to answer for than RSA.

 

 

Hopefully times are now changing.

Edited September 22, 2007 by Leon Roskilly

[H.A.]

RSA will not accept that their own illeagally sell fish. If theres an angler caught like in Wales last year he suddenly become an unlicensed Commercial fisherman. Sooy gents but you cannot have all you own way by twisting words.

 

Don't you just love it!

 

I suppose a small-time burglar is a 'hobbyist' (Recreational Burglar?) who breaks the law just for the love of robbing and selling his wares. He's not really a professional burglar, eh?

Luckily, we don't licence burglars!

 

As the Commercial fleet only lands around 400 tons a year who does the damage to the stocks???????? I know what your going to say to this but as another individual who wears both hats (NO NETS...... only rod & line) you will all slag me down anyway as you donot want to enter into sensible discussion,..........

 

OK, so you profess to be an authority on commercial bass fishing and should not be 'slagged down' nor engaged in 'sensible discussion'.

 

Then it's a shame you have no idea what the UK recorded bass tonnage is in a year (CEFAS figures) ... 400 tonnes????

 

2003 - 1503 tonnes

2004 - 2211 tonnes (773 tonnes gill and drift nets; 1099 tonnes on lines)

2005 - 1623 tonnes

 

Still want 'sensible discussion?

 

[barry luxton]

Barry .......... Your sad and not in touch with reality. Ask your skipper you go out with from the south coast port you fish out of frequently how big this problem is. If you still dont believe me let me know when your next out from the well known south coast port & I will come down to the watering hole you frequent & tell you in person.

 

This is how much you do not know about the Commercial sector....... Tags are in use already by Bass rod n line fleet in Cornwall & Dorset. These Tags indicate the fish have been through slush ice & were caught on handline or rod & line.

 

The damage done by the few RSA who keep on at DEFRA & other Government departments is now coming back around to bite RSA on the A#*e. You cannot say you were not warned by your own people.

 

The real problem is:

 

RSA will not accept that their own illeagally sell fish. If theres an angler caught like in Wales last year he suddenly become an unlicensed Commercial fisherman. Sooy gents but you cannot have all you own way by twisting words.

 

Theres a few RSA that like to spout off alot about subjects they do not know about. This leads to the same names starting threads on various website forums. I did notice that one websites conservation section got so out of control that they shut it down for leagal reasons.If there is not a blackfish problem why did the Welsh Assembly say there is in their Bass MLS replies. I have watched boats day after day fish for Bass off a well known south coast port. If they wanted a few for the table they would only be out for a few hours. But no they are there day after day. There are only so many fish you can fit in a domestic fridge / freezer. So where are the rest going???? I will tell you. They are being sold to food outlets, pubs, clubs ect through the backdoor. You will of course claim that this does not happen. But you need to wake up as this is the biggest problem the south coast of the UK has. This is also why Devons sea fisheries committee is going to introduce bag limits.

 

But as per usual you get one Commercial guy who is willing to talk on a thread and all you do is abuse him. Well Im sorry but these threads are suppose to be disscussions not slagging matches as you seem to have made this.

 

Let me ask you a question? When you go out fishing with your buddies on the southcoast, howmany fish do you all keep? especially relevent if you go wrecking, and please dont try & pull the wool over my eyes as I know what you catch & bring back. I saw with my own eyes anglers taking black dustbin bags full of Bass off boats in April this year

 

Then you get the following in a DEFRA consultation. If 350,000 anglers catch a 1kg Bass each once a year thats 350 tons of fish. If they all do this twice a year thats 700 tons. once a month its a frightening 4200 tons. As the Commercial fleet only lands around 400 tons a year who does the damage to the stocks???????? I know what your going to say to this but as another individual who wears both hats (NO NETS...... only rod & line) you will all slag me down anyway as you donot want to enter into sensible disscussion,..........

 

 

Oh please don't think that because you are a commercial that i have picked on you. It is further from the truth than you realise. I picked up on your statment that commercial are upset with the rsa as total fabrication, show me the evidance that it is so, you have none. You also hit the nail on the head when you mention one guy last year getting caught. Is that what commercial are upset about? how much is that going to affect the stock. On that basis you would want to see all of the rsa with bag limits and a licence. Who would pick the tab up and to what benifit to the stock do you think.

 

I spoke about gill tagging for all the bass landed, what problem have you with that. Anyone who wants to sell without a tag would be a cheat whoever he is. Whats up with that i ask? I fish on a regular basis all of the channel and as yet never come across a rsa that sells his catch, why do they want to.

play with words, i have spoken about non-licenced commercial anglers who sell into the commercial market, couldn't be any more plainer than that. is that what you are on about? The rsa don't want them and nor do the commercial sector, why have a go at the rsa for that.

 

If you have seen boats day after day fishing on an illegal basis, have you reported them if not why not. If it was me i certainly would as i can't stand thieves, i can't stand the people who receive illegal fish as well. that is why i suggest gill tagging. Seems simple enough to me, but difficult for the people who don't want to play fair. The cornwall sfc are looking at bag limits, can't see it happening though as who would pay for it and to what advantage to the stock, none.

 

Wag, hmm, there are commercial on here who state that there are plenty of large bass to be caught, why does wag condone fishing for juvenile bass that have not bred yet. What is the advantage to the stock i ask, in particular over the bag limits and or licences for all of the rsa. That is not conservation of the bass stock in my mind. Who is further from reality, it ain't me. Are you saying that the welsh are no good at catching the cheats. If so tagging would sort them out.

