Rick Stein

[Portland Pirate]

Well I watched Rick Steins cookery programme on France last night and I was able to answer a question that I had asked earlier in the week; Why is there no big fish in the Med!!

It is simple. I could not believe the size of the fish that they were bringing to market. Gurnards and Bream to name but a few that were no more than 3 or 4cm. Their lame excuse!! Once they are caught they dont survive being returned to the sea. What a load of B*llocks!!
Yes there will be a number that will die, but if they increased their mesh size the number of under sized fish that were caught would decrease.

As a rule our fisherman return the undersize fish and look at how much bigger the fish are in British waters.

I will get off my soap box now.

[pingu]

saw that as well, thought his comments about catch sizes were quite synical, and you knew he was having a pop at them
went to french market in normandy last year, its amazing what fish they eat that we dont, where else would you buy launce, sandeel and pout for the table

[Island991]

sandeel are nice to eat. ive had them. much like white bait really!!....hmmmmmmmm......

[big guy]

at least abroad they eat everything they catch and not throw sometimes over half thier haul back because it's not what they want.

i think the english trawlers should be made to lower the quota's for the common fish (cod, sole, plaice, etc) and be made to bring all fish ashore.

to do this the public need to be educated. eg i think that dab is a far better tasting fish than the more common plaice or sole.

what does everyone else think?

[gullyworm]

Well said i was only talking to my dad about it at the weekend.
The back of trawler is a scene of mass death,heaps of undersize fish being shovelled back dead into the sea aswell as other sea creatures.
All the french trawlers ive been on were cleaner, more modern,caught more quility fish and kept it better then any brit trawler i ever went on.
Meybe the answer is to have strict total weight qautas irrespective of size of fish??

[KKYum]

Why are there no good size fish in the med? Historically the med was a fishermans paradise. In the past fishing techniques were simple and only caught amounts sufficient for the local villages; seine netting and the like. As time passed two methods of fishing evolved - commercial and sport. Bigger boats and larger nets with small gape mesh are something we are all familiar with but how many of you know about the spear fishing explosion that occurred in the med in the fifties. Men who are worshipped today for their undersea inovations and explorations started out as crude skin-divers whose sole objective was to catch bigger and more fish. As an angler I can relate to this but what they started led to the demise of the med. Names like John Guy Gilpatric, who is said to be the Godfather of Cote D'Azur spear fishing, and Hans Hass, who later went on to become nearly as famous as Jacques Cousteau for his underwater films. I read Hass' biography years ago and what I found particularly poinant was how he spear-fished around the Cap d'Antibes in the 30's when the area was full of life and how he returned in the 50's and noticed the decrease in large fish. I worked down there in 2000/2001 on the yachts. The area is virtually lifeless as far as large fish go (I mean anything over a pound). I fished from the shore and it was the same story - tiddlers. The advent of the oxygen and aqualung (Hass and Cousteau) and quality spear guns killed the med. Thats evolution for you - things have changed over here now - I know I return a very high proportion of the fish I catch as do my friends. Hopefully our European friends also do.