A good reason not to buy sea bass?

In re price, by the way, bass of about 1kg fetch up to £12/kg at auction, and larger ones will be up to £20/kg. You can see what a single fish can be worth by the time it gets to the restaurant back door, whether legally caught or not. The commercial handline fisherman in a small boat uses the exact same method as an angler and the catch can be similar and can have the same potential value. The MMO has been reading the riot act to restaurants, which are obliged to register as first sale buyers of fish to legally buy anything from a registered fishing boat. They must record and submit sales notes within 48 hours. The fisherman delivering his own catch for sale must carry a transport document. All this paperwork came about primarily to combat large scale black fish landings. In my port there is a restaurant owner with a small boat, he has boasted about his freezer full of mackerel which he sells at the table, and seems to think it's not illegal as he caught them. It is illegal.
 
In re price, by the way, bass of about 1kg fetch up to £12/kg at auction, and larger ones will be up to £20/kg. You can see what a single fish can be worth by the time it gets to the restaurant back door, whether legally caught or not. The commercial handline fisherman in a small boat uses the exact same method as an angler and the catch can be similar and can have the same potential value. The MMO has been reading the riot act to restaurants, which are obliged to register as first sale buyers of fish to legally buy anything from a registered fishing boat. They must record and submit sales notes within 48 hours. The fisherman delivering his own catch for sale must carry a transport document. All this paperwork came about primarily to combat large scale black fish landings. In my port there is a restaurant owner with a small boat, he has boasted about his freezer full of mackerel which he sells at the table, and seems to think it's not illegal as he caught them. It is illegal.
I'm glad to see that something is being done. For all that, bass is not my favourite fish. I tend to think it is popular mainly because it is easy for a diner to eat and for the restaurant to serve.
 
Bass is rubbish, like lobster, paying for the name. John Dory is the best.

I wouldn't say bass was rubbish, I think that flounder or whiting hold that title, but just a bit dull. I prefer to exercise what remains of my old surgical skills on trickier foe, such a kippers, eel or what the Germans call hornfish, or gar.
 
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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.

Apart from the poor bloody fish!Fancy being repeatedly dragged out of your environment by a big hook in your mouth just so others creatures can tell lies at the pub bout how big you are!

What would be the reaction if we dragged cows out of their fields using big hooks and just for sport?

If you are going to eat the result then fair enough. But sport fishing is simply cruelty.
 
In contrast to cows and other higher vertebrates, fish do not have the required brain structures to experience pain, only nociception which is not the same thing at all.
 
In contrast to cows and other higher vertebrates, fish do not have the required brain structures to experience pain, only nociception which is not the same thing at all.
On old Olympus Peter the angel found a good view. I can still smell the formalin.
 
I was chancing my luck the other evening with a cheap rod (£25 including spool, float etc) on the outside of the harbour wall in St Peter Port. Although an almost complete rookie, having only trolled for mackerel in the past, I was hoping for low/mid-level pollock for the galley table. I then landed a young bass (circa 27cm long), carefully extracted the hook and slid him back. The next evening jostling with locals on the end of the breakwater wall, I avoided complete null pointes by bringing up a garfish. The hook was too far down its throat for release, so I dispatched it for my neighbour to use for bait. Some people were using feathers and bringing up plenty mackerel, but instead of killing them, they just left them to flap slowly to death on the stone?! One guy lowered a bucket to bring up sea-water - if I didn't have to leave (slipping on an early tide the next morning) I'd have stayed to observe him.

Its something I've taken to to compliment my habit of slow cruising. Staying in one place for several hours mindful of one objective is a good antidote to the otherwise constant change of cruising.
 
In re price, by the way, bass of about 1kg fetch up to £12/kg at auction, and larger ones will be up to £20/kg. You can see what a single fish can be worth by the time it gets to the restaurant back door, whether legally caught or not. The commercial handline fisherman in a small boat uses the exact same method as an angler and the catch can be similar and can have the same potential value. The MMO has been reading the riot act to restaurants, which are obliged to register as first sale buyers of fish to legally buy anything from a registered fishing boat. They must record and submit sales notes within 48 hours. The fisherman delivering his own catch for sale must carry a transport document. All this paperwork came about primarily to combat large scale black fish landings. In my port there is a restaurant owner with a small boat, he has boasted about his freezer full of mackerel which he sells at the table, and seems to think it's not illegal as he caught them. It is illegal.

Not Padstow by any case?
 
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