A good reason not to buy sea bass?

[Little Dorrit]

http://britishseafishing.co.uk/europes-bass-a-species-on-the-edge-of-collapse/

 

[Len Ingalls]

A possible answer-aquaculture- farm them http://en.aquaculture.ifremer.fr/Sectors/Fish-sector/Discoveries/European-seabass

Seabass (bass) are already being farmed in Spain by Cooke Aquaculture http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1223120-cooke-aquaculture-expands-with-major-spanish-deal

 

[l'escargot]

Most of the bass (and bream) available, certainly in supermarkets, is farmed. The restriction on anglers and independent local fishermen will have very little effect. They need to stop the large commercial boats hoovering up huge breeding shoals in one hit.

 

[Robin]

Most of the sea bass sold in the UK up to when we left in 2012 were farmed, the clue was in their smaller almost portion controlled, size. We did buy larger wild seabass from our local Poole fishmonger, at a big premium but except for special occasions the farmed ones he sold ( from Greece IIRC) were fine for a midweek meal. Same in France when wild, line caught ones were hugely expensive.

 

[johnalison]

I watched a large sports-fishing boat leaving Dover harbour a year or two back. I was told, with a wink, that it was a local resident out fishing for bass, which would be sold to restaurants.

 

[PaulRainbow]

I'm going Bass fishing tomorrow. I'm only allowed to keep one, but the area is heavily netted.

 

[garvellachs]

http://britishseafishing.co.uk/europes-bass-a-species-on-the-edge-of-collapse/

The article talks about two trawlers going up the channel with a huge net between them catching bass, dolphins and anything else which dares to live in the sea and get in their way. It's so obviously crazy that it's hard to react. Fishing like that, on that scale, needs to be stopped. Nobody should have the right to destroy a species, let alone an ecosystem, for short-term gain.

 

[fisherman]

The bass quota situation is strange. A complete ban was introduced from jan-july for anglers, but commercial boats were allowed 1300kg a month. That means per boat, could be 15 ft and one man, or 60 ft and six men. In fact the commercial sector, single handed hand liners, mostly uses the same methods as the anglers, and the same take can be very rewarding-for both. The anglers are not legally allowed to sell any, but in fact as one said "This ban is costing me £700 a year" (on a building site, he knew he was talking to a fisherman). When the angler's representative was on local radio talking about a protest he was asked how many people are affected. He replied "There are 850,000 anglers in the UK". There's the problem, shear weight of numbers. Yes only a small percentage are bass anglers. Only a small percentage of the 12000 commercial fishermen catch bass. The EU realised a few years back that bass anglers were having a significant effect on stocks and this needed addressing. Bass can be very lucrative, and the local commercial fishermen all know when the anglers start up, because their markets with restaurants and hotels dry up. My licence costs about £20k, just to allow me to catch sell fish legally.

 

[fisherman]

Incidentally, guts of farmed bass turned out to be the source of e coli in one fish merchant's premises. At least now they are just shipping the fillets, the guts stay behind.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

One issue is enforcement. There is a chance of catch limits being enforced on commercial fishermen but no way that they can be enforced on anglers. I have in the past seen anglers with undersized bass or shellfish. Indeed I doubt that one fellow yottie who is also a keen fisherman even knows what the minimum sizes are. I must ask him.

I am suspicious of the analysis. How many times have we heard that something is near extinction only for the eco warriors to be embarrassed by lots turning up. Is it too cynical to imagoine that these crises are a way of creating and keeping jobs. After all, who would employ the people concerned if there were no species under threat?

I reckon that Bass is over rated anyway. I prefer cod or haddock or salmon or trout. But another issue is the appearance of the fish. If it looks like a fish should, like a bass, then its OK for the consumer. If it looks like a gurnard say, then they shy away. Yet its better eating.

 

[Len Ingalls]

I live in a Canadian east coast fishing community,right on the US border.
The only thing left here is lobster & some sea scallops.
Cod,haddock,pollock-I could handline all day & never get a bite.
15 yrs. ago,I could catch my 10 fish per day recreational limit no problem.
Commercial Atlantic salmon fishery was closed in 1970.
Yes-it is possible to catch them all-in effect.

 

[JumbleDuck]

http://britishseafishing.co.uk/europes-bass-a-species-on-the-edge-of-collapse/

Beyond the taste and the texture, what reason would you need?

