specimen coalfish

the marks up here do produce skate, although not as many as previous years and most have found the charts to be fairly accurate....

hi

jim it wouldnt be possible to determine weight from genetic information. While there may be some sort of switching on or off of specific genes due to life stage, age or possibly even weight the responses would be far too complex to be detecable using the technology that the isfc are using, which is pretty standard species identification stuff.

if a particular fish weighs ten pounds the genetic and phylogentic information would be the same as if it were twelve or 20lbs. The base information encoded in the genes that the isfc are going to use will not change as weight changes. expression patterns might, but the fingerprint as such will not change. to assess expression patterns you would need to do promoter, analysis, comparitive blots, QPCR etc and all that would be very expensive and complicated

There’s not much benefit in fingerprinting for the boat angler so. At least it will eventually eliminate the sending back of bodies.
We had mullet claims rejected this year due to photos not being conclusive, as did a few other guys. It all comes down to thin-lipped and thick-lipped mullet. It was a pity but dems de breaks! I sent a scale sample. Genetic finger printing cannot come soon enough!
:)

Didn't take me long to start stirring the sh*t again folks. Given that to produce the actual body for verification of specimen fish claim results in a 100% mortality of those fishes, would it not be better to have a system where they could be returned alive, no matter how low the potential survival rate. Certainly there should be enough basic data on record from previous claims to produce charts for most species. If you are worried about borderline cases just up the qualifying weight 10 or 20% [ after all they raised the figure for haddock from 4.5 lb to 7 lb after one season's returns from Portstewart!!]
The point I was making about Common Skate is that even though they have been off the list for 30 years people still fish for them!!
Incidently, Phil, I suspect there are a lot more recorded landings of Common Skate off the North Coast in the last 10 to 15 years, than through all the 60's 70's and 80's, simply because people are actively fishing for them. The only early one I recall was landed in a Causeway Coast Festival [ and only because the angler was using 120lb dacron, and thought he had anchored the boat !!]

lets take a look at the sea angler shimano mission accomplished....it seems a good system to me, although the weight of some claims is bluffed a bit in some cases....
an honour system like this would go a long way i believe, and with the inclusion of a chart system of some degree to eliminate and false readings on scales onboard boats.
just another thing to think/discuss?