bad news

why can't people focus on what they want to catch and stop whining over what they dont have control over. Or willy will have to lock this post

In my humble opinion i dont think this post would not even be considered for locking (unless some mindless fool decides to get personal) as it is simply debate which apart from advice is what forums are all about.
 
Why push the issue under the carpet and forget it doesn't exist? That's exactly how the Grand Bank stocks were obliterated (by over 90%) and have still not recovered after 15 years
 
Your humble opinion would be correct Terry lol, however we will be keeping a close eye on it as it happens nearly every time there is a thread like this mate. Opinion is fine, personal attacks are not.

Jim.
 
Well, I for one am all for the commercial ships raping our seas until they're empty. Then they'll all be out of business and the seas will be left alone to recover slowly. During which time people will learn to stop targetting a limited number of species and realise that the sea has (or had by that time!) and abundance of food to offer us that we've until now only seen as by-catch and dumped or shipped to Europe. Odd one to say but as an angler I don't eat a lot of seafood, but when I do it is mostly what I catch myself because I hate nothing more than seeing the amount of wasted food all around us, why kill so many living things purely for them to end up as fertiliser, animal food or more often the case - in the bin?

Purely my opinion, but to me the commercial fishing industry is it's own worst enemy, the more I read about the state of our waters stocks and the more I see the fleets complaining at cuts in quotas, the more it becomes clearly ludicrous that no-one is sitting down and looking at real solutions. Seem to vividly recall many Rex Hunt programmes where he is on about the mess Australia's fisheries were in until they finally did something about it. Breeding programmes, catch limits, catch-and-release only area's and area's fully banned for commercial hits.
 
Jaguar. I think the problem is because there seems to be no control. Fish stocks are low and there seems to be no effective plans in place to combat this. The attitude seems to be make a quick buck while we can and to hell with the consequences. Who cares if the cod become virtually extinct, we've made our money so now well get a job doing something else. Effective management of stocks is required, whether that means no go areas (like spawning grounds) or 3 mile offshore exclusion zones, or pay the trawlers to stay in the harbour (the government did it for the farmers !). I thought angling was a bigger moneymaker than commercial fishing these days. Some government big-wig has got to recognise this sooner than later.
 
Your humble opinion would be correct Terry lol, however we will be keeping a close eye on it as it happens nearly every time there is a thread like this mate. Opinion is fine, personal attacks are not.

Jim.
Quite agree,people seem to forget that this is a forum,the people on here are bleeps and whistles down a phone lineno more,,no need to get personal.
On that note,i can only disagree with the opinion that WE should go talk to trawlers skippers and it is down to the angler,or the posters on here, to go and hear what they skippers have to say.
While everyone should strive to listen to all points i fail to see why they,the trawler owners who are getting bad rep and may suffer via tighter rules should not make the effort to get there point over.
I ask again,is there any,even on a local level,any commercial owner or owners doing anything about getting there point over.
Lets face it,have they thought on the possibility that anglers and trawlers have the same aim in mind.
Catching fish,a united front from anglers and trawler owner would provide a powerful lobby to the government.
But so often i get the feeling that the trawlers owners put themselves above the angler since,as has been said,"its their living".
An attitude that they will have to change and get more savvy or a attitude change will be enforced on them by the governement and i have never been keen on any meddling on anything from the governemnt.
Can you imagine the effect if the trawlers agreed a limit from the beach to aid anglers and the anglers joined forces with the trawlers in fighting for a better poilcy for the sea.
They would be a powerful force.
 
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i have red the post some good points for & against the commercial.& shore fisherman it's 1 of them things that will go on & on i here give respect to this &give respect to that why do we not give the fish some respect for once instead of ravaging the sea dry of all fish give the numbers a Chan's to rise agane then there will be plenty for all.. eg. in the 40/50's u could catch tuna at Scarborough now the place to get tuner is tesco's the greed of man 1 fish 0 & it go's on like this all over the world yes man has the right to make a liven but fish have the right to live :(:D
 
i can see the point in them doing it to make a living but what seriously gets my back up is when they blatently see many anglers fishing the pier and they drop there nets or pots within 25 yards of the pier where your fishing
 
as mentioned earlier, us pleasure fishermen will complain when the cod are virtually extinct, but we can still fish for other lesser species, the commercial fishermen will either do the same or be forced out of business, but what about the long term effects on our planet? marine life and the ocean are an integral part of our enviroment & the eco-system ,and it is likely that it will be incapable of ever hosting cod populations as it once did.

