SHAMBLES TURBOT

[Peter]

Don't want to be a kill joy but the catch report of 2lb turbot being taken off the shambles worried me - these are a localised dwindling species the minmum size is 41cm I think a 2lb fish of a species which gains the size of turbot and the length of life makes it little more than fry.

 

I feel we should try and campaign locally for a large limit True Blue I believe operates 45cm

 

What do people think?

Peter

[Graham Nash]

Totally agree Peter (however I fish for sport, not for food) I generally try to return everything I catch.

[Jim]

Totally agree Peter (however I fish for sport, not for food) I generally try to return everything I catch.

Very glad to hear it Graham.

 

Some people say that fish are stupid. I don't agree.

After years of trying to catch fresh water fish, you soon learn that fish learn from each other. They also learn every time they get caught and put back. Putting them back will help to teach fish to survive.

The problem is that they don't get a chance to learn with great big nets scooping up everything and only being thrown back when it's too late because they're dead.

 

My aim for this year is Biggest Catch and release Bass.

 

 

Jim

[Graham Nash]

 

My aim for this year is Biggest Catch and release Bass.

 

 

Jim

Mine is 9 1/2 LB

[Paul J]

I have to agree peter, thanks for raising it.

 

Theres a reason those Turbot are so small, lets hope theres a few big ones left.

Alderney is becoming the same way but i hope someone proves me wrong in a few weeks time

 

PJ

[pirky]

I am in it for sport, food and fun......

 

BUT will not take undersized or small fish and will not "glut" .....I don't want a freezer full of fish that is a year old [ though sometimes there are a few that stay longer than they should] ......

so generally I take what I want and maybe some for family [ if day is good].

 

Rest go back to grow and multiply...

 

Dave

[Newboy]

Sometimes it's difficult for the skippers to act as judge and jury.

As one skipper said, he will never let anglers take undersized fish, and most of the time he will ask the angler to put back fish that are just over the limit, but if it was a bad day and angler wants to take home a table fish which is sizable, it is a delicate situation because afterall the angler paid his due and the fish is legal.

[Rob]

 

Maybe the issue is the minimum take size is TOO small.

 

That would resolve the issue for charter skippers and anglers!!!!

 

Rob

[petesnr]

No easy answers. Some one who fishes once or twice a year for turbot might feel justified in taking any fish over the Minimum Landing Size and it's difficult to find a good reason to stop them. It depends also on an angler's reasons for going fishing--is it to fill the freezer or for sport? Most of us probably have a bit of both motivations.

My worry has always been that with both commercial and recreational fishermen we might end up with a situation where there are more fish in the freezer than in the sea. Bluefin tuna certainly seem to be heading that way!

As I've said before, in my view, if you have your own set of marks that produce for you then it is in your own interest to return fish so that you have continued sport.

In the past some charter skippers were known for fishing each mark to death before moving onto the next. This is all very well but with the number of boats fishing the inshore marks there is pressure to find new ones and is this a desirable tactic anyway?

Those of us who go out regularly can afford to take only the amount of fish we need for immediate consumption--there is no need to fill the freezer as fresh fish will be available on the next trip. if we are to avoid being drawn into major restrictions on our activities we do need to get away from being purely an extractive activity and to actively promote responsible utilisation of the marine resource.

Again it comes back to stocks--if these were properly managed with the aim of increasing rather than just maintaining the present low population levels then recreational anglers might look more favourably at bag limits, catch and release areas and much bigger size limits.

Roll on Utopia.

Petesnr

[Newboy]

I would go with bag limit, but the technical bit will be what limit?

For example pollock, they are saying it is a substanable fish, but is it really?

I have talked to anglers who say the caught 8 pollocks last week, and the boat caught over 50 altogether. I rarely see anyone put back pollock. Even on here, we heard people go all the way to the wrecks and they would moan if they only catch one or 2 fish each. So is 7 too many or should it be 5, 4, 3, 2......?

 

 

[great white]

My ten penneth

 

If we want to try and get others to limit their catches [charters and commercials] we need to get our act together first.

 

Ours is an expensive sport and sometimes people who have paid for a trip want to get some fish to take home.

 

No problem with that but please set yourself a limit and catch and release the rest.

 

That said deep water pollack do not go back, so we sometimes have to change tactics and target something else.

 

we tend to anchor wrecks more than others, firstly because we enjoy tope and conger fishing, but also to limit the number of Pollack/Cod.

 

Do not think we are perfect, PC correct or tree huggers, WE ARE recreational Sea Anglers who want to keep enjoying our fishing in the future.

