A few questions to ponder on

little oik · Mar 29, 2011

It is concerning fish meal pellets and grounbait.
What are halibut pellets made from(poss a daft question but I dont think halibut are that common).
Also are we hastening the demise of fishing off our coasts (or is the fish used farm reared) and to some degree partly responsible for the cormorant situation by using fish meal in our fishing

sagalout · Mar 29, 2011

little oik said:
What are halibut pellets made from(poss a daft question but I dont think halibut are that common).

They ain't made from halibut, they are made to feed halibut. I assume all commercial netting operations and the world usage of the resultant catch is to blame for the state of the oceans.

Jeff Woodhouse · Mar 29, 2011

I think most are made from sandeels and krill and the like, but anglers are minimal users of the stuff. Fish farms use the far greater percentage and a lot of stuff is just turned into fertiliser. In fact, I wouldn't mind betting that the average gardener uses as much fish meal as the angler does. It's a thought.

Peter Jacobs · Mar 29, 2011

Most pellets are made from Fishmeal and/or Vegetable meal which is mixed with a liquid and then 'boiled' by applying steam to "cook" the pellet.

Those 'donkey-choker' pellets that are circa 20mm are 'drilled' by an injection of steam through the centre as they cannot "cook" properly form just the outside application alone.

Commercial fish breeders use thousands of times more pellets than the average angler would ever do in a dozen lifetimes of fishing.

Hence, I really don't think that the amount of pellet used in the angling community has a scintilla of impact on either the cormorant question or the demise of our inshore fisheries.

Personally I far prefer to use 'natural' baits as opposed to pellet especially for Carp fishing where I think it just becomes far too easy with pellet.

thx1138 · Mar 29, 2011

There is definitely some perverse irony in us, buying pellets made out of ground up, sometimes endangered marine fish, and then feeding them to fat carp, only to put them back once we catch them.

It could be argued that it would make more ecological sense to take carp out of overstocked waters, and then grind them up and feed them back to their brothers and sisters

:wh

little oik · Mar 29, 2011

I would like to think that they were produced by recycling to some degree .What I mean by that is the wastage from the fishing industry ie fish tails heads and fins etc,but in the world of commercialism would this be case ,I realise that the fishing industry as a whole and I dont just include angling in that, haven't and could not be the sole exploiter in the rape of our oceans ,but I am quite sure that a percentage even however small ,can be laid at our door.(hadn't dawned on me about the agricultural or gardening needs)
I dont use pellet that much either ,I bought 2 bags of halibut pellet 2 years ago and still got them I tend to grind the pellets up and add to groundbait and add handful of 2 or 4 mm pellets to the groundbait as and when ( I still have 2 half bags of them left albeit a tad on the dry side).
For all we know the "fishmeal" could be coming in from the likes of the states where they have a big problem with buffalo carp.Who are we to know

The bad one · Mar 29, 2011

Yes no matter how small we are contributing to the decline of the worlds oceans and the over exploitation of them.
That said, the amount we use could be amply met by the tailings from our own fishing industry I'd wager. Whether that would be commercially viable for a company(s) to do I really don't know.
So we are locked into the cycle of over exploitation, unless we as anglers start to demand from our buying sources, that they must come from wholly sustainable supplies.
And that I really can't see happening can you? Coarse anglers in main, have a disconnect from the impact on world fish stocks, unless they sea fish and see the results in their declining returns.

Tee-Cee · Mar 29, 2011

If they need fish to produce the pellets then why can't they use the fish etc that end up being slung back into the sea by the trawlers to either die,sink to the bottom or be eaten by birds ??

I watched the H F-Whittingstall programme some months ago on this and it seemed that the waste of fish was absolutely massive................its a bl**dy disgrace in my book!!

No doubt someone will tell me I'm talking through my armpit......

Sean Meeghan · Mar 29, 2011

You're talking through your armpit.

Jeff Woodhouse · Mar 29, 2011

How does he do it though?

Tee-Cee · Mar 30, 2011

Fair enough........but whats YOUR reasoning though?

Ray Daywalker Clarke · Mar 30, 2011

I know what you mean Tee Cee, there is a bloody stupid law that says all undersize fish must be put back, problem is most of them are dead or just about to die, waste of good fish.

Hows your armpits.............

Sean Meeghan · Mar 30, 2011

OK I was being facetious

The problem is that, large as it might be, the by-catch is almost worthless. Boats would have to be re-engineered so that the by-catch could be sorted at sea and there isn't the money available to do it. The only real solution is to return to less effective fishing methods which have a lower by-catch and I suspect that the fishing lobby is just too strong for that ever to happen.

BarryC · Mar 30, 2011

And if trawlers were allowed to land all they catch do you think they would stop when they had caught enough.
Returning dead fish to the sea is rediculois but until the rapers of the seas police themselves this is the lesser of the evils.
And they certainly wont return to land an unviable bycatch when they can slip it and carry on fishing for higher value fish.

jimmy crackedcorn · Mar 30, 2011

Indeed. So its a moral choice then for the angler, which on the whole leaves us a bit sunk. You could ask the bait companies where they get it from but I doubt you'll get a reply and I'm pretty sure it wont be "fair trade", and after asking on here once or twice, there isnt really a veggi option. I know its only a small percentage of fishmeal that ends up one our hook or feeding our swim but it cant be insignificant. But whilst many have happily signed onto Hugh fernly-thing's campaign , I bet 99% of anglers who have signed up havent given up on fishmeal, so its all a bit hypocritical.

It would be nice if the fishmeal was coming from ground up bits of a species of asian carp decimating US waters (find the programme on Sky where it shows 30lb fish leaping into speed boat passengers) or something similar but if I recall its far more cut throat than that.

But, as ever, we'll carry on regardless.

sagalout · Mar 30, 2011

jimmy crackedcorn said:
there isnt really a veggi option

Corn, maize, bread, dolly mixtures, jelly babies, maggots (ok not strictly veggie but tthey must be close because I won't eat them

).

There are loads of baits that don't have fishmeal in them.

904_cannon · Mar 30, 2011

Fish being fed to fish, any danger of a fishy 'mad cow' disease ;bp

A few questions to ponder on

little oik

Well-known member

sagalout

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Jeff Woodhouse

Moaning Marlow Meldrew

Peter Jacobs

Moderator

thx1138

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little oik

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The bad one

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Tee-Cee

Senior Member

Sean Meeghan

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Jeff Woodhouse

Moaning Marlow Meldrew

Tee-Cee

Senior Member

Ray Daywalker Clarke

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Sean Meeghan

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BarryC

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jimmy crackedcorn

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sagalout

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904_cannon

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