Angling and the Food Chain

[geoffmaynard]

I think the 'Kite mark' idea for sustainable sourced pellet is a very worthy idea and one we should promote. It might be a drop in the ocean but its an idea which could spread and become huge.
Nice to see a bit of brain storming rather than back-biting on the forums. How do we start? Letters to the ATr? Start an online petition?

 

[geoffmaynard]

I think the 'Kite mark' idea for sustainable sourced pellet is a very worthy idea and one we should promote. It might be a drop in the ocean but its an idea which could spread and become huge.
Nice to see a bit of brain storming rather than back-biting on the forums. How do we start? Letters to the ATr? Start an online petition?

 

[sam vimes]

Geoff,
the basic idea might be worthy, but I suspect it's flawed for two reasons. The first has been brought up already, angler's use of fishmeal is likely to be, excuse the phrase, a drop in the ocean. Secondly, I'd suspect that the suppliers of said items would be only too keen to provide, alongside a hefty price hike. There'd also be a rather large suspicion that the pellets provided would remain exactly the same, just repackaged.

 

[geoffmaynard]

Thats the glass half-empty approach How about doing it the other way. Chairman Mao said the longest journey starts with but a single step

 

[The bad one]

Agree Geoff half empty. You'll note I referenced HFW along with ATr, that was no coincidence for this reason. Sustainable fish is his bag and a very big one at that. We consume large quantities of farmed fish in the UK, trout (along with stocking them in put and take fisheries), salmon, bass etc.

HFW clearly understands "sustainability" in all it's forms, with him involved and the profile he could give the matter of farmed fish being fed unsustainable pellet, which after all is where the main sales and bulk of it is going to. I'd suspect the industry very quickly would start to move on it.
Fully accept the price would increase but a price worth paying in my view. I pay it now for the sustainable fish I eat.
As to the companies repackaging it, it's illegal to sell something as something it is not. It fraud pain and simple!
And there are many templates of successful tractability schemes to keep the Conmen away, FSC Wood, Red Tractor scheme, etc.

 

[tiinker]

In think I acknowledged the small effect angling may have on these issues, but they are issues. And there are few issues I think more important than the health of the world's oceans (or any other habitat, for that matter).

As for principles, they aren't a question of degree; that's kind of the point with principles. So you compromise a principle of not wanting to contribute to industrial fishing (assuming you have one) even if you use one pellet, or catch one stocked trout.

More to the point, the article is to draw the problem of over-fishing to the attention of FM readers.

---------- Post added at 14:24 ---------- Previous post was at 14:23 ----------



My mate the badger baiter said the same thing....

How can you preach one thing and have a mate who is a badger baiter, please do not make me laugh you want your cake and eat it.

---------- Post added at 23:51 ---------- Previous post was at 23:39 ----------

... ever heard of the Tragedy of the Commons?

Every foodchain has it's weak points. The fish we harvest for food are usually somewhere up that chain, and so the impacts are limited only to higher predators.
However, take out from the base of the food pyramid, and it spells big trouble for lots of other species, not just fish. I've seen how reductions in sandeel populations directly affects seabirds like shag and puffin.

I'd love to see a kite mark reassuring us that our baits are coming from sustainable sources. There is something fundamentally not right about using ground-up, sometimes endangered marine species as a bait so we can catch coarse fish - just to throw them back.

Anyone with any common sense knows how a food chain works but do you honestly think that what ever you say or do will make one penny worth of difference in the long run especially as the majority of the human race do not give a fig as long as they have a job and food on there table. Your aims are right but do you think you can change the way of the world I think not.

 

[Paul Boote]

Anyone with any common sense knows how a food chain works but do you honestly think that what ever you say or do will make one penny worth of difference in the long run especially as the majority of the human race do not give a fig as long as they have a job and food on there table. Your aims are right but do you think you can change the way of the world I think not.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


An "I'm all right, Jack" whimper as T.S. Eliot didn't write in the concluding lines of his great poem, The Hollow Men.

Time, I fear, is running out for Man if he doesn't soon get a very firm grip. He - we - especially those of the Baby Boomer generation - BBC News - A Point of View: Should the baby boomers leave the stage? - for a very long time and until very recently could afford to let things ride, take a live today, forget tomorrow ... Manana ... in the long run, we're all dead approach to life, but now....?

A very small matter, the pellets we put on our hooks, yet still symptomatic of a far greater, ultimately hugely destructive, head in the sand, "It isn't happening" selfishness.

This from a great and lifelong optimist -- "Things can be fixed if we pull our collective and individual fingers out...." - still am.

 

[tiinker]

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


An "I'm all right, Jack" whimper as T.S. Eliot didn't write in the concluding lines of his great poem, The Hollow Men.

Time, I fear, is running out for Man if he doesn't soon get a very firm grip. He - we - especially those of the Baby Boomer generation - BBC News - A Point of View: Should the baby boomers leave the stage? - for a very long time and until very recently could afford to let things ride, take a live today, forget tomorrow ... Manana ... in the long run, we're all dead approach to life, but now....?

A very small matter, the pellets we put on our hooks, yet still symptomatic of a far greater, ultimately hugely destructive, head in the sand, "It isn't happening" selfishness.