 

[fisherman]

Masterchef has a lot to answer for.

 

[GrahamHR]

I have only once caught a bass; in 1971/2, a 4 pound one Even then a rare catch. Not targeted, released humanely. I suspect most if not all amateur anglers release their catch. Commercial, none.

 

[PaulRainbow]

I suspect most if not all amateur anglers release their catch. Commercial, none.

Hmm, not sure i'd agree with that. I'd have thought Sea anglers will mostly keep what they catch.

I keep most things i catch. I release Skate, i don't like the taste and i always release female Smoothounds etc, as when we catch them they tend to be carrying young. Tope go back, they're protected. Anything else big enough to eat gets filleted (obviously just one Bass).

 

[Robin]

I would love to be able to catch or buy sea bass, farmed or wild because it doesn't exist in our part of the USA. They sell 'Chilean seabass' which is a firm fleshed Deep water imposter fish and nothing like the Lubina or Bar de ligne we came to love in Spain or France, even before celebrity chefs got in on the act. I saw 'striped bass' once on TV caught in Chesapeake bay and cooked by Rick Stein and that looked closest to the real thing. My best bass was a nice 6lb one, caught off the rocks on soft crab cast into breaking surf in Crantock, Cornwall. Had a few over the years from trolling rubber sand eels behind the boat, caught off Old Harry rocks or the training bank, Poole but never enough to worry any quotas or limits. THey catch bass here for professional competition, big sport but it is freshwater bass not proper salt water real deal stuff.

 

[charles_reed]

The vast majority of bass on sale throughout Europe is farmed - mostly in Greece.
You can buy small (150gm) ones in markets, here, for as little as €1 each.
The farmed variety are smaller and paler than line-caught wild bass, for which you can expect to pay a 500% premium. The taste is of the former is insipid and texture soggy.
Sea-bass have been under threat, in the wild, for at least the last 20 years, to my knowledge.
Certainly no reason to eschew bass, as suggested by the OP, because environmental changes have probably been more damaging to their numbers than over-fishing.
Perfect markets have taken care of the problem.

 

[robertj]

I feel for the recreational anglers. This measure is about licenses nothing more, the government looking after its revenue at the cost of those who recreationally fish.
It's all hogwash in the fact that as the report says only 15% of the total catch are the pair trawlers but and increase on Gill netting from 1tonne to 1.3 tonnes.
Nothing about conversation there in my view.

 

[fisherman]

I feel for the recreational anglers. This measure is about licenses nothing more, the government looking after its revenue at the cost of those who recreationally fish.
It's all hogwash in the fact that as the report says only 15% of the total catch are the pair trawlers but and increase on Gill netting from 1tonne to 1.3 tonnes.
Nothing about conversation there in my view.

The Portuguese lady who came in my shop used to work at the fisheries dept in Brussels, she told me about the realisation that anglers were becoming a reckonable part of the fishing effort, because of the numbers. She also said the worse ones to try to deal with were the Irish bass fraternity, and she gave up the job because of the stress and frustration. I personally can't understand the 1.3 ton allowance, but haven't seen anyone take that much except rarely in January.

 

[Neil]

The Portuguese lady who came in my shop used to work at the fisheries dept in Brussels, she told me about the realisation that anglers were becoming a reckonable part of the fishing effort, because of the numbers. She also said the worse ones to try to deal with were the Irish bass fraternity, and she gave up the job because of the stress and frustration. I personally can't understand the 1.3 ton allowance, but haven't seen anyone take that much except rarely in January.

The Irish bass regs have been in place a long time. No commercial bass fishery. A 2 fish bag limit. A closed season and minimum size limits. It's illegal to sell wild bass, although it does happen. One Irish 'guide' who was a known poacher was shopped to the fisheries board by another angler.

Twice over the years I've seen a suspiciously thick bass fillet, and I've asked the waiter to ask the chief for the source of the fish.......

Many anglers practice catch and release, though some are taken for the table. The major point worth noting is that a bass is worth about 5 times more as a recreational fish than the price on the fishmongers slab: it stimulates the local economy - we pay a guide, pay for B&Bs, restaurants, pubs and the local shops, everyone's a winner, especially if that fish is caught again and again.