RSA Representation

[Leon Roskilly]

Afew nets are nothing compared to the 500,000 kilo of fish that seals kill and eat per DAY, seals consumption of haddock has increased threefold and plaice fourfold

 

Whiting consume 100,000 tonns of commercial fish stocks every year. Whiting in the Humber estuary gorge themselves to bursting point on the immature codling that are spawned there each spring

 

Aggregate dredging plays its part as to all the sea birds that feed on the fish stocks, ect, ect ect

 

 

You're beginning to sound just like Nicola Hale Steve! LOL

[H.A.]

Well at least that's settled then .....

 

common ground for commercials and RSAs, eh?

Somethin' we can agree about?

The final solution?

 

 

EXTERMINATE WHITING, SEALS AND GILL NETTERS!

 

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Well at least that's settled then .....

 

common ground for commercials and RSAs, eh?

Somethin' we can agree about?

The final solution?

EXTERMINATE WHITING, SEALS AND GILL NETTERS!

 

 

You forgot sinking the dredgers

[steve good]

You're beginning to sound just like Nicola Hale Steve! LOL

 

 

lol

 

steve

[steve good]

Thousands of kids die from disease, why bother to introduce seat-belt laws to protect the few that die in car crashes?

 

Thousands of people get away with committing crimes, why bother expensively jailing the few who get caught.

 

Thousands ...........

 

Just because there are many other problems, doesn't mean that we shouldn't tackle those that we can.

 

'few'?

 

Hi Leon

 

QUOTE/ Just because there are many other problems, doesn't mean that we shouldn't tackle those that we can.

 

Why be so selective in the problems anglers tackle, its like trying to stop a bullet when an atomic bomb is is coming in.

 

steve

[Steve Coppolo]

According to some guys down the west, it is rife,

 

Wag recons that to protect the bass stock it is more benificial to look at bag limits for the rsa plunderers than increase the mls.

 

FWIW i have never seen one.

 

So it's either that or pub talk, bull shine, hearsay, lies, are rife.

 

Exacty Barry. So the questions have to be asked. Who has ever witnessed, first hand, anglers selling fish? If so, were they prosecuted for it? If not, why not? How many "anglers" are prosecuted each year for selling fish illegally?

 

As I said, I've asked fisheries officers, and none of them have ever witnessed it, or prosecuted any anglers for it. Hardly what you'd expect to hear given that it's such a widespread problem.

[Leon Roskilly]

Why be so selective in the problems anglers tackle, its like trying to stop a bullet when an atomic bomb is is coming in.

 

 

Funnily enough, before our fish-catching technology advanced so much in the last 40 years or so, there was always plenty of fish, plenty of whiting, plenty of seals, plenty of sea-birds etc.

 

As there has been for hundreds of thousands of years.

 

 

I think you may be confusing what is the bullet, and what is the atomic bomb Steve!

 

 

 

 

By the way a CEFAS report produced last Autumn hardly supports Nicola's fantasy about the amount of cod being eaten by whiting.

 

http://www.cefas.co.uk/media/40277/fsprepo...whiting2006.pdf

 

The amount of whiting caught varied considerably over the surveyed area, from >230

stone (>1500kg) of whiting to just four fish (<5kg) in an hour long haul.

 

Commonly fished whiting grounds over soft sediment produced the biggest catches.

 

Most whiting stomachs were empty (≥50%).

 

Where stomachs were not empty, the main contents were small crustaceans in August and fish in October.

 

Fish consumed were often noncommercial prey species such as pipefish or hagfish, although gadoids and clupeoids were also consumed.

 

Just 45 gadoids were found in whiting stomachs out of a total of more than 2,500 prey items, these were identified as whiting or poor cod.

 

No cod were found in whiting stomachs, and this finding was likely to be influenced by the

very low numbers of cod and codling in the surveyed area.

Edited September 17, 2007 by Leon Roskilly

[wurzel]

Hi Wurzel

 

A different scenario, and one I'm sure you don't condone, is this catch seized by the EA from an illegally set gill net. Selective of species it certainly ain't

 

 

I appreciate the problems with avoiding LSDs, but I do have difficulty in understanding how this sort of bycatch isn't considered damaging, when this net was set for bass and mullet (but not set to avoid salmonids).

Ref: the other photos - The guy used 300m of net because that was all he needed to close of the entire bay. Anything trying to exit the bay at low tide (when the photo was taken) was trapped.

It was set by a licenced vessel which fishes pots and gill nets, so there's a good chance that the wrasse and doggies would have been used for pot bait I guess.

I have seen over three quarter of a mile of gill nets set by the same guy and watched him haul around two dozen wrasse to every bass or mullet landed.

 

The good news is that he has stuck to potting for the past two years.

The bad news - the bass and mullet fishing for us has been b******s for the past three or four.

 

He's off my Christmas card list!

 

Cheers

Steve

 

Hello steve

 

The illegal net was seized by the EA so they are doing their job.