There is a "Commons" theory- whereby natural resources, such as fish, woodlands and other natural resources and commodities, are viewed as assets held in common for everyone, but which no-one actually owns. Once exploitation of that asset commences- everyone piles in and tries to claim their own share. This continues until the maximum carrying capacity of the resource is reached, after which point the resource as a whole deteriorates, but the individuals exploiting the resource exploit it ever more for personal gain- until the inevitable occurs.
 
If no one bought cod then there would be no demand for it, i for one don't buy cod for that reason, it's not sustainable and it's far too expensive, pound for pound it costs more than steak.
 
nets hauled after a short period of time in water and he has over 29 stone of fish.thats just one boat.i have read the reports on this thread very carefully and as stated if the sea comes away they will loss their gear.no its not funny but if a boat sets that many nets covering so vast an area then it can only be greed.and nothing else.dont even want to try and work out how much fish would be taken in just a single week 29 stone from one boat from one tide???
and why would the bann be lifted when the fish are in the spourning months.
how many times would it take for say 20 anglers on the board to actually catch 29stone of fish with just the humble stick and line.
 
how many fisherman moan about nets being dropped close to shore then in the summer jump in a boat a mile off shore to fish for cod ,and give there boat owner mates 10quid (tax free) a man for the pleasure if fishing was my living and i had a family to feed i would drop nets if there was a chance of a good haul , who would,ent no laws being broke was there , just my thoughts jamcod .
 
Why push the issue under the carpet and forget it doesn't exist? That's exactly how the Grand Bank stocks were obliterated (by over 90%) and have still not recovered after 15 years

bit more to that story though... when the cod were all gone, they targeted the bait fish, and totally wiped them out, and as yet there is no signs of any recovery, and unlikely to be as the whole food chain was removed

I might be an (almost) lone voice here but I do have some sympathy for the commercials, and don't believe its as black and white as it may seem. Without a doubt they boats that have just netted, are not the culprits. In fact the problem is one that the inshore fleet have had little effect on compared to the common fisheries policy from brussels which has allowed massive overfishing by offshore boats, more often that not, not UK boats either, the cod don't breed half a mile from our shores, they are a long way off and that is where the damage has been done.

IMHO one of the worst bits of the CFP is that companies have been allowed to be set up and buy/trade in quotas, its the trade/leasing of quotas to the highest bidder that has allowed it to go unchecked to the state we are now in. All of that is something the inshore fleet have had to just take on the chin and have had no voice to prevent

10-15 years ago the fish quays all down the coast were still bustling, small local family outfits continuing something that there families had often built up over generations. The CFP pretty much put them out of business, but their quota was still around, gets sold to the highest bidder, so now, you're big offshore trawler can just keep leasing extra quota when they get wind of a patch of the sea that has some fish in it, and go and clear it out, add to that the fact that if its a french/spanish boat, the landing of under sized fish seems to get largely overlooked - last year I was in a hypermarket in france and asked for a kilo of dover sole - I was offered (and refused) 7 fish!

At the end of the day no-one is a winner here. whats left of our commercial fishing heritage is on its arse, and so is the shore angling.

One thing I do guarantee you though, lets say shields pier suddenly saw a huge shoal of cod... apart from the few anglers who are a bit conservation minded, almost every angler down there would do there level best to remove as many as they could and go back for more till they were all gone, then they'd go back again to make sure they were all gone.

I'd also wager that in the cod frenzy, those returning fish would be frowned upon by some of those filling there boots (to put it mildly) and there'd be some who'd behave the same way with what they catch as the ****wits do with the mackeral in summer

Human nature is a funny thing
 
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Another great thread.

With regard to who sets the rules for inshore fisheries, it is very clear that anglers understanding of how things are run is vague to say the least.

The answer is 20 guys known as the sea fisheries committee set the rules out to six miles. I am a member of that committee and have been for almost a year.