 

If i'm out wrecking it depends on what we target with regards to what gets taken home, please do not imply that because i go wrecking that i sell my catch, that would be an incorrect statement. I do not use black bin bags, i always fillet my fish, that gives you a clue about the stamp of bass i take home if i feel the need. I prefer mackerel and bream personally.

[Local Fisherman]

If someone is fishing with the intention of selling their fish, whether using a rod and line or a net, they are fishing for commerce. They are a commercial fisherman.

 

If they don't have a licence and are fishing from a powered vessel, they are selling their fish illegally.

 

There are laws against that.

 

If someone is fishing recreationally, they are not fishing for commerce, merely keeping what they need and not selling it on.

 

That's why the phrase Recreational Sea Angler (RSA) has been coined, to differntiate between those that fish for pleasure and a feed, and those who fish for profit, ie fish commercially.

 

There are over 1 million recreational sea anglers in England and Wales, and only a tiny proportion are illegal commercial rod and line fishermen.

 

Just as there are millions of shoppers, only a few of which leave a shop with goods for which they haven't paid.

 

Using the same logic, is it right that every shopper is searched upon leaving a store because they might have goods for which they haven't paid?

 

The problem is that even if a reasonable bag limit of say 6 bass is introduced, how long before that is reduced to 2, perhaps by people who have an agenda not for dealing with illegal commercial rod and liners, but to restrict the catches of all genuine recreational sea anglers.

 

And even if the problem of illegal sales were to be solved, how would that aid conservation?

 

So long as their is a market, that market will be supplied, whether cheaply through illegal sales or more profitably through sales of fish caught by licensed catchers.

 

It makes no difference to the dead fish.

 

There is no quota on bass, so as many boats as wish to can put out as many nets as they are capable of handling.

 

As quota runs out on other species, or the species themselves become unavailable, there is nothing to stop more and more licensed fishermen turning to the species, devastating the valuable recreational bass fishery even more.

 

(DEFRA landings record bass worth £3.2 million being landed, for the sake of the consultation and recognising that under 10s weren't required to produce landing figures, that figure was inflated to £7.5 million. The Recreational Bass Fishery is valued at £100 million, and is capable of expansion with minimum bass mortality).

 

Anglers are not saying that they should not have bag limits for good conservation reasons, and many would welcome a package of measures that cap the effort on bass from both the recreational and commercial sectors.

 

But they will reject limitiations placed upon the recreational catch which is purely to make the job of enforcement easier so that more fish is available to the licensed sector, and to protect the market of licensed sellers with no worthwhile overall conservation benefit.

 

Controlling the amount of fish available to the market by capping both recreational and commercial effort would not only substantially reduce the mortality of bass, and thereby developing a much more robust fishery with a far better structure (ie more bigger fish surviving which themselves produce more spawn, offspring that seem to survive better and increase the genetic diversity of the stock), but would also mean a much better price for licensed commercial boats, increasing profits for less effort with a more assured fishery to exploit.

 

One of the ways to do this is by a system of carcass-tagging (which could be made to work taking into account farmed-fish, the catches of pair trawlers and imported fish - no system is 100% infallible, its whether it is workable and achieves the overall objective that is important).

 

So, forget standalone bag limits for hundreds of thousands of genuine RSAs, that's far too much of a draconian sledgehammer to crack this particular hard to see nut.

 

But lets have some meaningful needed conservation measures, perhaps with bag limits as part of an overall package, that limits the overall catch applied proportionately to all who access the fishery.

The thing is that neither genuine Recreational Sea Anglers or genuine licensed commercial fishermen have anything in common with unlicensed commercial rod and liners.

 

They are hated by both.

 

Unfortunately knowing acceptance of illegal practices has been far to rife in the past, and in that regard the commercial sector has far more to answer for than RSA.

Hopefully times are now changing.

 

I have too say I generaly agree with what you have said.... however I also need to say that you need to concentrate on the UK palagic fleet & the French Pair Fleet that does the damage to the prime Bass stocks in the western English Channel. 15 tons a month or 5 ton a week is to much. Over 12 tons caught I beleave in the Channel Islands was landed at Brixham this week. No doubt the crushed Bass went for fishmeal again.

 

Most anglers on the south coast have said they will not accept bag limits or licenses. As you have said there needs to be a bit of acceptance by each sector but beleave me the paragraph above is where you need to concentrate your effort.

 

I will answer the rest of the thread at a later date as I have run out of time..

[barry luxton]

I have too say I generaly agree with what you have said.... however I also need to say that you need to concentrate on the UK palagic fleet & the French Pair Fleet that does the damage to the prime Bass stocks in the western English Channel. 15 tons a month or 5 ton a week is to much. Over 12 tons caught I beleave in the Channel Islands was landed at Brixham this week. No doubt the crushed Bass went for fishmeal again.

 

If this what you say is true and i have no reason to doubt it. This is what is wrong with the industry. To blame the rsa while this is going on is smoke screening of the best kind. I still can't forget the wonderfull huge amount of the breeding stock that was taken last winter from the channel isles and sold to france and the rest transshiped to brixham. Nothing changes.

 

Perhaps the likes of Mr Venmore can comment or write to the newspapers on the fish meal story. That would be good for conservation if something was to come from it, what a waste, fishmeal of the bass stock, priceless.

Edited September 22, 2007 by barry luxton