bass upper size limit.

wonderin what peoples opinion is on placing an upper size limit on bass. ive just finished looking at an old copy of total sea-fishing and felt physically sick when i saw a load of pictures of double figure bass dead. bass are an extremely slow growing fish which can take up to 20 years to reach double figures and dont start breeding until 4-5 years of age. by removing double figure fish you are decreasing the reproduction rate by removing the primary reproducing fish. in doing so affecting stocks of fish.if you look at the american example their stripped bass fishing has exploded since the upper and lower size limit was placed on their fish. this is just my opinion and im fully open to disagreement, but would like to hear how others feel about the issue

Lumpy,

I think the American "Slot" system is the way to go...with a small bag limit. It worked for the Red Drum....one per day, had to be over 16" but under 27".....but it would need to be policed...can you honestly see any European government spending money on that sort of thing....sad! but they'll wait until its to late and blame everyone but themselves IMHO

Tom.

I'm still looking foreword to catching my first Bass (If there's any left!), But like many of todays Irish Sea Anglers I wouldn't even dream of killing such a fine and Whiley Predator. Its a case of CPR (Catch, Photograph, Release)for all species, nowadays.

If the respective British and Irish Governments stepped back and looked at the amount of Revenue generated by both Local and visiting anglers fishing for sporting fish in the Sea, they'd soon thing twice about allowing the fish to be taken.

i fully agree that this would be difficult to police but i would hope, like the manner in which the bag limit in the republic works (and i know that there are many people who do not abide by this) that at least the true anglers who both care about our sport and the future of it for others would abide by the limits.

I fully agree with an upper size limit too not that it will make any diff to me as I`ve returnd all the Bass I have caught and intend to keep doing so. As K2 says its about time the powers that be realised the potential of our Bass stocks. If they where fully protected we could also have our own sport fishing industry based around them like the Americans.
Marty

its good to hear that individual anglers do feel strongly about this topic, at least a percrntage of anglers do realise the benifit they are doing by returning these fish

Its really the mid sized ones that are the prime breeding stock. better to take a biggie. also if you take a biggie the chances are it will have breed several times. also they are good and tasty at that size!!! good and controvertial!! I think in all fairness if we take the one or 2 fish a year it does no harm. it would do us more good to worry about the netting going on.

The biggest problem is indeed being able to police any size limit. For a government to spend money they have to see a benefit to the economy. Sadly, when we look at the way the present (and past) government has approched the drift netting issues regarding salmon, when it is clear to the dogs in the street that angling for them is far more beneficial economically, then it depresses me a little to know that fighting for bass protection would be a mountain to climb. This is why we need to row in behind JimH and his campaign for a Bass Protection Group.

i agree. we also need to bear un mind no children would go hungry if this was stoped and that these lads are doing it for beer money. all you have to do is keep calling ur bailif and if he dosnt respond email the cfb and cc in the dept, usually gets a response. i always make sure i have the numbers for the bailifs for where I fish

I assume you are talking about recreational angling here. In which case, yes it is a nice idea, but similar to the 2 bass a day rule, it's unenforceable. If someone wants to take home 3 bass (or more), or a large bass, then they are going to do it, as in 99.999999999999999999999% of cases there will be no one with the power to stop them.

It might have some effect on anglers who take home fish for the pot, but who stick to the minimum size limits and 2 per day bag limits. However most real bass anglers release the vast majority of the fish they catch anyway. And to be honest, I wouldn't begrudge this type of angler the odd larger fish. He deserves it for consistently practicing catch and release.

And before someone jumps on Liam, he does have a valid argument regarding keeping larger bass, and evidence of this has emerged in the angling press over the last couple of years. It's not something I agree with, because I tend to put all my fish back, but it should be thought out fully before being discredited.

Education of anglers, particularly those who are not die hards, seems to be a key issue. if I was a learner I don't think I could possibly kill a 20 year old fish, I'd never get over the guilt. Similarly, I'd think twice about knocking a 2 pound fish on the head, having been told that it could have taken 6 years to grow this big.

I'm all for respecting the bag limit and minumum (and even max) sizes, but the fish saved by us anglers either practicing catch and release or sticking to the law is negligible compared to commercial fishing and illegal netting.

I read recently an article about the proposed salmon drift net ban. It mentioned bag limits of 2 salmon per day per angler or whatever, after noting that the commercial drift net catch was down to 91,000 tonnes last year. How many anglers for how many days to catch that amount of fish???

One point in relation to fish size (although this pertians more to commercial fishing) is that consistantly taking the big fish, over many years, skews the genetic profile to that of a smaller fish population. The cod remaining on the Grand Banks are smaller for their age than in the old days.

thats not gonna happen mind you Neil with the amount of Basses you catch!

I wonder if you can remind me who caught and who didn't the last bassing trip...........??

i stood aside afraid that if i caught all the bass you wouldnt be let come on the next trip!!!!

I disagree with killing big Bass, they are your breeding stock, and have probably spawned successsfully a number of times, and are adept at surviving.The egg carrying ability of any big female fish is bound to keep the recruitment figures up. If the illegal Bass netters were put out of business, then stocks would recover. You only have to look at the Striped Bass fishery in the US, to see that.Remember, one good lift in the nets, probably kills more Bass in one night, than the contributers to this thread would kill in 5 years. Build up the stocks, then you can keep the odd one for the table, (if you want to), personally I don't.As I said at the start, return all big Bass, remember, genetically they are the survivors, and they will pass on the maximum growing size gene pool.

its not only the case for bass(if specimen size, record size)etc to be photographed released and if your scales are certified then imho they should stand as such.
the thing which gets into some peoples heads is that if they release the fish again that its gonna end up in a net sometime soon along the line anyhow, so most probably knock them on the head!
the way i look at it is that if they go over say 4-5 lb they have been lucky enough to escape the nets for so long they may be lucky enough to continue to do so, so give them a chance!(all species that is)
if we are to continue to have the hope of rising fish stocks, then release again and keep pressurising ther powere to be to make sure there are less nets out there year after year to increase he chance of populations rising again.
at 23 years of age , unfortunately i only have to listen to the stories from elder anglers of the great numbers and size of fish they used to catch 20/30 years ago? basically its down to the powers to be to look at the reasons why we no longer have fish in these quantities and size and to make the appropriate rectifictions to correct this asap!

at the end of the day , we can only do our bit for the future generations of sea anglers, even if we never see in our lifetimes the results of the oppurtunities available to make it better!


ps....sorry for the rant! :P