CORK HARBOUR lets save it

Fished de wall this morning and watched anglers, who never caught a 30cm cod put back 40cm fish hoping for something better

This could harbour could be the best all year round angling venue in Europe but it is been distroyed by the greed of a few boatmen.

It's time we put a stop to it. Our greatest allies are the Hotels, B&B's, charter skippers, pubs and the general commercial units i.e. tackle shops, food shops and petrol stations. Put a ban on all commercial fishing inside Cork harbour and there is the potential to fill every hotel and b&b around the greater harbour area all year round. I know. I meet groups of overseas anglers every year looking for the best places to fish. These anglers love it here but they watch in disgust at the trawling and netting that goes on in side the harbour.

I have other view points on regarding the netting for cod that is going on at the moment in the channel at Monkstown, within 100mts of a crossriver car ferry and the dangers that could be caused if one of these nets got entangled in a prop or rudder of the ferry. This is a question I entend to ask the port authorities about.

I could write a book about commercial fishing in Cork harbour and 99.9% would be the views of other anglers who all have the same view point as me.

[petekd]

I have seen these lads first hand. On one occasion they started shouting at anglers to pull their lines in so they could drop their nets :shock: . Needless to say there were some choice retorts. I find it hard to believe and accept that so few people can ruin a mark for so many. Any sniff of fish at the Wall and those trawlers are hammering up and down, if they arent there are those lads tending their fixed nets.

If you think about the bigger picture from petrol stations to hotels and b and bs, from tackle shops to restaurants to pubs , how on earth are we allowing the actions of what amounts to a handful of people to ruin it for everyone else?

On another point, how on earth do you convince someone that 30 or 40 cm cod might be better off being returned when theres some bloke with a net waiting for it.........

Last edited by petekd on Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Ok Donal

So what do " we " do to save Cork Harbour ?

What about contacting the Munster IFSA conservation Officer ?

Perhaps a letter writing campaign ?


Perhaps you'd like to read [url=http://www.sacn-online.org/index.php?categoryid=8&p2_start=18]this[/url] ?

We recognise the threat, we see the solution; yet we cannot get anglers off their asses until the ground is netted out from under each of them personally....


Andy Elliott

have you sounded out the local businesses yet? you probably need to get an idea of how many boat men would be effected by the ban if it were to be sucessful if the number of local business people is greater than the number of boatmen you could be onto something. it would also set a precident for other areas around our coasts. good luck!

I really think that the voice of local business gets your voice heard alot more in this sort of thing.

the thing is, one sea angler cannot change everything for all sea anglers....
but as a group, sea anglers have a very strong voice
its just time that ALL sea anglers got together, got a sound plan in place......and made ALL their voices heard on things like this.
well, while u guys were getting 5pound cod around cork area today, we went to one of our best beaches up here, fished hard.....the best cod to be had was lucky if it made 5oz! that was from a beach that used to throw a few good cod up too, plus quite a few around 1.5lb......no more....

all i can suggest is this, get as many anglers as possible in your area to join the SACN, and lets all work together to try our best to get something better for us all???

At a very good guess there are two punts who are netting the area and at least 3 trawlers who hog the harbour, killing all behind them. All these people are known to the local anglers. But I must stress a point there seems to be no local bylaws to stop them from doing this and they are within their rights to do so.

How they register their catch and show it on their books is an other story.

there probably is nothing to stop them doing it, thats why we all need to get together and fight this countrywide....not just sit back and expect just a few to try to do it for the rest.....because that way, it will never happen.

How exactly is what they are doing legal? The lads in the wee punt hardly look like real trawlermen!

Donal knows better than anyone that the government will not even listen to shore anglers let alone answer any questions, or take on board any points we have made over the years.
Several years ago i went to a series of meetings with interested parties hosted by the government to help balance fish stocks. though Donal raised several valid points the conveners would not even answer his questions, more interested in quota's and trout and salmon in Kerry. one other point, not one trawlerman attended!
Salting the wall!
Salting the wall with a few engine blocks has been put forward as a deterrent to trawling and netting. while this may stop them after a while, how many nets will be left floating and killing fish for years. many of you who have lost fish around the telegraph pole in a snag can thank a net that's there for five years now i think. It all sounds grim but publicity and pressure is the only answer, it has to be made illegal to net or trawl the harbour. With fines that will make it pointless to do it, and someone to enforce it..... Chris

