Angling Groups tell Ministers to Ban Bass Netting or Risk a Total Stock Collapse

The latest report from fisheries scientists has revealed that stocks of seabass around the UK and North European coast are now below the critical level at which recovery can be guaranteed.

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If you were starving you might decide to eat your arm. Cut off an inch a day would be fine as long as knew the growth rate of your arm and the rate was regular. If it grew an inch a day every day, no problem, you keep your arm. But if you did not know the rate and it fluctuated you could have a problem. You would have to guess the rate and therein how much you can eat per day but, get it wrong and your in trouble or get it right but then along comes a few bad growth days and your back with the dilemma..
Of course you could decide to ban eating your arm all together but then you starve. Its a dilemma which you are most likely to get wrong.
However, you could have a spare box of arms, genetically reproducing themselves on a regular basis, no matter what mistakes you make you will always have a source of spare arms to fall back on. In fact you could have more arms than you knew what to do with no matter how much you gorged yourself.

Bit the same with the bass, stab a guess every year how many we can take or what size, find we cannot get it right and they keep dwindling until there are none left, the final draconian measure is all that's left, stop eating them altogether. OK, we will not starve but , wouldn't it be better to have a permanent place where they can feed and reproduce themselves continually without interference so we always have spares and maybe a surplus.
I thought I would see this headline one day "bass stocks in danger of collapsing". I predict mackerel could be the next one.
It just don't work, should be a secondary policy to one that does, sanctuaries, they exist but should be developed and expanded as a priority..

I dunno Mark, it worked with cod in the North Sea didn't it? A total commercial fishing ban would work, I think. Also you need to have protected areas for breeding as you suggest, for instance to include all the estuaries. I think the bulk of bass are commercially caught further out in deeper water by larger vessels and maybe its not so easy to work out where the protected area should be and how to enforce it. If you draw a box in the middle of the English Channel somewhere, the fishing vessels will fish all around the edges of it and probably stray inside if they get the chance. So then you have to have more fishery protection vessels and there's now the added complication that the areas which need protecting may be in EU waters, so then we will have no jurisdiction.
It's a complicated story, a lot to be said for a simple ban that everyone can understand. Our economy certainly doesn't depend on commercial catches of wild bass!

Your right in many ways Rob, and I am sorry to all for going on about it by the way, its just a bit of a thing I have. It would be/is complicated but we have come to the complete ban scenario after many years of different attempts for Bass and I think we are heading the same way for other species as well, maybe.
"Bass stocks heading for complete collapse" is not an endorsement of the last 30/40 years policy of protection. I am not saying abandoning those policies but time to give them a secondary place and bring the protected area a prominent consideration. One thing, among many positives; they will ensure a complete collapse or extinction of any species is unlikely.
I m sure areas outside will get heavily fished and some encroachment would happen and fish will roam outside of them and get caught but many will find good spawning and feeding grounds which will be undisturbed with abundant weed, crustaceans, worms etc and this must help the whole ecology of the sea.
Its not the complete answer I know but they do exist and have proven to work and I just think it needs expanding and given more priority..
As to where, how big etc, I appreciate there are many complications, political and practical, but so there were with all the complicated quotas, line sizes etc; were they easily policed! It just needs firstly more recognition and then more action.
I have lost faith in the past/ present reasoning and policies despite some small successes and I fear for the future of many species unless it is changed.

We all want the same thing, working out how to get there is the difficult bit.

I think you are right about mackerel. I have noticed they are getting smaller and less prolific off the Chesil Beach, which is close to me. Because there are no mackerel quotas there are now factory ships hoovering them up by the tonne. Can't be right, can it?

I used to fish the Shambles Bank a lot for turbot and brill and the numbers are nothing like they were in the past. If you had a few drifts and no bites you strongly suspected a local trawler had illegally swept the bank in the night.

I think there is a protected area in Lyme Bay which seems to be working, we just need a lot more of them all around the coast. But also I am concerned that now we are leaving the EU we will have no further influence on fisheries policies which need to be put in place throughout EU waters. Commercial fishing is now so mechanised and industrialised it can have devastating effects on fish stocks really quickly - that's why we need controls.

Same here Rob, mackerel shoals have gone, tiny little joeys get through the nets and that's mostly what you get these days, stuff that gets through the nets, so its all small or nothing over a certain size. Its not really conservation, its a compromise that's all and not a very good one. the shoals hundreds of yards wide have disappeared along with pretty much everything else on my bit.
A few years ago the foodies and scientists were telling us all to eat more mackeral, a good sustainable food source. just another case of getting it wrong in my opinion..just don't have any faith in it any more whether its the EU, ministers or scientists telling me they are going the right way..
EU, well, we don't know how that's going to pan out yet- but I reckon we could have an opportunity to lead the world in conservation areas. Provide plenty of stocks for our boats, jobs and exports. Even it only worked 50% thats 50% better than now..
I have heard of Lyme bay, a program about it a couple weeks ago and the Bristol channel is another one. I have fished that occasionally, the difference is remarkable to what I catch on the SE coast.
I know its not the complete answer but certainly we should be giving it a bigger try.
Just cannot go on using a bigger a hammer than the last time to solve it, down to the last big hammer in the box in some cases; some thinking might help.