Sea Fishing Now And Then

[twilks]

Hi guys i was wondering what your opinons are on the current state of our fish stocks .... i remember going out fishing and getting to a point where you almost got bored of pulling in endless dogfish , pouting whiting etc etc but now it seems as if theyre just not showing like they used to!!!!!!! . I fish the bristol channel which seems to be struggling badly.... was wondering what your areas are like past and present!!!!!!!!!! and if you have an opinion on why fish arent showing many thanks and tite lines..

[dogmax]

Certainly no where near what they were, too many people taking too many fish, without any thought for the future, but the biggest reason has to be commercial overfishing, and laughable size limits, bass for example spawn at 43cm ish, so people are allowed to take them at 36cm, before they've had a chance to ensure the continuation of the species, any time you can go to a popular mark and see all the noddys taking undersized bass, it's absolutely sickening. That goes for other species as well, we need enforced size and bag limits, like those that exist in the USA, and in a few years, fish stocks will start to rise again, the introduction of a so-called golden mile would help a bit, anyone found commercially fishing within it should be jailed, and their boat sunk to create an artificial reef, if there's no room in the jails, sink 'em with their boats! Fish food!, A bit extreme, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs!

[gullyworm]

If you d have asked me 2 years ago i d have said"no where near as good"
But back on the Holderness coast they ve just had another bumper cod season with plenty of doubles from the shore and loads of Coddling.
I think in general though stocks are in a very bad way and if it wasnt for the slight increase in Cod over the last couple of years(we even had them on the south coast) then the lack of decent fish would become very apparent.
Bass numbers seem to be healthy but the number of decent Bass (3lb plus ) seems to be getting smaller every year.
I d love to see some figures on stocks now and then

[..::Pike Pirate::..]

i did a case study on this...ill put a graph on later showing cod stocks over a period of time...

my case study was about overfishing of cod

dont have enough time now but ill stick it on tomorrow maybe

[Gremlin]

Here's the story about cod stocks c/o CEFAS -



Draw your own conclusions ... the present cod boom appears to have been an exceptional breeding season 2005/6; CEFAS estimates 95% of this 'glut' will be caught before they are mature.

I'm afraid the desperate recommendations of ZERO catch will not come about under EU CFP or by a gutless, pandering DEFRA.