overfishing

[bigroppa]

Many of you are probably like me, up untill recently i thought that white fish trawlers were to blame for the heavy decline in our fish stocks here in the north sea. Well i was wrong, even though they do contribute, there are now less than 100 cod trawlers working the east coast.(due to quotas nd net sizes, not enough to do that much damage.) So what does the damage? The people doing the damage are the industrial trawlers. Unlike white fish and prawn trawlers, these ships target fish that are not for human consumption.(sandeels, sprats etc..) They have no net size limits, no catch limits, they work every day and only return to port to unload. Some of these ships are 200feet in length and carry a cargo of over 100tonnes. There are currently 170 of these ships working in the North sea. So it sees to reason, they are taking all the bait fish, if theres nothing to eat, when cod breed not as many are going to survive. (if you take from the top of the food chain, only that species is affected. If you take from the bottom of the food chain, everything is affected.) Why do they take bait fish then? (this is the one that really ****ed me off) When the fish caught are landed, they are all put in a giant grinder.(they are not sorted,everything caught goes in, cod, bass pollock, etc...aswell as the small fish they target.) They are ground up to produce fish meal and fish oil. 60% of fish meal goes to feed PIGS! The rest of it goes towards feeding fish,(farmed fish like salmon, trout and now cod.) So farmed cod is actually causing more problems than wild caugh cod.
Industrial fishing is a massive business,(and in some countries, government funded.) They dont care about dying cod stocks,its less competition for the sand eels.Its not only fish that are affected, birds, dolphins and seals are also dying out in massive numbers. They will not be happy untill everything is gone, and it will be us left saying" I TOLD U SO!!"

[MikeR]

Good point there mate.

[Oblickta]

It makes me sick when Bradshaw makes public statements and tells Joe public that all is well in the sea. Defra are aware of what is happening but as per usual with this government, they're to spineless to make a stand about anything and want to keep everybody happy.

The bass farce last year was a perfect example: raised the MLS to keep anglers happy but kept it under 45cm to keep the commercials happy

[codonly]

the biggest problem we have is that 70pc of the boats that fish english waters are not english.spanish/french/portuges/russian/polish etc etc.this all stems from the p*ss poor representation we get off the useless tw*ts that have been elected to look after britain in europe.
forgot to mention OVERPAID useless tw*ts

[CHUKKA]

The only sustainable cod fishing is longlining. Just a shame there is not enough fish now to make it viable!

I think the RSPB would be making a big big stink if all the small baitfish were being taken as this would also lead to a vast decline in sea birds too. You've only got to see the vast shoals of small fish and sandeels in summer to know this is not the cause of reduced stocks. If the sizeable fish feed on these then why aren't we catching on the beaches which are often stuffed with sandeels?

I think the blame is down to beam trawling (i think thats the name when they drag the net along the sea bed) which destroys everything on the sea bed and also the ludicrous discard policy where dead fish are thrown overboard. That could explain the sudden increase in the last few years of parasites like hagfish.

It doesn't matter what net mesh size you use once a few fish are in the cod end, the net is as good as a giant titan sack where nothing can escape and just gets crushed and suffocated to death.

Also whats happened to the flounders in the estuaries?? Overfishing by anglers - possibly, but the likely cause is the potters using them for pot bait (the tw**s).

[bigroppa]

2004-2005 were the worst years on record for the breeding of seabirds. This was due to the lack of food,(mainly sandeels.)

[Charlie_Thompson]

the biggest problem we have is that 70pc of the boats that fish english waters are not english.spanish/french/portuges/russian/polish etc etc.this all stems from the p*ss poor representation we get off the useless tw*ts that have been elected to look after britain in europe.
forgot to mention OVERPAID useless tw*ts

Didn't a lot of UK commercials sell their quotas or something to foreign boats?

[mark]

one of the saddest htings about quaotas is that in this country we opted not to allow the boats to 'trade' quotas with other boats from their home port as they do elsewhere in europe. So you've got a shelfish licence, you trawl for prawns, and happen upon a shoal of whitefish that takes you over you're 30% allowance of whitefish, so what do you have to do... hoy em all back, but they're all dead already, doesn't matter you still have to chuck em back

In Ireland they take em in, find another boat that hasn't exceeded it quota for whitefish and they land them against their quota. Makes sense to me. the boats would make more money so perhaps need to fish less, less fish would be being thrown back unecessarily, and the supply/price to the consumer would remain more constant


so instead, we have a system where our quotas come from the eu pot. France and spain don't give a monkeys about quotas, completely wipe out their fish stocks then come over here for ours (with a subsidy from the eu to boot to cover their costs!)

worse still is the lack of proper quotoa system for pelagic species. We were in the western isles 3 years ago. 2 factory ships and a fleet of smaller boats turns up from the baltic and in 6 weeks virtually emptied the Minch of mackeral and what few herring there were. the locals went nuts but were powerless to stop it.

We need to look to Iceland for a sensible fisheries policy. they seem to have it spot on

[Red5]

Remember reading catch reports a couple of years back with charter boats taking hundreds of fish per session. times that by 7 days a week and multiply that by how ever many charters there are plus however many pleasure boat anglers, and that's a lot of damage done to inshore fisheries.
I know from up our way how many more anglers are visiting our spots as well as open comps and can tell you it has made a difference.Just a question with regard flats, how many are caught in 'Open' comps and how many of those are brought to the weigh in alive in a bucket of water and returned once weighed?
Industrial boats are the scourge of the sea as it's not just about the fish they take or how many the dump over the side, it's also about the whole eco system that these trawlers are destroying. The sea bed is literally 'trawled of life. All the corals, kelps, molluscs, in fact everything that each creature relies on for life is damaged or destroyed by the nets as they are dragged along the sea bed. Lets face it if you were a fish and you managed to survive the trawl, what would there be left for you?
There are many things affecting the state of fishing mainly the lack of action by government ministers and the EU for years, the question is what are WE going to do about it. If we all sit on our hands with our mouths shut silently grumbling then nothing will happen and we'll continue to moan for years to come about the lack of fish. In our club you'd be shot if you brought in a flatty dead.
This year has been the worst in our clubs history with our senior member commenting on how in 50 years of shore fishing he has never known it so bad. He would average about 60-70lb of weight at this stage of the season and this year his total is 11 1/2lb. He along with 70% of the club are fed up and are talking about packing in nearly 2 months early including myself. I could be fly fishing for less than I fork out on a Sunday and at least I'd know that there are fish there and the only reason I would blank would be because I have'nt been as cunning as the fish.
If a difference is to be made, then we all need to shout as loud as we can. By shouting I mean moaning to your MP and explaining the financial implications of 3 million angler not fishing. That is the only thing that this or any government think of what would happen if we all gave up, hundreds of tackle shops, suppliers, magazines who all rely on us having good sessions are at risk. Join the Sea Anglers Conservation Network for advice and more information no what we can do as individuals to make our voice heard
.
What about protests? Seems to work for the french.