Our bass laws seem even more important now!?

Its the same as the recession, it will be too late to do anything when the time comes. We have fishery officers along with other people that are doing nothing. I have fished all over Kerry and I have never met anybody checking to see if I am obeying the Bass laws. I saw somebody in Kerry catch a 6lb Bass and sell it to the restaurant across the road for €50. As bad as this is the illegal commercial fishing will finish off our sport. If the Bass go I will stop fishing, and I think alot of people will do the same. It isnt much to ask people to obey the Bass laws we have. It isnt a big deal and the laws are there for a reason. Its a disgrace that greed and the I dont care attitude will stop our Bass stocks from growing. There is plenty fish in the sea. LEAVE THE Bass ALONE

Yes, fishery officers are doing nothing!
Just because you haven't been checked doesn't mean fishery officers are scratching their holes.... as recent seizures show, sometimes there are bigger fish to fry, and checking anglers is not a productive use of (very stretched) resources. Better to get a netsman who's catching hundreds of Bass than an angler catching 1 or 2. Just how many fishery officers are there in the whole of Co. Kerry? You might be surprised how few there are...

As for what you witnessed, well what did you do about it? You've just accused fishery officers of doing nothing, but unless you reported what you saw and followed it up, you have no right to complain. There is a 24-hour hotline number 1890 347324, anyone can call in an incident they are witnessing. Did you do this?

Hold on now, yes I have reported an incident in Blenerville 18 months ago, where I saw guys netting, I also rang the hotline number that night as I had no phone on me juring the day. When I told a a guy who fishes there locally he told me the netting was known about and reported on a few stages but nothing has being done about it. Also this is a forum I am entitled to my opinon and I am not trying to start an argument. I realise we may have few fishery officers but I have being fishing alot over the past few years in alot of marks over Kerry, I have never met one. My point is the beaches and estuarys should be patrolled more as this would frighten the people that are netting and braking the laws. This is my opinion and I an entitled to post it.

Fair enough, and you're as entitled to your opinion as anyone else on this forum. However, I made the point that there simply aren't enough fishery officers to do the job - numbers have gone from over 400 in IFI nationally a cpl years ago to just over 300 now, at least half of whom are admin or research staff. So how are fewer officers with less resources supposed to do more patrols???
Posting that fishery officers are doing nothing, when you clearly know nothing about staff resources, funding issues, and the many other jobs that they have to do, just shows how little you actually know. Opinions < Fact

I understand what you are saying and you are proberely right about me knowing little about the situation. You know more about it than I do and that is fair enough. I am not going to pretend I know much about the situation. What I want to say is incidents have being reported and nothing has being done about it. I may know little but I know there is not enough being done to make sure our bass laws are being enforced. When was the last time you have heard of somebody being fined or gear being confiscated on a shore or estuary. I have not heard of anything like this. Yes on rivers and lakes. There is well known hot marks all over the county of Kerry. These marks are full of anglers most fine evenings from May - August. Why couldnt they be visited by an officer a few times. A few cases of people being caught would make people think a second time about filling up the bag with schoolies. It certainly wouldnt be hard to catch a few culprits and even the presence of a fishery officer would make news along with slow individuals down with the netting. The situation can never be fully fixed and I realise that, but the situation could be improved, nothing would get people thinking like news of big fines. You cant tell me that we dont have enough resources for an officer to visits the hot marks during the summer months. Is that not there job. Laws need to be enforced otherwise they will be broken. The people with the power who are the fishery officers need to enforce the law, the rest of us need obey it. More shore marks must be monitered this should be a priority.

Very well put dex,don't think I could have done any better,I agree if only now and again a fisheries officer is seen at hotspots,it might make people think twice on killing undersized fish.I won't call them anglers, ye know who you are

Lads, I THINK YOUR MISSING THE BIGGER PICTURE HERE, not untill brussels puts in place ample funds and strategies to combat all sorts of malicious and greed fueled exploitation of our fish stocks ( EU-WIDE), nothing will change. Change has to come from the top down. Every decent angler does his part,,and it does make a difference,but on the grander scale, its the commercial sector that is bleeding our seas dry. We can only hope tey see sence, sooner, rather than when, "it's game OVER"