My heart sank

[tugboat]

Watching Trawlermen tonight. Now I've always had the greatest respect for our fishermen, their job is tougher and more dangerous than many of us could conceive, but watching that new 12million quid monster sucking 500 tonnes of mackerel out of the oggin in one go made me feel quite sick. Boats like that shouldn't be allowed. No skill, just hightech gear and a huge mortgage to finance. No wonder the gulls raid our dustbins. And they want to make us pay for a licence to fish for our supper with a rod. Another example of the world going mad. Think I need a stiff drink!

 

[Robin]

I just watched it too off tape and had the same thoughts. Prior to seeing that I had little sympathy with quotas and especially the lunacy that means throwing over quota fish back dead or makes boats stay at sea in storms rather than waste allowable fishing days. But 500 tonnes of mackerel worth £300,000 in ONE haul is something else. It seemed to be destined for a processing plant so it was going for tinned or for catfood rather than quality use and an entire huge shoal was sucked up for that. How much of that kind of fishing can any area stand, I suspect not much.

 

[BrendanS]

Probably a lot of editing going on, but watching the the series, impressed by the guy with the old wooden boat, and they guy who is still Seine netting, and risking his nets round the wreck. Lots of skill and risk.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Then fit your heart with buoyancy bags.

 

[BrendanS]

Don't blame me for the title, aim that at the originator. I'm still impressed by some of the risks they take.

 

[cansogypsy]

Mackerel, Schmakerel: it does'nt matter what kind of fish it is, this is a type of industrial madness. I recall over 25 years ago, in a similar manner, Canada let the Japanese fishers take in zillions of tons of Caplin in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Canadian Dept. of Fisheries issues all kinds of warnings, that our politicians just ignored. It was even pointed out at the time that the caplin were one of the main food sources for Cod. Well, guess what? several decades later, for some unexplained reason, the Cod stocks on the Grand Banks just vanished. Wonder why?

 

[Rob_Webb]

I don't like fishermen, what they do on the water or what they deliver to the land. I catch what fish I want to eat and that's all. The only way to eat fish (fresh and self-caught).

The end!

 

[sarabande]

Thats fine if you happen to live by the sea or a river. What about the poor fish eaters who don't have access to the resource ?

Do you only eat those things you personally harvest ?

 

[whipper_snapper]

I saw the most amazing animation at a recent meeting. It was a map of the world with the year of peak catch for each point shown in red. The animation ran through time starting in the 1800s (I think) with small red dots around the uk coastline. As time progressed the red wave moved out from the coast of N Europe to cover the coast of the entire globe then into mid oceans. As of today, virtually the entire ocean is yielding less fish today than in the past, that is despite these huge hoovering operations. I haven't described it very well, but it shows more dramatically than anything I have seen how the oceans are being utterly depleted. I will try to find a copy.

 

[fisherman]

In the 70's we were handlining mackerel, 150 boats on a shoal of fish six miles by two, when the industrial boats turned up. We warned that this would wipe them out and were told it was not possible. Three years later the handline fishery was more or less finished.
On the upside, if there is one, fish handling has improved, and fish that would have gone for fishmeal fertilizer then is now kept in top condition for the fresh market.

 

[moondancer]

It does make you lose all sympathy for the fishermen. If they can't limit themselves then thank goodness for quotas.

 

[Twister_Ken]

If you can find it to buy, try "No Catch" cod. It's farmed, and it's good. (And so is the website!)

The trouble with 'fishing' is that it has become an extractive industry, with no real thought given to sustainability. If it goes on much longer, the only fish we'll eat will be farmed fish. But then again, the only beef we eat is farmed beef.

 

[ChrisE]

If anybody is really interested in sustainable fisheries

Have a look at the MSC site

[rant]

Don't get me started on how we have reduced the UK's fishstocks to next to nothing. Unless we decide that to have moritorium on onshore fisihng PDQ in the UK there just won't be any fish left. At least the people above are making an effort to find a global solution.

[/rant]

 

[Lakesailor]

I thought the guy with the wooden boat was in the right ball-park. Boat's paid for so any profit is his. So he doesn't need to catch loads of fish, small crew, not so much fuel etc. etc.
The £12,000,000 boat; he has to work his boat and crew hard, lots of fuel, catch loads of fish, all to pay the loan. So who is making the profit there then?

So much a picture of business in Britain today. There is no room for the small to medium size operator. Either a tiny one or two man operation or part of big business.

 

[tcm]

seems fishing is the only significant industry where there no reponsibility for input - raher like bank robbing you just nip out and "get" the fish. Compared with farmers etc, fishing is smash-and-grabby.

 

[Lakesailor]

Quite. The small operator is self-limiting in his effect on fish stocks. The big boat men are the opportunists of the industry.
"It was just there guv, so I took it"

 

[jimi]

what is required is an absolute ban on some types of fishin. Purse seining and pair trawling are two that come to mind. Fishing for shoal fish such as mackerel and herring should be by drift netting so that only fish of the requisite size are caught rather than just emptying a bit of the ocean.

 

[whipper_snapper]

And an absolute ban on fishing in some areas. It would not be difficult to make fishing sustainable if a carefully selected mosaic of no fishing areas was designated to act as nurseries to seed the rest.

And this crazy notion of only taking big fish and leaving the 'babies' to grow has been shown to be totally wrong. Only a tiny fraction of small fish grow into big, successful, prolific breeders. It is the very rare big adults that should not be caught, the tiny ones have little impact on the sustainability of the population. But we do it the other way round!

 

[rwoofer]

One thing that always impresses me when I cruise in France is the number of line fishermen out on the water, seemingly making a living.

They are obviously doing something right, so what is it??

 

[longjohnsilver]

It was obscene, 500 tons in one haul. Assuming the average mackerel weighs about half a pound thats 2,000,000 fish in one fell swoop. Now we all know there's loads of mackerel in the sea, but that's what was said about cod 20 or 30 years ago. It won't take too many boats taking 2 million in one haul to change all that

And to think our dear government want to charge each of us to dangle a rod to catch our supper...........................