 

Charlie Sam and Dan

[Graham Nash]

I cringe when I see photographs of loads and loads of dead fish with a couple of smiling fishermen holding them up for everyone to see.

 

While I agree that it is "each to their own" and the fact that many deep water fish probably won't survive so IMHO alternative species should be targeted once you have your "lot", I find it hypocritical that we complain about professional fishermen (who are not doing this for fun, they are making a living from catching fish) when they fish too close to shore, or use ungentlemanly means, yet some recreational fishermen are happy to stockpile fish on their deck for a photograph!

[niggle]

For me I fish for sport,when I do keep fish it is rarely for my family but for friends that normally spend a small fortune at fishmongers and are grateful for free fresh fish.....when I can bothered because I get a buzz from a good fight and then seeing them swim back strong.

 

[Jim]

I don't get out ( in my boat ) very often.

I borrowed a lot of money to buy the boat. I am forever spending money on it.

It costs me a fair bit in launching / fuel / bait etc. for a day out.

I rarely catch anything but Jacquie and myself like a bit of fish, so we do tend to keep a bit in the freezer.

Also, Jacquie's family love fish so we take enough for them to have some ( if I actually catch something )

I always ask before going out If anyone wants fish if I get some. I don't mind killing fish for food, but I'll be b*ggered if i'm gonna kill it for no reason.

 

Jim

[duncan]

I would go with bag limit, but the technical bit will be what limit?

For example pollock, they are saying it is a substanable fish, but is it really?

I have talked to anglers who say the caught 8 pollocks last week, and the boat caught over 50 altogether. I rarely see anyone put back pollock. Even on here, we heard people go all the way to the wrecks and they would moan if they only catch one or 2 fish each. So is 7 too many or should it be 5, 4, 3, 2......?

In conservation terms it should be an annual bag limit - nothing else makes any sense at all for own boat angling.

 

You could take the view that a charter boat has X trips, with Y anglers each time and the application of a limit per angler per trip equates to such a limit but generally the skippers (I have been with) already operate such an approach by moving on......

[Newboy]

How would an annual limit work?

It's hard enough to do it by trip, do all skippers carry a log book with each angler's name and each of their catch log down?

 

[duncan]

How would an annual limit work?

It's hard enough to do it by trip, do all skippers carry a log book with each angler's name and each of their catch log down?

Haven't given a thought to implementation - simply pointing out that from a conservation perspective the implementation of bag limits is ridiculous without an annual baseline.

 

Otherwise, if you set it at, for example, '5 a day' someone fishing 365 days a year can take 1,825 fish.......and someone who goes out twice could take 10.

 

The real problem is that both would think they were doing their bit for conservation by only taking those fish - people need to think a little wider; as was I believe the point of the initial post in the thread.

[Newboy]

'pose we can go down the aussie route and introduce bag limit not only on the boat but also in your freezer at home, so say if you are allow 10 bass, you go and caught 10 yesterday, had 2 for tea, that leave 8 in the fridge. You go out again today, caught 5, you are over the limit i.e 8+5=13.

[duncan]

certainly better but, both there and in the US, they have much more appropriate size limits driven by science as well rather than ....... well, how we approach things basically!

 

also, in fairness all round, both the US and Aus have 'sportfishing' whilst we seem to equate charter fishing/professional angling with 'catching'. Many charter skippers in this area have been trying hard to change this focus but it's difficult - and always will be.

[great white]

Interesting topic

 

and following on from Duncan's comments

 

about 20 years ago when I was still competition fishing a lot on charter trips, the Weymouth boats instigated measures to release as many fish as possible and limit bag weight comps.

 

while in Plymouth they carried on with the old methods, and skippers sold the catch not wanted by their punters.

 

While Weymouth is still a thriving charter port, Plymouth sadly is not.

Not hard to see why is it.

 

Last year on our Alderney trip, Dan and I chatted in the Pub with one of the Weymouth skippers who fishes the Islands a lot and tries to stick to an eighteen inch minimum size for turbot.

We thought that such a good idea that we used it on that trip.

It meant a lot of fish caught were returned, but it suited us. We had a few for the table and released more than usual.

 

It is only a drop in the ocean, but it is a start.

 

maybe someone up there was watching , later in the year a 19lb fish was caught on Alfresco

 

 

We can all do a bit to help , if we want to

Charlie

 

[Rob]

 

I guess we would have more "sport fishing" if there were plently of fish! If the minimum sizes were bigger then the sport fish that were plentlyful would be bigger and give sport.

 

A 36cm bass is not great sport - but if fun maybe, 45cm is good sport, so a min size of 50cm might mean an increase of 45cm fish to give the sporting angle what they want.