Wilson and cormorants.

[The Piker]

Do you agree with John Wilson in his artical on the black death..

The only way to stop this problem is to shoot them..

I know this first hand,we had a problem got a permit from the E.A.

problem solved.........

[alan whittington]

Well Piker,how many were your club licenced to shoot,the reason i ask is the number is normally very low,with the result that little damage can be done,unless there is nobody watching you?????In which case you may as well do it illegally,which has been done by certain protagonists.

[The Piker]

Alan,we had a flock of about 30,which every mourning would turn up at the crack of dawn..

We never had a limit and about 10 were shot in the first couple of weeks.

But they certainly learn very soon to avoid the danger..And now they keep well out of the danger area..

We had to fill in all the relevant forms for the E.A. on how many we shot ect..

But as yet they have not returned..

---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 13:04 ----------

A stretch of the Wye i fish is visited every mourning with the black death..

They take some huge fish,large chub and roach go down the hatch with ease,i have watched them descend on to the river and take many fish right under my feet.

I have seen them take jack pike also,i dispise them..Even though it was mans fault that they came inland,due to the rape of the seas.

Wilson says 48,million roach-fish are going down the throats of the black death every year...

[michael townsend]

I agree. Goodness knows what devastation they cause on rivers in the close season.

[alan whittington]

Originally Posted by The Piker

Alan,we had a flock of about 30,which every mourning would turn up at the crack of dawn..

We never had a limit and about 10 were shot in the first couple of weeks.

But they certainly learn very soon to avoid the danger..And now they keep well out of the danger area..

We had to fill in all the relevant forms for the E.A. on how many we shot ect..

But as yet they have not returned..

---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 13:04 ----------

A stretch of the Wye i fish is visited every mourning with the black death..

They take some huge fish,large chub and roach go down the hatch with ease,i have watched them descend on to the river and take many fish right under my feet.

I have seen them take jack pike also,i dispise them..Even though it was mans fault that they came inland,due to the rape of the seas.

Wilson says 48,million roach-fish are going down the throats of the black death every year...

Piker,ive seen similar to what you have seen on the Wye,beware for they will return,i know a fella who protects his own lake in Norfolk and he has been tagging them since before the recent legislation came into being,still coming though.

[jimmy crackedcorn]

Wilson and the cormorants ?? I thought that was a popular beat combo ....which might a bit more sense than wilson bless him. One way we can help stop comrmorants is by banning pellets made of anything that comes from the sea. I know its only about 3% but, but the less we take out of the sea the less need for cormorants to come in land. Still, who's with me !

Probably not many.

[Steve Spiller]

It was good to see JW tell the truth.

Inland 'Black Death' are vermin and should be wiped out!

You'd be surprised how many are with you Jimmy, I am. I do my bit, I only fish with bread and maggots, but I only fish for roach mainly...and pike don't like halibut pellets......much.....

[fred hall]

"We had to fill in all the relevant forms for the E.A. on how many we shot ect..

But as yet they have not returned.."

Piker, did the EA ask for any cormorant corpses for analysis purposes? This happened in a similar situation with one of my clubs a few years back when they looked at cormorant stomach contents. Eventually we got a copy of the report which basically said stomachs empty!!!! How do you spell bollox?

[The Piker]

Fred no we only had to fill in the forms..Even if we did not shoot any or even if we did not see any on that day.

We had to say if they they were flying ,coming in to land and even if they were flying over with no interest in our lakes..

[Dave Burr]

We applied a few years ago but were turned down for a culling license due to the fact that we had not done enough to scare them - by shooting near them!!!!

So now I just shoot near them

I did sneak a look at some cormorant autopsy reports and they each had between forty and seventy fish in their stomachs, most of which were salmonids so they had probably been feeding farther up river.

Each cormorant eats between forty and fifty small fish a day on average, I think that John Wilson has underestimated the damage they do.