Fishing For Leave - Time limit at sea - keep all you catch - no discards

[h=3]BRITAIN’S fishing industry could face “devastating” consequences brought by new EU rules coming into effect today (1st Jan 2019)[/h]Fishing For Leave on Twitter said this; "As warned EU 2019 Discard Ban will SMASH UK fleet Discards caused by EU Quotas ill-fitted to mixed fisheries where fishers CAN'T avoid 'wrong' species they've no quota for Brexit Britain MUST adopt discard free keep all you catch Time limit at sea policy" Brexit news: New EU rule could be ‘DEVASTATING’ for UK fisheries | UK | News | Express.co.uk

I sincerely believe Time limit at sea using traditional methods is the sustainable way of catching fish. Time limited with initial 10 fold new number of British vessels allowed. 100% control of our own waters.... no electric, no foreign owned processing and high penalties.

Happy New Year.

Fishing by appointment only .

Trawlers would need a pre arranged times & dates to fish our waters and ANY transgression would be an instant and total ban on the vessel and all of it's crew for 5 years ( preventing crews from offending vessels returning to our waters ) would hopefully discourage repeat offending .

Also No return visit for 3 months from any vessel or crew member thereof

Plus strick limits on amount of fish caught holds of controlled size so they can only hold X amount of fish .

Harsh but needed .


PG ...

The bloke who hasn't caught enough fish to pay himself and his crew for the month/year but has used his time limit up will go out of business. And they would all use their time limits to target the most valuable fish, usually the rarest so it wouldn't help conservation of the species that needed it. And your still in the failed quota system, just a different way of applying it, what time limits apply this year or next year, lets hope we get it right one day!
Got to stop trying to punish the commercial fishermen who provide both food and jobs and find a way that works with them.
Harvest-able marine reserves might do both, targeting the sea not the commercial fishermen might be a better way forward.

markg said:

The bloke who hasn't caught enough fish to pay himself and his crew for the month/year but has used his time limit up will go out of business. And they would all use their time limits to target the most valuable fish, usually the rarest so it wouldn't help conservation of the species that needed it. And your still in the failed quota system, just a different way of applying it, what time limits apply this year or next year, lets hope we get it right one day!
Got to stop trying to punish the commercial fishermen who provide both food and jobs and find a way that works with them.
Harvest-able marine reserves might do both, targeting the sea not the commercial fishermen might be a better way forward.

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But they can and should be made to concentrate on their own national waters there has to be a hefty price for continually hammering our fish stocks they are not a bottomless supply of fish . there has to be disadvantages introduced to protect our waters and as for the high value stocks then maybe it boils down to you are allowed to fish between these cordinations and only for these type of fish ensuring that areas that holds the more valuabe rarer fish are off limits ..

PG ...

maggot_dangler said:

But they can and should be made to concentrate on their own national waters there has to be a hefty price for continually hammering our fish stocks they are not a bottomless supply of fish . there has to be disadvantages introduced to protect our waters and as for the high value stocks then maybe it boils down to you are allowed to fish between these cordinations and only for these type of fish ensuring that areas that holds the more valuabe rarer fish are off limits ..

PG ...

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The heart of the problem is the quota system foreign boats or not. No government scientist, politician, whether its Brussels or British, whether its ICES. DEFRA or whoever, has ever set the quotas where they needed to be to turn around the decline in fish stocks since 1968. They dared not as it would have wiped out the fishing industry and they will never dare to in the future for the same reason so the decline in stocks will likely continue whatever happens post brexit. The complicated quota system is here to stay whether a British one or not and likely the fish stocks will continue to decline for a long time yet. And sorry Laguana, I just think a time quota will have the same problem, would they dare set a time limit where it needed to be!
Marine reserves could be easier and better managed and harvested accordingly with a secondary back up quota system where and when needed as you suggest and this has been my opinion for some time and the proof is out there that this works but it wont happen.
The British gov will probably carry on using the EU quota or follow it closely and trade off some of our fishing or they will be too keen to get our fishing industry back and quota will be less adequate than they already are so I am not hopeful for the future. Martin Salter who has some knowledge and influence in these matters told me once it will always be quota as the main method of trying to solve the problem so they will flog away at it for a long time yet.
And as for by catch, just another miserable factor of a miserable system.

Markg - your first paragraph sums up the situation perfectly. My own grandfather (a fisheries scientist) was fed up of successive sets of politicians "reaching a compromise" that meant fishing would be above sustainable levels - well before the EEC. It was ever thus.

Interesting grauniad article here
Ukip is wrong: British fishing answers to Westminster not Brussels | John Lichfield | Opinion | The Guardian

silvers said:

Markg - your first paragraph sums up the situation perfectly. My own grandfather (a fisheries scientist) was fed up of successive sets of politicians "reaching a compromise" that meant fishing would be above sustainable levels - well before the EEC. It was ever thus.

