Dead Fish

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:34 am

Hi all, following on from a previous post of mine, I took my wife and five children fishing at Beesands this week. For some it was their first ever fishing trip and I spent most of my time untangling lines, clearing nests and the normal problems associated with children and fishing tackle.

The day was, despite this, quite enjoyable and although there were 7 of us fishing we managed to catch a few mackerel and pollack. Only one thing spoilt the day.

DEAD FISH!!!!!!!!

I found a nice Dogfish, about 2ft long, dead on the beach with the hook still in its mouth. It had no obvious injury and the only thing I can assume is that it was caught, landed and then left to die. Slightly further along the beach were 6 mackerel, One had been gutted, another had a line deep down its throat and the rest were just lying on the beach to rot. crying

My philosophy is simply, will I eat it? If yes take it home. Exception being mackerel which I also use as bait. If no, remove the hook as carefully as possible and put, not throw the fish back. I for one dont need the sight of my days catch lying dead on the beach to know if I have had a good session.

Rotting fish on beaches dosn't do much to endear anglers to the general public either. Why do these things happen.

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:30 am

It happens coz people dont have the respect and responsibility to be fishing. They think that people eat fish so they dont see them as important so they hook them and leave them.

Disgusting, cant say ive seen them purposly left there as you have but the many I have seen have been washed up on the beaches due to death of suffocation in litter.

People need to start growing some form of responsibility if we are to keep our fish for a good cause other wise these selffish 'players' are goping to cause some damage. To marine life and fishermans reputation.

One act effects all...

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:43 am

This has gone on since time begun, but with a bit of education mabe, just maybe we will be able to change things for the better sad

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:00 am

Ino where you are comin from keith however i dont feel the older generation (like you age(not saying its you)) will take any notice, my grampa for example is is a stubarn in his ways(not saying he litters), and there is nothing we can do!!

It annoyes me deeply however i feel that only the younger generation will learn and over time the older generation will die out and the younger generation will hopefully will have taken in what we said when they were children

Sam

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:26 am

I believe its the younger generation more than the oldre. Newhaven have more younger fishermen tan the older and thats where i think the problem is

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:03 am

I can understand where you are comin from, Ino two many people who litter. But to be honest the people in my year who fish, love the fish (im 16).

I think that every age litter's!! but i think that the younger generation will be the easiest to teach not to litter.

Sam

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:07 am

100% agree, 16 myself i love fishing. But my friends (used to be anyways) thought of it as an excuse to take life unnecasrily. Killing them and either keeping them and nt using them or throwing them back after killing...

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:14 am

If the newcomers are to be educated it needs to be the minute they walk into any shop that sells tackle or bait . A carrier bag with the SEA ANGLERS CODE printed on it plus a basic knot for hook tying and fish measure. The first one on the anglers code could be
TIE THIS BAG BAG DOWN , FILL IT WITH ALL THE LITTER NEAR YOU AND PUT IT IN A BIN ....................the bag tied to your tackle box would be a flag saying `clean angler , less litter '. Next could be IF YOU DON`T WANT TO EAT THE FISH PUT IT BACK ALIVE.
Would it be possible to make a carrier bag which helps our beaches be cleaner ?
If so why haven`t the tackle companies seized the idea and made it national / global , got to be good eco pr.

Litterlouts should be made to wear their litter tied round their necks day and night for a week .

Member Joined: Aug 16, 2008 Posts: 5

Hi all another newby. I have been coarse fishing for a while and on the whole the local anglers are pretty good about removing all their rubbish. I went beach casting on Chesil at Abbotsbury at the weekend and was surprised to see the amount of beer cans, takeaway packaging and amongst it all there was empty packaging from hooks and rigs, i even found 6 hooks and flies just lying on top of the pebbles. I picked up what I could but was thinking why on earth would people spoil a beautiful place like Chesil by dropping litter there.

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:16 pm

When I was a teacher I spent hours talking in classes to teenagers about littering and other social ills, a teenager on his/her own can be very concerned about 'the environment'..... however set them in a group of their peers and they behave differently, everything sinks to the lowest denominator.... being cool, acting as a herd.
There was an old saying that a boy was half a man, two boys is half a boy.... and three boys is no boys at all....... for the sense you get out of them.

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:18 pm

sniggle wrote:

If the newcomers are to be educated it needs to be the minute they walk into any shop that sells tackle or bait . A carrier bag with the SEA ANGLERS CODE printed on it plus a basic knot for hook tying and fish measure. The first one on the anglers code could be
TIE THIS BAG BAG DOWN , FILL IT WITH ALL THE LITTER NEAR YOU AND PUT IT IN A BIN ....................the bag tied to your tackle box would be a flag saying `clean angler , less litter '. Next could be IF YOU DON`T WANT TO EAT THE FISH PUT IT BACK ALIVE.
Would it be possible to make a carrier bag which helps our beaches be cleaner ?
If so why haven`t the tackle companies seized the idea and made it national / global , got to be good eco pr.

Litterlouts should be made to wear their litter tied round their necks day and night for a week .

You are definatley onto something here!! you should maybe take this one further im shaw that you would get the backing of this forum!!!

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:29 pm

yeh couple days ago i found an old tangled rig with about 5 baited hooks in it.

An almost foolproof deathtrap for sea birds and marine life.
seriously, how hard is it to just put it at the bottom of your fishing box or a bin.

managed to salvage 5 hooks, a couple 3 way swivels and a nice big lead weight and binned the rest.

Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:14 am

king_nothing wrote:

yeh couple days ago i found an old tangled rig with about 5 baited hooks in it.

An almost foolproof deathtrap for sea birds and marine life.
seriously, how hard is it to just put it at the bottom of your fishing box or a bin.

managed to salvage 5 hooks, a couple 3 way swivels and a nice big lead weight and binned the rest.

Havn't experiened to much of the above, however did catch a black bin liner, 1 Tesco Bag and I Co-op bag during a single session. the Co-op bag contained tangled line, an old sea rig and weight. I assumed that whoever owned it was bagging it up to take home and forgot it. It did put up one hell of a fight though and as the tide kept catching it I really thought I had the elusive big one on the end of my line!

Just a bit more consideration is needed.

Member Joined: Sep 05, 2008 Posts: 16 Location: Penzance

It's something that really gets up my nose aswell, on Penzance pier in summer you get loads of kids float fishing catching small pollock and then killing them for no reason and chucking them back in, also i've seen many families fishing and keeping pollock that are well undersize and when i've caught one they'll say "are you putting that back" and if you say yes they'll ask if they can have it and get quite offended when I say no, it's to small! every small pollock they keep could well have grown into a 15 pounder!

Member Joined: Oct 24, 2006 Posts: 14 Location: Poole

PUT THE CAT AMONGST THE PIGEONS!

Perhaps it is time for having rod licenses for sea fishing !

I hate seeing the litter and broken lines with hooks left for all to snag on.
As has been said, walk along picking this up and some anglers look daggers at you. I have been called a sad git by an angler when I collected a load of gear near his rod.