A regular poster sent me this...
I’m struggling to know where to begin.
The Council of Ministers met earlier this week and yesterday the details of their deliberations became known. I say that the details became known and yet they only appeared to be released piecemeal. In order to cover myself, I ought to say that it is still possible that our understanding of the position may be inaccurate, but I don’t think so.
So here goes:
Recreational sea anglers who this year have been restricted with a 3 bass bag limit will have a zero bag limit for January to June, and a 1 bass bag limit from July to December.
So for the first half of 2016, recreational sea anglers cant keep any bass and for the second half of the year, only one per day. However that is interpreted, it is a significant reduction to our access to the public bass resource for 2016 on top of the restrictions in place this year (2015).
As proposed by the Commission, commercial fishing for bass is prohibited during the first half of 2016 EXCEPT for what have been labelled “low impact bass fisheries”. We learnt that such fisheries would only be subject to closure during February & March but could continue during January, April, May and June. Initially, we assumed that ‘low impact’ fishing was hook and line fishing and whilst many of us are sympathetic to commercial hook and line fishing, we considered it manifestly unjust for commercial hook and line fishing to be allowed to take bass whilst recreational hook and line fishing – recreational bass angling - was deprived of taking even a single solitary bass.
However, imagine our dismay when we learned that not only is commercial hook and line fishing allowed to take place in the first half of the year [during Jan, April, May & June] but also gill netting had been lumped together with hook and line fishing as ‘low impact’ !
It got worse. This year (2015) gill netting was restricted to 1000 kilos monthly whilst commercial hook & line fishing enjoyed a 1300 kilos monthly limit. For 2016, gill netters have had their 1000 kilo monthly limit increased to 1300 kilos!
Here is a breakdown of commercial catches between methods of capture.
UK Trawling 147 18%
UK Pelagic trawl 57 7%
UK Netting 361 45%
UK Lines 175 22%
UK other 65 8%
Total 805 tonnes 100%
So gill netting takes almost half of all commercially landed bass in UK and twice as much as any other single method, yet is considered ‘low impact’. Go figure!
In my opinion the closure for both gill netting and commercial hook & line fishing in Feb & March will have minimal impact of overall mortality so the closure for those two months is of negligible conservation value.
So in one sentence, sea anglers have been further substantially restricted whilst gill netters have had their activities protected, enhanced and labelled as ‘low impact’!
To rub salt into the wound, our esteemed Minister, George Eustice was on BBC Spotlight last night saying that inshore gill netting of bass was a ‘low impact’ fishery. The coverage can be viewed at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06rx7b3/spotlight-16122015
The ‘fisheries’ piece is only a couple of minutes [4.15 to 6.35 on the timer]
I cant stress enough how gutted I am with this outcome and not just because recreational sea anglers have been - there is no other way of putting it – SHAFTED, but because the fragile bass stocks have also been shafted and the Minister has simply ignored the science in favour of getting the best deal for commercial fishing as though he was in Brussels fighting for his football team instead of fulfilling his role in responsible decision making for a valuable renewable public fishery resource.
Unfortunately, although this issue is about bass management for 2016, the Minister’s comments may be devastating for the CFSA’s attempts at getting improved controls on gill netting locally. Time will tell. Tomorrow, our IFCA will decide whether to proceed with a bylaw to remove all gill netting from all our estuaries. I and others will be attending and I’ll circulate the results of the IFCA meeting tomorrow.
Once I’ve calmed down, the CFSA and Cornish sea angling community will need to decide whether to make further representation to Eustice and if so, what the message should be. I cant put into print what I’d like to say to the so and so!