Phortlairge wrote:What are people's opinions on this?
"A new increased bag limit for European bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) has been agreed by EU Council Ministers. In 2020, recreational anglers will now be allowed to take 2 bass per day over or equal to the minimum size of 42cm. This is an increase on the single fish allowed during much of 2019.
Anglers will be allowed to take up to 2 fish a day in all months except January, February and December (i.e. 1st March to 30th November), which are catch and release only periods to help protect spawning stocks. An increased bag limit had been called for by various lobby groups such as the European Angling Alliance (EAA) , Save Our Sea Bass and the UK’s Angling Trust ."
https://www.offthescaleangling.ie/news/ ... ions-2020/
The increase is based on the premise that bass are recovering somewhat. Also the advisory bodies underestimated the amount of bass that were released and also underestimated the potential mortality of released fish. The lobbying is largely for UK and FR anglers. In these countries there is a commercial fishery and greater numbers of bass. Anglers felt unfairly treated when rod and line commercials and netters are working alongside them and getting more generous limits.
Bass are in no danger from bass anglers. The majority of bass anglers that catch bass regularly practice C&R. The danger to bass is from the fellows that catch an occasional one or who fluke them while fishing for other species. Many of these fish are killed. The greatest danger to bass is from illegal fishing. Those criminals will not give a monkeys what the law is in any case.
The EU legislation can be superseded by more stringent local law. This is common knowledge and has always been the case. However over the last few years the new EU regulations have been accepted by the Irish Government. Last year the regulations were enforced by statutory instrument and the department consulted no other bodies before issue.
You'll probably see towards the end of next month (or later in the event of an election) whether more stringent rules will be applied to Irish anglers.
In the absence of more stringent Ireland specific regulations the new EU regulations will be law, as in previous years.
It would be great if the the powers that be were a bit more progressive and brought in a "slot size" as well as well as limits. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.