Donal knows better than anyone that the government will not even listen to shore anglers let alone answer any questions, or take on board any points we have made over the years.
Several years ago i went to a series of meetings with interested parties hosted by the government to help balance fish stocks. though Donal raised several valid points the conveners would not even answer his questions, more interested in quota's and trout and salmon in Kerry. one other point, not one trawlerman attended!
Salting the wall!
Salting the wall with a few engine blocks has been put forward as a deterrent to trawling and netting. while this may stop them after a while, how many nets will be left floating and killing fish for years. many of you who have lost fish around the telegraph pole in a snag can thank a net that's there for five years now i think. It all sounds grim but publicity and pressure is the only answer, it has to be made illegal to net or trawl the harbour. With fines that will make it pointless to do it, and someone to enforce it..... Chris

Which brings me back to a question I asked on the conservation forum :roll: a few weeks back

An interesting meeting last night , the talk by Ali Hood was very good, certainly opened my eyes on a few things

The discussion afterwards however was the most interesting part for me anyway.

One thing that stood out , more than anything was the question, who represents anglers ?
That got me thinking... who does speak for anglers at meetings like this . ?

The commercials are well organised and speak with one voice... but who represents anglers as a stakeholder , Recreational Sea Anglers spend a hell of a lot of money .... but they have no representation at marine stakeholder meetings.

Why ?

Full thread [url=http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bulletin%20board/viewtopic.php?t=8664]here[/url]

Andy Elliott

In light of the recent uproar, following the netting of The Turbot Bank in Cork Harbour, it is only right and proper that I say this. Whilst in the process of discussing the issue above, I personally made some somewhat derogatory remarks about commercial fishermens activities within the harbour which I removed voluntarily at a later date. However, at that stage, the damage had been done and one or two of the commercial lads in the harbour had been offended somewhat by what was said. I accept the fact there wasn't a need to use the terms I did in getting my point across and I fully apologise for any offense caused to anyone. The issue was discussed at length on 96fm over the past couple of days and I had the following email complete with my name attached read out this morning.

Hi All,

Just to add to the email I despatched to yourselves
yesterday, outlining my position as an angler on what
happened on the Turbot Bank. Unfortunately, it was
myself who made those inflammatory comments on a
particular website.

At the time, they were made during a fairly heated
discussion on issues relating to commercial fishing
within the harbour. I had been to Monkstown to enjoy
a days fishing to find that firstly it had been
trawled earlier that day and secondly there were
people setting fixed nets across an area where anglers
were already fishing. Feelings were running high,
tempers were fairly frayed and the comments were made
in anger. In hindsight, the choice of language was
unfortunate, I'd like to think I have the ability to
get a point across without resorting to that, for that
I am sorry.

Given the nature of offense those comments raised, I
sincerely wish to express my apologies to those
concerned. I removed the comments some time ago when
this issue was first brought to my attention and
expressed my regret to the source who had brought news
of this to me as he was in regular contact with one of
the commercial fishermen concerned.

I wish to stress that the comments made were my own,
were not reflective of any body or website and I
regret making them and apologise once again to all
concerned. I am neither muppet, nor interested in
stirring a load of trouble between anglers and
trawlermen, I am a keen angler who finds the sight of
commercial guys working so close inshore very hard to
take. Comments such as this are certainly not a
regular feature in my contributions to various
websites etc, I fully accept these guys have the right
to make a living, my main point on my previous email
is maybe it shouldnt be at everybody elses expense.

I would appreciate it if you could read this email out
to extend my sincere regret for the offense caused.

I still stand by my viewpoint that there are areas that need to have some form of special status attached to them in order to preserve some of the finest angling sites in the country. However, as it states above, I accept that commercial fishermen have the right to make a living too. We need to sit down and work these issues out at some stage, sooner rather than later. It's galling and a sad reflection on the state of our fisheries due in the main to government policy that our own commercial guys have to resort to areas such as these, that I suppose is a discussion for another day. This post is for the benefit of those who may have been offended by the remarks and missed the email above being read out this morning. I am told that steps have been taken between both sides to resolve this issue and certainly, on a short term basis, this appears to have been a success.

It took heart to write that Peter.....well done mate! your spot on, 2 wrongs dont make a right.

Regards,
Tom.

I think this thread needs no further comment.
Thanks Pete.

Jim.