Bass fishing curtailed

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The EU have issued a directive on Bass fishing for 2016.
Basically from Jan to June you must release all Bass alive back into the sea. For the second half of the year you are only allowed to keep one Bass per day.
Details here clicky
 
that will be interesting to see how many keep appearing on our mendicant Fish Vans !


Sea Fishing Magazine has been fighting for a ban for quite a while to allow stocks to recover.
 
A few years ago there was a large sport boat in Dover which was going out daily to catch bass, no doubt for the local restaurants. I imagine that a lot of "amateur" fishing goes on.

I don't find bass very exciting to eat myself. I think that its popularity is mainly due to the ease of filletting or eating off the bone.
 
It's about time. There has been strict limits on bass fishing in Ireland for a long time - no commercial fishing. They are so slow growing - a 10 lber is probably 20 years old so hard to have a sustainable fishery. There is poaching, but I know a few have been 'shopped' to the fisheries board.

More than that, the price per kilo on the fishmongers slab is only a fraction of the price to anglers - I fish for bass in Kerry, and by the time you've paid for B&B, restaurants and pubs, the cost of the single fish I take home is considerable. Furthermore, it supports rural communities, as opposed to the trawler men who often employ cheap foreign nationals.
 
skipper_stu said:
i
Another reason to stick two fingers up to the EU!
S
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And just why do you suppose that the UK are not the ones arguing for this piece of legislation? I can assure you that restrictions are exactly what has been called for by UK based anglers, especially an increase in minimum size in order to allow the bass to reach maturity and have had a chance to breed before they can be taken.

Also the restrictions apply to commercial fishermen even more@ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...ational-fishing-restrictions-for-bass-in-2016
 
skipper_stu said:
i
Another reason to stick two fingers up to the EU!
Click to expand...
EU fisheries policies have been a complete shambles, but it's a perfect example of the need for European cooperation.

If you read the link foeu originally supplied:

The species appears to be extending their range northwards with bass now being caught with some regularity in areas such as the Yorkshire and North East coasts where they were previously fairly rare …

In 2013 the UK media reported that bass numbers were at their lowest in twenty years, and that the breeding stock of bass had reduced by almost a third since 2009. One of the major reasons for this is that when bass congregate to spawn in the English Channel in winter they are heavily targeted by commercial vessels, especially pair trawlers from France. This method of fishing involves dragging a vast net between two boats and catching huge amounts of bass just as they are gathering to breed – it is difficult to think of a method of fishing which is more damaging to the long-term numbers of a species. …

A number of European nations, led by the UK, put forward emergency measures to protect bass stocks. Despite an outcry from the French bass fishing industry these measures were passed, and from the end of January 2015 to the end of April 2015 pair trawling for bass in the southern North Sea, Irish Sea, English Channel and Celtic Sea has been banned meaning that bass will be able to spawn without being targeted by commercial vessels.​

There would be no point at all in the British government restricting Yorkshire fishermen if French commercial trawlers were to continue harvesting the supply at source.

This is where you need to get two friendly bureaucrats together in Brussels, one of them English and one of them French, so that they're agreeable when we tell them "come on, mon ami, you need to stop taking the piss".

I am not defending EU fisheries policies, because some of them have been right cluster****s, but think how much worse things would be if we were not cooperating!

If our fishermen were competing aggressively against theirs, each refusing to leave a fair share, we could easily see a complete collapse of our fisheries stocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery
 
Strolls said:
EU fisheries policies have been a complete shambles, but it's a perfect example of the need for European cooperation.

If you read the link foeu originally supplied:

The species appears to be extending their range northwards with bass now being caught with some regularity in areas such as the Yorkshire and North East coasts where they were previously fairly rare …

In 2013 the UK media reported that bass numbers were at their lowest in twenty years, and that the breeding stock of bass had reduced by almost a third since 2009. One of the major reasons for this is that when bass congregate to spawn in the English Channel in winter they are heavily targeted by commercial vessels, especially pair trawlers from France. This method of fishing involves dragging a vast net between two boats and catching huge amounts of bass just as they are gathering to breed – it is difficult to think of a method of fishing which is more damaging to the long-term numbers of a species. …

A number of European nations, led by the UK, put forward emergency measures to protect bass stocks. Despite an outcry from the French bass fishing industry these measures were passed, and from the end of January 2015 to the end of April 2015 pair trawling for bass in the southern North Sea, Irish Sea, English Channel and Celtic Sea has been banned meaning that bass will be able to spawn without being targeted by commercial vessels.​

There would be no point at all in the British government restricting Yorkshire fishermen if French commercial trawlers were to continue harvesting the supply at source.