There are no rules stopping a commercial netting anywhere except in a dredged channel.

For the last 120 years this has been the case. The committees (there are 12 of them) were only set up to look after the commercials intrest. They have managed our inshore fish stocks and to be quite frank made a real mess of it.

Please re-read the LIcense thread ( I will add a link). I wrote a begginners guide to fisheries law which may help some understand what is happening. Anglers are finally getting recognised as a valuable contribution to the economy and are a sustainable use of our seas.

Anglers who care are pushing for the introduction of a golden mile of no netting or trawling, which is an area of most intrest to anglers.

Take a look at some of the websites of organisations who are pushing for an improved deal for anglers...The SACN, sscan and the NFSA are a few that spring to mind.

More important...get onto your club secretary/committee to put together a response to Defra as to what anglers want ( needs to be in by 31st March) they are finally listening to us and hopefully changes will be made.

I can appreciate Falcones point of view as an ex commercial, but have to say that the only people to blame for the drop in boat numbers in Seaham is the boats themselves. Commercially orientated committees have set the rules, commercially orientated governments have set quota's to suit the commercials and the net results have been the emptying of the seas. In past years no consideration was ever made to providing a sustainable stock in the North Sea...that is gradually starting to change. No one else to blame but the commercials and their greed. Anglers did not empty the sea.

If you want to bring something to the attention of the rulemakers I would be happy to do it on your behalf at the next meeting of the SFC...third week in January. You can email me via the site but please note that anything submitted to the committee must have your full name and address on it ( forum sudonyms wont do)



Or if thats too much trouble keep complaining and arguing here on a forum and nothing will get done.

There are a small minority of anglers out there trying to get a better deal for the rest of us...it would be nice if that became a large majority of anglers and the changes would happen a lot quicker.

The reason those nets are out is we are in a new year of quota, the commercials will fish to the max untill that quota is met...then complain they have to return fish. A deeply political issue but untill the commercials catch their limit or anglers get off their butts and put pressure on to get some changes you will have to just put up with it.

Cheers
Dave
 
not if the netters found out 1st they would net the area off and probably down to hartlepool just to be on the safe side.i fully understand some of the comments on this thread but you and others must clearly see this is greed and not trying to earn a living for the family.29 stone of cod for one boat in one tide.how much will he make for that catch.at a guess without looking a the price they get he may get £700 for the fish,and thats for one day canny hourly rate that is.i can if others want find out the real cost they would get at market.bearing in mind there is not much around so the price might be sky high.yes some might see it as a way of living doing a danerous job.but it comes down to greed at the end of the day and when the fish stocks disapear and they will they then wonder why.oh and ask the government to give them grants,the government says yes but firstly lets charge the common shore angler to fish,the money raised will go towards helping the greedy netters.
 
last series of trawlermen, 500 tons of mackeral in one haul... greed indeed

just think it unfair to tar all commercial boats with the same brush, 700 quid for one day... there'll be at least 2 possibly 3 guys on that boat. that knocks the daily rate down, then add running costs, insurance cost of gear... a single trawl net can be upwards of 20 grand

and indeed if the mythical giant shoal of cod did appear, the commercial boats would be out for a while, but then they've got to get rid of their catch, and if they are over quota they get jumped on. cod quotas for the south coast are now 100kgs a month for under 10metre boats - thats around 1 fish a day, it would be hard to hide huge amounts of fish, small amounts yes

so the commercials could reverse the arguement just as easily and say shore anglers can go out and catch as many as they like with no restrictions every day, yet we who have to pay for the privilege are allowed only 1 fish a day

its the greed factor that is at play. luckily most of the contributors here understand that we need to conserve stocks and be sensible, and get a bit miffed seeing boats hauling in loads of fish. but we are a very small minority, and just like the mackeral slaughter in summer, there's a high percentage of anglers out there that won't give a damn and want as much as they can get reagardless. I've seen and heard anglers having a go at other anglers both on boats and the shore for putting cod back

but an inshore boat may have as much right to catch what is there as we do, but also has to pay through the nose already for the right to do so, and what he gets has to keep his business and his family going, so its a very tricky one.

so what do you do? Polarise the arguement and say all boats should be banned from catching cod because theres precious few around?? Is that not hypocritical then to go on and say but we want to have the right to as many as are left??