Interesting grauniad article here
Ukip is wrong: British fishing answers to Westminster not Brussels | John Lichfield | Opinion | The Guardian

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I remember the first token gestures of cod quota before we joined the EU which were not enough, your Grandfather must have been frustrated by what transpired and ever since. Thanks for the article, an interesting read.
I visited three local fishing sheds on Saturday, one had three cod about 3lb each alongside three out of season mackerel. The other two sheds had none, when out of season mackerel can match in season cod, there is no cod revival as far as I am concerned or many others - your article makes an interesting point on this; expectations are so low that a few more fish being caught in one or two areas can seem like a revival. In my opinion this is whats happening with cod leading everyone to think the quotas are working and quotas can be raised!.
I welcome the foreign boats leaving our waters if that actually happens, it should provide a gap our fishing industry can fill but, we will still need a fishing policy/system that works to sustain populations which will probably be the quota system with all its failings so just having no foreign boats will not be the answer.
I am looking into the EU 2019 quotas that have just been set last month, hard to get a full take on it just now but on first appearances it seems the EU have generally raised quotas against advice, but I need to look into it further.

Just been reading something about the I think it was the Barents sea, Norwegians and Russians-the fishing was so good they kept raising the quotas until something like 2006, since then they have had to reduce quotas every year as stocks diminished, quotas; always behind the game; never in front and I suspect it will be the same in this country post brexit.

history repeats itself.
the north sea fisheries crashed before both world wars.

Grandfather passed away before UK joined the EEC, but his son-in-law (my Uncle) was equally frustrated. Politicians don't listen to scientists until it's too late on too many occasions , or more charitably they can't afford to take a long term view due to capricious voters.

Now I’ll be the first to admit my indepth knowledge of the Trawler industry extends to owning the boxed DVD set of the BBCs “Trawlermen” (the thing we anglers get as gifts eh..) but I have to say I can’t think of many other industry’s that get as much air time as the trawling industry. It seems to have made prime time headlines for literally decades and always for the wrong reasons.

The thing is I read somewhere but I can’t recall where that the recreational fishing industry actually employees a allot more people & generates allot more money than the trawling one but gets a tiny % of the airtime.

So I think the first thing here from a purely outside point of view is to put this into perspective. The trawling industry is clearly dwindling. I dont know how many boats there are now but the number has crashed and is getting smaller. I think we also need to face facts that dragging a net along the sea bed is an archaic way to catch fish and there is only one way this industry is going – down.

For that reason as cruel as it sounds I think we have spent enough time trying to save this dead duck & need to move on. The whole commercial fishing industry needs to be rethought out from the ground up and trawling is not the answer. Yes it will cost some jobs in the short term but the way things are going those jobs would be lost anyway and there is no reason why they cannot be replaced with something else.

So whats the solution ? …I dont know but I would like to think creating something like sea farms makes sense to me. Is it really that difficult to create the idea of something like a huge stock pond in the ocean ? …yes I am super simplifying it …of course I am but why not ? That’s got to be a million times better, more sustainable and easier to control than blindly swishing a net and crossing your fingers. In addition the promotion of much smaller local cottage fishing industries, such as small day boats from local ports, I am sure there are other ideas too.

It wont be easy but I recon its time to close the book on commercial trawling. Its had its day.

Agree with that, the sea has been treated like a hunter gathers paradise since the year dot albeit with more sophisticated methods. No one thinks of it as a farm. Farming fish is expensive if your trying to rear fish for the table but rearing them for the first year for release into the wild is not so expensive and you can raise thousands like this; the first year is crucial for survival rate in the wild. Released into marine safe zones at one year where there would be plenty of natural food and safety with good weed growth etc and many more would survive into maturity.
My twist on marine zones apart from letting commercial interests fishing the over spill from zones is allow them to harvest the zones every 5/10 years for 75/50% of whats in them, whatever is calculated the best, something the scientists could work out. Considering it as fields to be seeded, harvested on a rota, and looked after in a sustainable way. Of course fish don't know zone lines but they would come to know safe good feeding and breeding areas.
I would at least like to see this tried as an experiment in a British zone, see if it could sustain a commercial fleet, compensate them for any loss for the first 5 or 10 years. if it dont work it dont work but not a lot to lose and the basic principle has worked for many smaller areas around the world.
However, they have been so wedded to quota for so long I dont think any other method will get considered, admitting failure is not in the politicians book who ultimately decide these things but , the scientific community is more and more recognizing the safe zone idea does work so maybe one day.
Trawling is destructive but they are using less destructive methods of trawling these days, lighter beams and electro fishing is more selective of species. How to harvest a safe zone would have to be considered but I am sure its not beyond the ken of experts if such an idea ever saw the light of day.
I cant remember the British commercial fleet numbers off hand but its something like 10000 to 1000, this could be a way to revive it a bit or maybe a lot if it works if our politicians and experts get a bit more ambitious post brexit rather than only stick to EU policy.