QUESTION; What ‘if anything’ can fishery management do to im

[bobshotter]

QUESTION; What ‘if anything’ can fishery management do to improve things for sea angling?

The Marine and Costal Access Act became law in 2009 and that saw the old sea fishery authorities replaced by a new set up known as the ‘Inshore Fishery and Conservation Authorities’ (IFCA) These new authorities have greater power and have given more people or stakeholder groups a say in management of our inshore waters. The sea out to 6 miles including all tidal rivers and estuaries are now managed by the IFCAs. All the byelaws are being reviewed and new regulation is being introduced for the existing European Marine Sites (EMS) and the Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ) around the coast.

So the question is what would you like to see changed that would improve fish stocks and/or conserve the fisheries around our coast.

[skyetoyman]

more reefs are needed. Old tyres are ideal. They don't stop the dredgers but give fish a safe haven.
MCV's may be too much of a blunt stick.

[theoldfart2]

Personally I would like to see areas banned from commercial fishing during the breeding season.

I know the commercials have to make a crust so the government could subsidise them for that period.

By totally banning commercial fishing in the breeding season the fish would have a chance.

Farmers get paid for not growing crops, so why not fishermen.

I know this will upset a lot of people, but this could be done by cutting overseas aid, which is exempt from all cutbacks and scrutiny from what I can see.

And please don't call me a racists on this one. I have been around a bit in my time and I know how corrupt some governments are and how the money gets spent,and it is usually not on the poor buggers it is meant for.

We should put our own house in order first.

Charity begins at home

[tomstevo]

6 mile no Scallop Dredging or Prawn trawling round UK
Quota more fairly distributed to small vessels, encouraging line caught fish to bring life back to the small fishing communities.
Removal of all fishing subsidies, let fish find its real price.

[snowy]

Bob, you cannot conserve fish stocks or protect fisheries and the marine environment unless the proper infrastructure, to Police it, is first put into place.

Without that infrastructure any measures are pointless because individuals will flout the rules and ignore the restrictions as they do now.

We cannot deal with what is already happening so without massive financial investment, which wont happen, any further measures are pointless.

[regphillips]

Oct 29, 2013 20:02:55 GMT tomstevo said:

6 mile no Scallop Dredging or Prawn trawling round UK
Quota more fairly distributed to small vessels, encouraging line caught fish to bring life back to the small fishing communities.
Removal of all fishing subsidies, let fish find its real price.

That's a piece of me but I will go a little further. Stop all trawling inside 3nm's. Stop fixed engines within 500 metres from the shoreline. Have IFCA's errect specie ID and voluntary/recommeded MLS for the recreational sea angler. Stop scallop dredging inside 12nm's. Stop the commercial sale of Black Bream as fishmeal fertilser, now they have the undiscarded discards for that.

[tomstevo]

“We cannot deal with what is already happening so without massive financial investment”

I can see were your coming from, but as the whole thing is about financial gain, big fines are the answer.
Its no use fining scallop dredges 1000 pound its pea nuts, should be 50,000 and the boat confiscated and burnt on the beach closest to the offence. for any further offence.


PS
this explians in someway the mess the quota system is in
www.nutfa.org/#/news/4543399182

[bobshotter]

Oct 31, 2013 11:06:39 GMT snowy said:

Bob, you cannot conserve fish stocks or protect fisheries and the marine environment unless the proper infrastructure, to Police it, is first put into place.

Without that infrastructure any measures are pointless because individuals will flout the rules and ignore the restrictions as they do now.

We cannot deal with what is already happening so without massive financial investment, which wont happen, any further measures are pointless.

Hi Andy

In an answer to a member of the CIFCA at the last full meeting the chief officer told the committee that banning nets in rivers would drive illegal netting underground and that in turn create nothing more than a policing nightmare. He said it would be not unlike the amount of drivers who flout the speeding laws or even those who use a mobile phone while driving.

