trawlers spoted at ballygally head Co.Antrim

O.K. then edward, consider this. if an angler takes home a bag of fish every other weekend thats about 100 fish, some take more some take less but lets stick with a hundred. over two weeks even a small trawler will take many times that amount. That is inevitible. i understand the fact that commertial fishermen need to make a living but during the time that trawler is taking fish it will pick up qutie a large number of juvinile fish. I know that trawlers do not mean for this to happen but i have seen it with my own eyes in england.many, if not all, of these fish do die and thats why anglers blame commertial fishermen for the decline in fish stocks.

indeed i have heard from a relaible source that european trawlers use small mesh nets to catch these juvinile fish but that is different because they are in the eu?(is it)

Well said sandman!!!! Your prediction on the Bass fishing is not that far away I have noticed that my local ASDA store has started to sell very small Bass from there fish counter????? :twisted:

They'd be farmed bass, at a guess but they may have company soon.

I don't know if anyone has been following the fisheries news lately, but with the cuts in the deep sea species, fishermens organisations banding together and calling for the government to open up 'new opportunities' for those displaced from various fisheries due to quota reductions etc, I'd bet my bottom dollar that they'll have bass in their sights. I have no doubt that the insistence on only renewing the bass legislation on a yearly basis is to facilitate re-opening the fishery.

take your points lads,but nobody is coming out with a sob storyabout the state of the fishing industry.i am not involved in in the industry anymore but 99.9% of fishermen i know are as much about conservation as anyone,nobody wants to see greed persevere over long term gain.as regards handouts or grants ive never seen any.ok the government gave out grants a few years ago for new boats,these were mostly for deepwater trawlers most of which dont fish within 60 miles of the shore anyway.where i come from it would not pay any boat to fish close to shore.i will finish with this point,the only reason we have got a ban on drift netting for salmon is because we are 6 months away from an election.where do you think all these 1000s of salmon are going to go now there are not 100s of miles of driftnets in their way,most of them straight into privately owned stretches of river thats where.its from here that ordinary anglers will have to pay for the privilige of catching them with the money going in to private individuals pockets.if thats not the government bowing to big money talkers to snag votes then i dont know what is.

Um, the EU was going to fine Ireland a number of millions of euro if we didn't comply with the Habitats Directive. Thirty, to be exact. An odd number, suspiciously like the amount of the compensation package. Thirty million the Government had to pay out anyway if they didn't comply. So I guess they see the compensation package as dead money anyway - might as well buy as many votes with it as possible, do a little damage limitation. Need I paint a picture of what's happening here?

As for grants, subsidies etc, yes, most do go to the larger operators. The small man usually gets the shaft. But mark this, as industrial fishing is scaled back due to stock preservation regulations that are already in the pipeline, you'll see the larger operators scale down. So instead of dragging Rockall, Stanton, Hatton, Porcupine etc until there isn't a stone larger than your fist, they'll be coming to a shoreline near you....

sandman
thats pretty scary :shock: the bit about the bass is real scary :shock:
any suggestions as to what the avarage angler can do to prevent it?

lets be fair - the fact that the bass order has to be signed yearly and not written into stone - left it open to go back the way very easily

ive seen more bass in retaurants and supermarkets over the last 2-3 years than ever before

sure its "farmed and from greece" - but people are responding and the demand is increasing - for a fish that wasnt that popular to eat, in general - 7-8 years ago

i dont know about you all but i think that the trawling industry is to farely un regulated. now my opinion on the situation is that fish stocks should been treated in the same contect as crops or live stock, for example a farmer will plant a seed let it grow and then harvest it when the time is right, an other example is that a farmer will breed cows or sheep let them grow and then when mature enough he will bring them to the sloughter house,

on the other hand the trawlers trawl the sea relentlessly even over breading beds not giving the stocks enough time to grow and replace what was taken last year,

i think perhaps if the fishing industry was to change its way of thinking to one more focused on a farming model it would help stocks recover and also if done correctly it could also be more productive for the trawler " greedy yankers"

regards,

Samo.

Ed Said

only reason we have got a ban on drift netting for salmon is because we are 6 months away from an election.where do you think all these 1000s of salmon are going to go now there are not 100s of miles of driftnets in their way,most of them straight into privately owned stretches of river thats where.its from here that ordinary anglers will have to pay for the privilige of catching them with the money going in to private individuals pockets.if thats not the government bowing to big money talkers to snag votes then i dont know what is.

i think your missing the point some what mate a third of the stock has been depleted since the 70s this ban wasnt introcuced to make other people rich it was introduced to protect the atlantic salmon. no messin ed

only reason we have got a ban on drift netting for salmon is because we are 6 months away from an election.where do you think all these 1000s of salmon are going to go now there are not 100s of miles of driftnets in their way,most of them straight into privately owned stretches of river thats where.its from here that ordinary anglers will have to pay for the privilige of catching them with the money going in to private individuals pockets.

The thing is, I dont personally think that even the ordinary Joe Bloggs like myself on his annual Salmon expedition has the slightest problem paying a few quid to fish a productive, properly managed fishery.

We may have to pay a few quid to be able to catch them but rest assured we would be paying a sight more to eat them in our restaurants wouldnt we with none of the pleasures attached. One drift net benefits one man. The same number of fish caught via rod and line benefit umpteen men. Whats fairest?

The farming analogy is the best one I think. Reap what you sow. A farmer cultivates his land, sows his crops, nurtures them and finally harvests them, replacing them with something else the following year. The crops are his, it is his effort that has gone into growing it. In contrast, what are the trawlers doing to further production of their "crop". Feck all...... Trawling ever closer to shore, smaller mesh, turning their attention to ever more species as the previous ones disappear..... Who on earth told them the fish belonged to them??? The fish belong to all of us, not just the person with the biggest net/boat. Reap what you sow remember.....sow nothing, take take take there is only one conclusion......

What really highlighted that fact to me was a recent advert on t.v. It was a birds eye add they couldnt supply the market with cod anymore so they turned there attention a fish called a hockie or something from new zealand gas isnt it. How long now do the hockies have before there on the endangered list.