Trawler in Belfast Lough

[scrob]

Was coming out by Jordanstown on Friday and noticed a trawler with it's gear set trawling along the lough about 300 yards out.

Was quite surprised to see this as I thought stocks were badly declined in this area. Is this a sign that stocks are recovering or something just taking their chances before heading to port?

[phalacrocorax]

Dredging mussels. A number of boats operating out of Bangor dredging Belfast Lough this last couple of years. Seems harmless but then you look at the damage of scallop dredging in Strangford lough in previous decades.

[Tony T]

I've seen those boats out manys a time. They must be very shallow draught boats coz i would thought the water was about 10ft deep at most out there. It also shows that the water quality must have improved big time too.

[pookie5488]

i work on the lough its deeper than you think victoria channel allows tankers to get into belfast. The boats are after shell fish but the damage they leave from this form off fishing can kill a sea bed for years as said look at strangford or even bangor area a utv reporter showed how the sea bed around bangor was distroyed.

they kill the bottom and in turn remove loads of food for many fish not just the shell fish. the mullet numbers are down for sure last few years. I used to watch fish play around our jetty but not so many about. one of the boats is tied up behind us in the harbour and all they do is drop a large weight that they drag along sea bed they flicks the catch into the air that is then scopped up. a nasty way to fish.

[fishermannum1]

there is a VERY good mark on lough foyle that i fish, at the start of the summer me and tom were fishing it and a trawler was dredging mussels all along that mark for most of the day, have been back at the mark a good few times since, and its now crap!!! totally useless since it was dredged

[Al and Jordan]

the north foreshore in the lough (whitehouse to jordanstown) is a designated shellfish dredging area. we used to go down to hazelbank to collect hardback shore crabs for wrasse fishing in the summer. a few of the times we went down on a low spring tide we could have had a conversation with the guys on the deck on the boats,, seriously,,, they were that close to us we stood one day and watched the trawls coming up and within 20 mins there was a slick of dead wee fish left in the wake of the boat . parts of the sea bed on that stretch of coast is down to bare rock now as all the silt and sedement has been completely scraped away with continued commercial pressure . about 2 years ago we were doing a bit of experementing with new marks and fished the railings at whitehouse, hazelbank and jordanstown. over 6 sessions on varying tides totalling over 42 hours all we got was about a dozen 4 inch whiting and 8 tea bag sized flounder . that stretch of coast is pretty lifeless, which i suppose is'nt a big shock considering the sea bed is under constant pressure . to be honest i'm surprised theres even any shellfish left either

[Drew]

The dredgers scraped a big hole out between the Copelands this year, Around the 3 Markers used to be brilliant ground for good Pollack fishing, now it's been destroyed and seems to be full of undersized Coalies and Codling...