Tom comes close to identifying the real problem and that is our courts and the lenient fines they hand down. The 2009 MACAA provided the courts the opportunity to impose fines up to £50.000 where as previously the limit was just five grand. However to date the courts are woefully lacking on this count.

This week at a court in Plymouth a defendant was handed out a fine of £13,000 for fishing without a licence and catching juvenile sea bass and that is the largest I’ve heard of, others still hand out two or three grand fines even for repeat offences while the offender often makes much more from committing the offence. Even the above case was one where the offender had a string of previous convictions.

At the end of the day it is my opinion that none of the above is reason enough to not regulate, pressure needs to be brought on the judiciary to back the enforcement authorities and that is down to the public voice. All too often politicians and the judicial system forget that they are the servants of the population and the population forget that they have the right to demand better.

[snowy]

I would not disagree wit that Bob but it raises other points. I would not read too much into penalties as the figures can often appear skewed. The half wit yachtie that collided with the tanker during Cowes Week was 'only' fined £3000 BUT there was costs awarded against him of £100,000. Sometimes there is a hidden element in punishments which always have to be means tested anyway. You can raise the penalty as high as you like but the courts cannot award more than the defendant can afford.

I also believed that the Angling Trust was the voice of the angling public but for Sea Anglers they have fallen well short of the mark.

On a completely different note but an interesting fact is that I have just infringed copyright.

'Cowes Week' is now a registered trade mark and cannot be use by anyone without the consent of the company that 'own' it.

[tomstevo]

well we will call it COWS week, sounds better anyway

[bobshotter]

Cant's say/print Cows Week what ever next?

As for the Angling Trust Let's face it they were up against it from the off. They took on an all but defunct bankrupt NFSA, sucked up to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS)and have been joined at the hip to B.A.S.S

They were getting a tough time on there own forum which they closed that was in the eyes of many as a bad move and the WSF C+P crew made a lot of that and the Eel ban that allowed commercials to land while anglers cant. Then the Tope ban that was nothing more than a consolation prize as they lost out on the Bass MLS on the same day.

The Trust has also been accused of failing sea anglers for lack of communication and one of their biggest mouth pieces Keith Arthur recommended the Sea Anglers be let go.

The truth is IMPO those who rubbish the AT are a very small group and are of very little importance, I doubt they could organise a Pee up in a brewery. The Marine division is hopelessly under manned but then there is little funds to be had. Still they are the only voice we have at present and the regional changes might just change things.

Only this week I have been saying how impressed the IOW marine group are doing a few guys working hard for the sport and improving the information out put. >>>> www.rsa-uk.org/rsafiles/IWNewsletter2013oct.pdf

[iknowagoodplaice]

Arthur comes under the banner of "ambassador" and his comment about sea fishing was certainly not ambassadorial. Obviously not a master of diplomacy but in the end just a thoughtless remark from a coarse fisherman.

PS Bob, your link is listed as suspicious by Google. Has someone hacked it? See below


What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 35 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 30 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2013-11-01, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2013-10-21.

Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including llamaralac1975.tk/.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS39122 (BLACKNIGHT-AS).

[skyetoyman]

The biggest threat to fishing in Scotland is fish farming. Billions of tons of sandeels turned into pellets to feed the salmon. 4 kg of pellets to produce 1 kg of salmon. More people alive in the world now than the total of all the people that have lived in the past , and the Scottish Government want to feed them Salmon.

Totally agree with Regphillips. We cannot feed the world but at least we should feed ourselves locally.
1000 miles of coastline on Skye alone and no one more than 5 miles from the sea.

We are now being told not to eat Mackerel. Seabird populations are plummeting. 20 year leases on fishfarms - Alex Salmond wants a 50% increase in fishfarm production.

Vote NO.

Cheerful isn't it.

[tomstevo]

are they netting the sand eel locally?
beutiful island visted many times have great memories.

[skyetoyman]

As far as I am aware no one up the north end of the Island does anything to sand eels