Gill nets and the decline in fish stocks.

Member Joined: Sep 29, 2005 Posts: 84

Do you think the government should ban the use of gill nets?
Laters jim.

Guest

Yes it would help in restoring fish stokes.

Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 9:14 pm

Absolutely mate, I thought they had already, but not sure. I seem to recall reading somewhere that if you see gill nets being placed anywhere you should inform your local fisheries officer. Perhaps I will check again - does anyone else know better than me?

Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 12:33 am

But the ban is no good unless it is properly enforced... and only affects certain size of ships within certain distance of the shore... and is currently not in place in all areas of our coast so is not a straight forward law really.

Tel 01253 837515 24hr No is 0207 270 8960 to report gill netting

Member Joined: Sep 29, 2005 Posts: 84

There is only a ban on gill netting for bass and a few other areas where migratory fish are using estuaries, personally i think this is the reason for the boom in bass stocks. So maybe if there were a total ban on gill nets other species would have a chance to recover.

There are also mesh size limits depending where they are used, and i beieve around the south coast it is 65mm(knot to knot) not very large, probably the reason for only catching millions of pin whiting in the winter.

As for implementing this law, i think it would be quite easy, any vessel found to be carring gill nets should get a hefty fine and if the fine cannot be paid then there vessel is confiscated, the harsher the penalty the more incentive to stay with in the law. Any nets found out at sea should be dragged in and confiscated thus detering european fishermen from fishing our waters, its a long way to come to keep getting your nets taken from you and probably quite expensive to keep replacing them.

But commercial fishing to be fair is alot of peoples livlihood, so my suggestion would be to get rid of the quotas all together but make them use tradtional fishing methods ie. trawling. Also bump up the size limits on every fish. I think im going to suggest this idea to a commercial fishing representaive and see if they would be prepared to give it a go( i bet they wont!) Laters jim

Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 11:26 am

Raising the size limit on fish would be a good idea but would have no effect as the fish are still going to get caught in the nets be hauled on board and left to flap around to die... making the holes in nets bigger would seem like a better solution thus allowing the smaller fish less chance of getting caught in the nets

Member Joined: Sep 29, 2005 Posts: 84

Yes but if they were trawled at least the fish would be alive so theres a greater chance that the smaller fish could be returned and not left in the gill nets for days for them to drown.

Does anybody think its coincidence that the fish stocks have dwindled since the introduction of gill nets? Laters jim

Occasional Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 144

gill nets are bloody awful things and should never have been introduced.

something has to be done about the commercial fishing. there must be someway of restoring the fish stocks whilst keeping the fisherman in business still.

i think what ever fish comes over the side should be sold, no matter what size or species. i know that some species are not edible and they have to be big enough to fillet. if there was a restriction on waste then the trawlers would try not to get the small with the large.

and maybe banning commercial fishing in certain areas, then moving the ban around the coast after a set amount of time. this way it would give the ban area's time to recover.

i think that this would be worth looking into. i'm no expert but maybe an expert should take some suggestions and research how/ if they would work. something really has got to be done.

Occasional Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 144

gill nets are bloody awful things and should never have been introduced.

something has to be done about the commercial fishing. there must be someway of restoring the fish stocks whilst keeping the fisherman in business still.

i think what ever fish comes over the side should be sold, no matter what size or species. i know that some species are not edible and they have to be big enough to fillet. if there was a restriction on waste then the trawlers would try not to get the small with the large.

and maybe banning commercial fishing in certain areas, then moving the ban around the coast after a set amount of time. this way it would give the ban area's time to recover.

i think that this would be worth looking into. i'm no expert but maybe an expert should take some suggestions and research how/ if they would work. something really has got to be done.

