Why is it frowned upon to keep skate/rays these days?

Member Joined: Jun 28, 2010 Posts: 51 Location: Leeds

I have been wondering this for a while. Sea Angler mag just jogged my memory. I used to eat Skate when I was a child. Apparently any ray was referred to as Skate by the fishmongers.
As far as I am aware they are quite prolific and certainly not endangered so why does everyone put them back?
I have never caught one but I'm not quite sure what I would do with it if I did. Thought I'd better ask beforehand.

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:34 pm

i think anglers put them back because u only eat the wings and the rest of the skate goes to waste,such a shame to kill such a gracefull creature just for its wings.
thats my theory anyway but it may well be wrong .
i hope this helps.
and good luck wi ur skate search.
screemin reels.
whitby

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:39 pm

Hi, my theory is simple, in the bad old days (last week i think it was) a lot of anglers did'nt just fish for sport, it was a cheap way of feeding the kids a few times a week. But over the years, things have changed, and most anglers fish mainly for the sport, consequently, a lot of fish have been classed as sport fish, and therefore get put back. Cheers..Mick
PS, thankfully i dont need to feed my kids, otherwise i would be in big trouble. winking

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:56 pm

rays/skate/roker etc,was a favourite on the fishmongers slab some time ago,and therefore was quite extensively commercially fished,this reduced the numbers . and i think alot of the species take along time to reach breeding maturity,therefore numbers are only now starting to increase.so a CnR policy is looked upon as the correct thing to do.but i dont mind a bit of skate n chips once a year

all the best

Andy

Member Joined: Jun 28, 2010 Posts: 51 Location: Leeds

Thanks for the replys guys, it does clarify things a bit. BTW whats a CNR policy?

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:56 pm

Gail wrote:

Thanks for the replys guys, it does clarify things a bit. BTW whats a CNR policy?

Catcn N' Release

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:21 pm

I think most anglers consider rays a difficult fish to prepare for the table so they put them back.
There is just as much waste when you fillet a cod with their gurt big heads but it is a simple job compared to skate.
I like a nice piece of skate fried in butter but do C&R egg laden females . happy

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 6:49 pm

Keeping your catch is an individual choice and you should not be swayed by the opinions of others imho. If a fish is within minimum landing size and you want to eat it, keep it. I personally dont think you would be doing too much harm to the eco-system if you take the odd one now and then. If a fish is badly hooked or injured it may not survive release.

Having said that I return most of what I catch and never keep wrasse, ray huss or conger.

Member Joined: Jun 28, 2010 Posts: 51 Location: Leeds

I shall bear all these points in mind and if I ever catch one I will decide what to do on the circumstances at the time. I must admit they do look quite cute, lol. I think if I did keep any it would only be very occaisonally.
Thanks.

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:23 pm

Gail wrote:

I shall bear all these points in mind and if I ever catch one I will decide what to do on the circumstances at the time. I must admit they do look quite cute, lol. I think if I did keep any it would only be very occaisonally.
Thanks.

i recon i'll only catch one occasionally...lol

Member Joined: Jan 20, 2010 Posts: 43 Location: Midlands

Ray meat is quite nice from memory. Once went out of Swansea on a chater way back in the days of studenthood. Had a 17lb thornback. The wings were really meaty apart from the thorns which probably should have removed before cooking.

The skipper also removed the cheek muscles which I remember to be 2 beautiful lumps of meat which I cooked deep fried in a bit of batter.

To be honest these days I'd probably put the rays back and stick to eating the mackerel and the "white" fish that appear.

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 1:59 pm

True Skate have been considered by many to be a sportfish for years (and I'm told by someone who has tried it they don't taste up to much anyway).

As for Thornback I'm not sure keeping them has gone out of fashion at all, certainly hasn't round my way and they make excellent eating - most of the people that i've come across who complain that the meat isn't up to much aren't aware of how they need to be dealt with in order to end up with a nice bit of skate to go with your chips ... for instance cutting the gills AFTER the fish has been dispatched to allow them to bleed out - and not letting them dry out in the sun (this allows the ammonia they secrete through their skin to get absorbed back into the flesh and taint it).

Anybody that says that its a waste because you just take the wings obviously doesn't know (a) how to clean one properly, (b) that you can eat the meat from the cheeks, tail and back as well or (c) both a and b - best bit of a Thornie is the cheaks IMO.

When you weigh up the amount of fish left after they are (properly) cleaned I would hazard a guess that percentage-wise you would notice a very similar return of edible flesh between Cod and Thornback and just the Wings alone on a 8 - 10lb Skate should give you a good few dinners unless your a complete gannet!

It's always been considered sensible to return female Thornies round my way early season as they are here to breed but there's no legal reason whatsoever to return them if it's your choice to keep and eat them.

Personally I get very bored with the holier than thou attitude of many of the catch and release brigade ... I sat chewing the fat with one of the local C&R diehards fairly recently as he told me he had returned all his sizeable fish for years and had a dig at me for taking fish ... he was eating Cod and chips from the local chippy, Cod that that had been trawled - what an environmentalist he is .. NOT!

As baitdigger says it's down to personal choice and if you eat fish its much better for the environment for you to eat the ones you catch yourself rather than one from a fishmongers slab which have come from a commercial boat. Make up your own opinion on what to keep and what to return, don't allow yourself to be bullied by those C&R followers that are not open-minded enough to accept that, to many of us, eating some (or all) of our catch is a very big part of the ejoyment in what we do. Having said that I happen to beleive that its fundamentally wrong to kill anything without reason so it seems pointless to take fish that aren't edible or aren't to your taste ... and that includes Weevers, which I return alive and unharmed ... many of the very same C&R enthusiasts I've met over the years have not shown the poor old Weever quite so much mercy!

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 5:08 pm

Being a veggy I put all fish back. My choice and I don't go on preaching to people.
Even when I used to eat meat (20 years ago) I never ate fish.

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 6:31 pm

gynewguy wrote:

Being a veggy I put all fish back. My choice and I don't go on preaching to people.
Even when I used to eat meat (20 years ago) I never ate fish.

Wife and Bro in law are veggies (is that the plural? ... sounds insulting confused

)
so I get that bit entirely ... neither of them preach at all and my bro in law totally gets why I fish. My wife might be a veggy but the red mist comes over her when we are macky bashing ... definate a blood lust there when the fish start hitting the feathers which I always find very strange from a vegetarian.

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 7:26 pm

reel_wizard wrote:

gynewguy wrote:

Being a veggy I put all fish back. My choice and I don't go on preaching to people.
Even when I used to eat meat (20 years ago) I never ate fish.

Wife and Bro in law are veggies (is that the plural? ... sounds insulting confused

)
so I get that bit entirely ... neither of them preach at all and my bro in law totally gets why I fish. My wife might be a veggy but the red mist comes over her when we are macky bashing ... definately a blood lust there when the fish start hitting the feathers which I always find very strange from a vegetarian.