Ghost net carnage

[foxfish]

Found this in the June addition of Sea Angler.

[dave]

Its always those evil foreign fishermen!
Ghost nets are definately a problem, but I have known commercial fishermen of all nationalities (yes, even British and Irish!) dump all their rubbish, old nets etc over the side. Some of the boats working out of Padstow even have a nice sideline in disposing of commercial waste. It is cheaper for local business's to pay them to take their rubbish and dump it over the side than it is to pay the council to take it away!
cheers
dave
www.spearo.co.uk

[Spaniard]

It's those bloody Spaniards again; good job their Armada was shite........

[Huan]

The biggest problem is illegal sized Monk and Hake gillnets.
I work for the sea fisheries board and we have been working on this for the last few years.
We have even chartered vessels and used towed creepers to recover and assess the extent of the dumping.
The netting recovered is 90 % spanish as not many vessels of either Irish/British nationalities have the capabilities to fish with the amount of gear that the big spanish boats use.
The problem is also that the nets are dumped in deep water where the nets are able to fish for a long time acting as self baiting nets caught fish die and rot attracting more, in a perpetual cycle of destruction.