This is where you need to get two friendly bureaucrats together in Brussels, one of them English and one of them French, so that they're agreeable when we tell them "come on, mon ami, you need to stop taking the piss".

I am not defending EU fisheries policies, because some of them have been right cluster****s, but think how much worse things would be if we were not cooperating!

If our fishermen were competing aggressively against theirs, each refusing to leave a fair share, we could easily see a complete collapse of our fisheries stocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery
Click to expand...
Let me see, French pair trawlers are overfishing in what was our waters! That is the issue, so we stop hand line fishing by amateurs!
So out of the EU, tell the pair trawlers to go and overfish in their waters and job done!
As for the duck, isnt he one of those sockpuppets?
S
 
skipper_stu said:
Let me see, French pair trawlers are overfishing in what was our waters! That is the issue, so we stop hand line fishing by amateurs!
So out of the EU, tell the pair trawlers to go and overfish in their waters and job done!
As for the duck, isnt he one of those sockpuppets?
S
Click to expand...
Who`s licences / quota`s did the French buy & from whom
 
Although commercial fishermen tend to catch bass in larger numbers, in particular French pair trawlers are regarded as a problem by inshore fishermen and anglers alike. Then anglers complain about any commercial exploitation, but we wonder why they think bass are all for them. The problem with anglers is numbers: biggest sport/ pastime in the UK, they don't take many each, but there are lots of them. Some of them are commercial 'anglers', employing the same methods as licensed handline fishermen without the expense and selling to restaurant back doors or rogue traders. (As a fishmonger I'm not allowed to buy from an angler or unlicensed boat) Local commercial fishermen will tell you how the, legal, sales to restaurants dry up as soon as the anglers get going (Lobster the same).
A Spanish lady in my shop this summer had worked for the EU fisheries in Brussels, she said it was realised they had to address the bass angling question as it had become a very reckonable inroad into stocks, and she gave up due to the frustration of trying to deal with, in particular, the Irish bass angling sector.
 
skipper_stu said:
As for the duck, isnt he one of those sockpuppets?
Click to expand...
No wonder you think so! Jumbleduck and I have expressed agreement twice this week, I think, on totally diverse subjects.

I'm not sure if I'm his sockpuppet, or he's mine, but these forums are so contentious that two people agreeing twice is so rare and unlikely as to be absolutely conclusive evidence of conspiracy.
 
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fisherman said:
A Spanish lady in my shop this summer had worked for the EU fisheries in Brussels, she said it was realised they had to address the bass angling question as it had become a very reckonable inroad into stocks, and she gave up due to the frustration of trying to deal with, in particular, the Irish bass angling sector.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm not involved in the Save our Sea Bass group, but a friend has some peripheral dealings. There was some upset when the commercial sector lobbied to start commercial bass fishing. I was under the impression that Ireland was OK - No commercial fishing, a min 40 cm size, a closed season for anglers and a 2 fish bag limit. There is some poaching, but I know of one case where an angler who was known to take a lot of fish to sell and a quiet word was put in to the bailiff. If I'm at a restaurant and I see a suspiciously thick bass fillet I will ask the chef where the fish was sourced.
 
Strolls said:
No wonder you think so! Jumbleduck and I have expressed agreement twice this week, I think, on totally diverse subjects.

I'm not sure if I'm his sockpuppet, or he's mine, but these forums are so contentious that two people agreeing twice is so rare and unlikely as to be absolutely conclusive evidence of conspiracy.
Click to expand...

Spooky but true.
 
The true amateur is no threat to Sea Bass, but boat loads of sea fishing days and other commercial operators are depleting stocks. Still it's good to know it's not our technique that's at fault for us catching so few! Great fish when you do bag a big one, perfect fried in butter there and then.
 
"Bar grillé". (In the Med it's called "loup".) One of my favourite fish dishes along with perches cooked in champagne (Swiss speciality) and skate wings (ailes de raie).
 
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