This from a great and lifelong optimist -- "Things can be fixed if we pull our collective and individual fingers out...." - still am.

I have been pulling my finger out most of my life and as you say if more people give it a go something could be done . but in your heart of hearts you know it will not happen. Peoples attitudes have hardened even more in recent years. It is mostly about self these days people only have time for themselves you only have to look at the state of society in general and the way it is going. What ever the caring people do it is cancelled out by the uncaring majority and that is fact. I have seen the effect of the taking of sandeels ect. from the seas around our own coast over the last 40 years and when they are all but gone the netters will find another specie to wipe out.

 

[geoffmaynard]

Nobody would argue with what you have witnessed Tinker, we've all seen it too. But we've also all seen the power of modern communications uniting disparate groups and achieving common aims. We don't need everyone to support a campaign, just enough to make the campaign an issue. Once it becomes an issue it works like a snowball rolling down a hill. TBOs HFW campaign is a great example and one the sustainable pellet idea can hitch a ride on. He's done half the work for us!

---------- Post added at 22:23 ---------- Previous post was at 22:21 ----------

Phil - I remember a conversation once where I was told it takes 16lb of fish to make one pound of pellet. Is that correct?

 

[nogoodboyo]

I've often wondered about the consequences of hordes of anglers turning up at a gravel pit and raking the swims.
And the impact it may have on the food chain.
But maybe that's for another thread.

 

[The bad one]

Seem to remember that figure being about right last time we discussed this issue Geoff

 

[Titus]

Det. Thorn: I know, Sol, you've told me a hundred times before. People were better, the world was better...

Sol: Ah, people were always lousy... But there was a world, once.

[Thorn chuckles]

Sol: I was there, I can prove it! When I was a kid, you could buy meat anywhere! Eggs they had, real butter! Not this... ****!

 

[Paul Boote]

Always a Broken Something - Country, Nation, Society, Education System, even Pastime, whatever - or a now-lost Golden Age (that never actually existed) - in some people's eyes.

Beware spinning, defeatist and defeating cynics; they're always privately doing quite nicely, thank you, and don't want "the rest" or anyone else doing so.

Foot (not my own, mind you), gun, shoot it.

 

[tiinker]

Nobody would argue with what you have witnessed Tinker, we've all seen it too. But we've also all seen the power of modern communications uniting disparate groups and achieving common aims. We don't need everyone to support a campaign, just enough to make the campaign an issue. Once it becomes an issue it works like a snowball rolling down a hill. TBOs HFW campaign is a great example and one the sustainable pellet idea can hitch a ride on. He's done half the work for us!

---------- Post added at 22:23 ---------- Previous post was at 22:21 ----------

Phil - I remember a conversation once where I was told it takes 16lb of fish to make one pound of pellet. Is that correct?

I am not sure about the last bit. But when I used to buy 25 kilo bags of fish meal, sand eel especially by the time you riddled off the rubbish you lost at least three kilo. You can say what you like nothing concrete will come of it besides you giving it your best shot .

 

[MarkTheSpark]

Nobody would argue with what you have witnessed Tinker, we've all seen it too. But we've also all seen the power of modern communications uniting disparate groups and achieving common aims. We don't need everyone to support a campaign, just enough to make the campaign an issue. Once it becomes an issue it works like a snowball rolling down a hill. TBOs HFW campaign is a great example and one the sustainable pellet idea can hitch a ride on. He's done half the work for us!

---------- Post added at 22:23 ---------- Previous post was at 22:21 ----------

Phil - I remember a conversation once where I was told it takes 16lb of fish to make one pound of pellet. Is that correct?

You're quite right, Geoff. To be honest, I'm a bit fed up with the hand-wringers who say 'but what difference will it make?' What they're really saying is 'I can't be bothered to do anything.'

That angling's tiny use of these products won't end industrial fishing is clear, but making a stand against it and demanding that manufacturers tell us what their pellets are made of would draw attention to this issue.

 

[Paul Boote]

I have long called it "Doing a Nero", Mark - as in "Fishing whilst our Rome burns".

 

[tiinker]

You're quite right, Geoff. To be honest, I'm a bit fed up with the hand-wringers who say 'but what difference will it make?' What they're really saying is 'I can't be bothered to do anything.'

That angling's tiny use of these products won't end industrial fishing is clear, but making a stand against it and demanding that manufacturers tell us what their pellets are made of would draw attention to this issue.

No hand wringing just realistic I think it is yourself that is doing the hand wringing and wasting your time if you honestly think you can change the way the world works.

 

[Mr Cholmondeley-Corker (PaSC)]

I thought it was people that DO change the way the world works and usually starts with one strong minded person to get things going.

 

[tiinker]

I thought it was people that DO change the way the world works and usually starts with one strong minded person to get things going.

Yes your dead right but it is usually a women. Like the wife.

 

[sam vimes]

I suspect that it's little different to the whole Fair Trade concept. An entirely worthy proposition that is subject to the whims of the market and just how much excess money is available to them. I make no bones about it, I'd happily see sustainable source angling pellet, it's a laudable objective. However, at even ten percent more expensive, I'd doubt that I could afford to support it, unless it became the only option. Even then, the reality might well be that I'd simply stop using the small quantity of pellet that I currently do.