How many fish is fair?.
Sustainable fishing is not something that the commercial fishing fleet has to do. Recreational shore, boat and Kayak anglers should be doing the same.
How many is too many?
“We should follow the trout fisheries and operate a 2 fish limit with a catch and release policy thereafter.”
Which 2 fish? What if your fish is undersized? Angling quota's? is there an answer?
You cant please all the people all the time!
We as anglers must regulate ourselves before we loose the right to take fish from the sea completely. The problem, for me, is firstly the lack of communication of the latest legislation and guidelines and secondly no-one seems to be able to agree on whats right or fair. I think we should get together a create our own guidance based on the trout (Fly) fishing rules in place at most trout fisheries.
How Many?
“Depends on the species.”
Well that's not helpful is it. ALL our species are under immense pressure. I think a few simple rules need to be followed. The problem is will my fellow anglers firstly agree with me and secondly will the actually follow it and adhere to it. I have all too often seen anglers who profess to want to protect our fish then when the Mackerel are in fill a bin bag with them. "Because there's loads of them" There used to be "loads" of Cod, there used to be "loads" of Bass, there used to be "Loads" of other species too but not any more.
“Its not us its the commercial fishing.”
In 2012 it was estimated there are 884,000 sea anglers in the UK, they fished nearly 4 million days collectively. Shore Angling the most popular at an estimated 3 million angling days, followed by a further estimated 1 million days by boat and kayak angling.
On average shore anglers catch 2 fish per session per day
On average Charter boat anglers catch 10 fish per session per day (100,000 angling days)
On average Kayak / small boats catch 5 fish per session per day (900,000 angling days)
so a quick bit of maths then:
3 million X 2 = 6 million fish caught
100K X 10 = 1 million fish caught
900K X 5 = 4.5 million fish caught
4 Million Sea Angling Days = 11.5 million fish
So we do have quite an impact on the fish stocks in our seas
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Use this blog to give us your ideas and thoughts on what we as sea anglers should be doing to become a catch sustainable sport.
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