Occasional Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 144

gill nets are bloody awful things and should never have been introduced.

something has to be done about the commercial fishing. there must be someway of restoring the fish stocks whilst keeping the fisherman in business still.

i think what ever fish comes over the side should be sold, no matter what size or species. i know that some species are not edible and they have to be big enough to fillet. if there was a restriction on waste then the trawlers would try not to get the small with the large.

and maybe banning commercial fishing in certain areas, then moving the ban around the coast after a set amount of time. this way it would give the ban area's time to recover.

i think that this would be worth looking into. i'm no expert but maybe an expert should take some suggestions and research how/ if they would work. something really has got to be done.

Member Joined: Sep 29, 2005 Posts: 84

I agree big guy, but as far as keeping everything that comes over the side, they do that already, what happens is that the small fish are filleted boned and then frozen in large blocks and then cut into finger sized pieces and made into fish fingers! I wonder how many millions of tons of fish are just hanging about in freezers rather than swiming in the sea,reproducing and making more fishies.

Gill nets were an american invention and were used there befor they came over here, and the cod is exstinct in there waters now, but there authorities spotted the damage the gill nets were doing and have put a stop to them, they have a much more stringent system there, and fishermen are forced to play ball. Thats probably why there fish stocks are recovering at quite a healthy rate.

I still think the answer is to ban gill nets, and go back to the traditional method of trawling, look back to 20 years ago pre gill nets, when trawling was the main type of commercial fishing, the fish stocks were at a healthy level, and there was probably 10 times the amount of commercial fishermen then than there are now. But as soon as the gill nets were introduced, almost over night you saw the decline in fish stocks. laters jim

Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 5:49 pm

Well dungyjim, you know my thoughts on this of course, and yes, gill netting is a disgrace, but I will again say that I think educating people to eat a wider range of species would make a huge difference.

My reasoning is quite simple and I shall use Bass as an example as it's probably the most relevant:
The £price/lb of Bass increased hugely as a direct result of it being promoted heavily by television progs/restaurants/cookery books etc., something that we know has resulted in the increased use of gill nets in areas known for Bass - but what if other species were to be promoted in the same way? would gill nets be used to target those fish further offshore? something tells me they wouldn't...

Hope that makes sense.

Tim

Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 9:20 pm

I agree but it is one thing for us to belive this and another for some thing to be done about it 8O If there is money involved in some thing then greed will always win love struck

At this rate future generations will have nothing left to fish for :cry:
tight lines(if there is any fish left)

Member Joined: Sep 29, 2005 Posts: 84

Howdy tim, as you know im in the restaurant trade, i deliberately haven't put cod on the menu for over two years. We do need to encourage people to eat other species of fish, but the problem here is that its not just cod, seabass etc that are at dangerously low levels - its all fish. And this is due to commercial fishing methods.

I agree that through tv/restaurants and cookery books etc fish is more popular than ever, but fishing with gill nets was first introduced over twenty years ago at which time only two in ten people eating out would choose fish. So in my opinion customer demand did not warrant the use of gill net fishing, it was introduced purely as a more cost effective method for the following reasons:

- fishermen at sea less therefore lowering the wage bill

- increased time of nets in sea resulting in higher catch rates

- lower fuel consumption

The overall result is minimum cost/ maximum profit, and as gremlin said if they carry on using gill nets there wont be any fish left for future generations. Laters jim

ps. dan and i are gonna try and give sandgate a bash this week if you fancy it, drop us a line if you can make it.

Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 8:34 am

Well Jim, I agree that the increased productivity from gill nets deployed closer inshore has resulted in the decimation of smaller fish across all species, but would still argue that this decimation is likely to have been heaviest in areas populated by the most profitable fish - Bass. Certainly one look at a fishmongers or supermarket's stock of fish tells you all you'd need to know about what they consider profitable - undersize fish that most responsible anglers know they'd put back alive. So, if it were possible to reduce that demand for certain fish species, it might also be possible to reduce the practice of gill netting.

It is greed to a certain extent and I can't blame the fishermen for doing it (it's been a necessity for some of them), but my view is still that through educating people in the eating of different species, it would raise the price of currently "unpopular" fish and provide an alternative to Bass which would require different methods of fishing.

Hope this still makes sense to someone...

Tim