But if you analyse just what was in the net for one moment and put it in perspective, by the look of the catch it was probably a 90mm gill net. if you discount the spotty dogs and a few other bits, there are just 4 small bass and a carrier bag of mackerel not much to scream about and no more than an angler could catch in a few hours feathering from many marks around the UK coast, none of the species are on any endangered list and if the net had been legal would have been sold. I don’t know how many fish make up the average shoal of mackerel several thousand perhaps so if a shoal happens to swim through a bass net you are likely to catch a few, I can't see the problem with that.

Using 100 mm nets I don't catch so many, just enough to keep me and some mates in pike bait for the winter.

 

When you say the bass and mullet fishing is B******s, do you mean just one area or the whole coast line with in your range?

I’ve been working areas with much more net than the commercial you mention for the last 25 years and as yet don’t seem to have B******s them up.

[H.A.]

Some of you know me by now and how I like to avoid disturbing the Neandertals and causing conflict between otherwise peaceful and fun-loving anglers and fishermen; so how abouts we get back on track.

 

Surely there's enough on the general theme:

 

SEA ANGLING - KEY ISSUES:

 

Well, 'issues' is a very broad concept, so how about narrowing it down some more to 'What might improve our shore and boat fishing?'

 

I'm amazed we can't do any of the stuff Oz, NZ and parts of the States have done ....

 

ARTIFICIAL REEFS

 

The amount of legislation and bureaucracy surrounding any initiatives on this front is mind-boggling and yet didn't a diving 'lobby' get an old destroyer or somethin' scuttled near Plymouth???? Someone might know the facts.

 

The Boscombe Surf Barrier had some possibilities and yet the commercials have been hit with what they describe as 'navigation problems' and there is a possibility (sshhhh!) that one side of the pier might have to be closed to anglers to avoid the odd surfer getting three size twos across his a**e!

 

Surely we've got some old trawler hulks we could bury with due ceremony?

Sort of 'payback time', eh?

 

[wurzel]

 

That’s a good one, Wurzel! How many hats do you wear?

Are you sure you are asking me as an angler?

Or as a commercial fisherman …. or as an angler … or as a commercial fisherman … or as a desperate chappie scratching a living because his mates have caught his fish and there are not enough left to go round?

 

 

 

I make a good living with no shortage of fish to catch, I also don’t have much trouble catching fish on me rod when I choose to.

 

 

Do I?

Commercial fisherman and mind reader, eh?

Do us all a favour and go on stage or TV.

More money in it, matey!

 

Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t want to be an angling representative (especially if it meant representing your views … God help us!). I only get involved because I care a lot about my sea angling and I don’t like what I have seen you chaps do to the fishing over the past 50 years.

 

 

You have not asked for my views ,

Just what have we done over the last 50 years?

 

 

That’s not what the ‘thread’ was supposed to be about.

 

Nonetheless, since you ask, did you know that in 2003 UK drift and gill nets (in ICES Divisions IV b,c VIIa,d,e,f,g,h) accounted for nearly 600 tonnes of bass (excluding ‘black bass’) while French beam trawls accounted for only 400 tonnes. So there’s one reason I’d like to see the end of inshore netting as well as French beamers in UK waters.

 

 

Not sure I agree on the figures, how much of the 600 ton were caught close to the shore?

All I know is that one half of a pair team (Beamers don’t target bass) lands more bass in one trip than I do for the whole year.

If you want to play with figures get your head round this, if 1000000 anglers catch just 2 Kg of bass in one year that equals 2000 ton , even if you half it who’s doing more damage?

Perhaps you are being a greedster and just want it all for your selves.

 

 

Is reading difficult for you? I actually wrote:

 

Near-Shore netting restrictions - to protect our fragile coastal zones.

 

So, want another?

 

Close inshore waters are of extreme and unique value to the overall marine environment, containing many food species not found in deeper water, shallow warm water with plenty of structure and plant growth providing ideal nursery conditions for many species of marine fish and also spawning areas for a number of species and places to deposit egg cases for rays. A list of the special value of inshore marine habitat could go on and on.

 

Can’t argue with that , all ways has been and I don’t see any reason connected to commercial fishing why it should not continue to be so.

 

 

The regulations I refer to would no doubt take into consideration the damage to stocks and indiscriminate killing of species in gill-nets AND the damage caused to delicate reefs (Jurassic coast fan coral areas, for instance) and sea bed by trawls (and dredges).

 

 

That’s what commercial fishermen do, kill fish species hard to make a living with out killing a few.

I think you’ll find that reefs do more damage to trawls than trawls do to reefs , any areas that aren’t trawled of which there are plenty are never likely to be trawled so will remain undamaged , areas that are trawled have often been for hundreds of years and still continue to produce fish, so why should that change?

One severe winter storm can do more damage in one night than an armada of fishing boats in a life time.

 

 

 

Well, I could go on at length, but the point is that there would be great benefits to fish stocks, benthic organisms and advantages for recreational anglers if strict near-shore netting regulations were put in place.

 

What exactly do mean by strict near-shore netting regulations

 

Change of mind! I don't!

 

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