To me the problem is squarely on the shoulders of the EU and ridiculous fisheries policy that has been forced upon the UK

the french and spanish boats are allowed to catch as much cod as the brits, but as the only place in europe with any left is here, this is where they come to catch what they are 'entitled' to under CFP.

netting close inshore ain't a good thing for the shore angler, but the guy shooting the nets might have little choice - you're a small inshore boat, your allowed so many days a month at sea, if the seas too rough to go out, tough, you can't carry the days over till next month, so rather than loose a months wages, he might need to do whatever he can and get some fish from close inshore or see his business fail and his family struggle. Nets close inshore are going to be a small boat, so not huge commercial operation necessarily

I'm not taking the netters side particularly, just think there's more sides to the arguement than first appears
 
far from a small boat.
2-3 on board and a share for the boat.???
so lets say for arguments sake he gets out for the next 7 days and he lands the same every day for the same rate i.e £700 thats 7x700=£4900
now lets say the boat gets 30% then the skipper gets 20% thats 50%=£2450
that leaves £2450 to be divided by the other 2 if there is 2.so lets say they get an equal share = £1225 each.
not a bad weeks wage at all.
now for the fish side 7x29=203stone of fish in one week=GREED.=no fish left=no job=government grant=the shore angler pays by way of fishing licence.=?????????
 
Mark,
Can I put you right on one thing.

COMMERCIAL LICENSES ARE ISSUED FREE...THEY EXPECT US TO PAY FOR OURS.

The reasons you see money quoted is when quotas are "traded"...ie a company specialising in prawns is given a cod allowance...they sell it for profit.

An inshore potter gets a cod allowance but doesn't need it...guess where it ends up ( and it aint ebay)

Dont forget the system was set up BY commercials FOR commercials as if you couldn't guess.

Its up to anglers to change that.

Cheers
dave
 
Dave I know licences were free, always have been, but if you want one you've got to buy one cos there aren't many new ones

I guess we are going nowhere with this one, but if the boat goes out every day continually he is breaking the law, end of

so I guess ryan, the only happy solution for you would be an end to all commercial fishing, Out of curiosity, (i might have missed it it) where did the figure of 29 stone of fish come from?? An average day on shields pier will probably see that many mackeral taken at the height of silly season, a lot of which get left/wasted, plenty ammo there against us as well

the only way to change the system IMHO is to radically overhaul the CFP. When licencing for anglers does arrive, which it will, I would not be surprised to see some of the regulations that come with it influenced by commercial fisheries. If there were to be an outright ban on cod fishing in the north sea, there are more than enough influences in the EU to say that angling for cod is outlawed in equal measure

in any walk of life/industry there will be some that will abuse it and greed takes over, always will. A commercial skipper reading this could just as easily accuse the angling community of wanting it all as well

it applies equally to commercial boats, shore anglers, even bait diggers/collectors - human nature I'm afraid

not trying to argue for either side particularly, but there's no single easy solution, balancing livelihoods, conservation, the interests of anglers and the rest.

As it stands you have to accept that a commercial boat has just as much right to the fish in sea as an angler does. How much abuse those fish get from either side is the problem.
 
I have to agree with just about everything Mark has said there, as for RyanLee, fishing is not a job where you can say ill catch set amount everyday for a week,month or year.
When i worked aboard the boat, yes we had some good days, but the bad days far outweighed the good days and you were left scratching around all week for a measly 100 pounds, because dock dues, fuel bills and boat maintenance come before your wage packet, Even after working close on 80 hours for the week.

While not condoning all the actions of the commercial its easy to sit and tar and feather them all.
Just look at the world we live in today i bet 90% of people here either have 1 car, or have a family with a car each. We know we destroying the planet with all the greenhouse gasses we pump into the atmosphere, but you still jump in your car to go to work, shops or just for a drive out, and i bet with little or no thought for the environment.
Why not use public transport, get a job closer to home so you can walk?????
A lot of people only care for the shore angling, because its THERE HOBBY, which is quite a selfish view, if you didnt fish , would you care at all.......
 
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