Welcome to the Bass Anglers' Sportfishing Society
Friday, October 03, 2008
BASS Tells Minister to Beef Up for 2012
Don't Lose this Chance says BASS.
BASS are urging the Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw, to adopt a strong position ahead of the review of the Common Fisheries Policy by 2012. BASS are demanding that UK national and regional legislation created for the protection of our close-inshore fisheries apply to all vessels fishing within the UK's 12 mile limit, whatever their nationality.
2012 may still seem a long way off, but there is much work to be done to agree the UK's position in readiness for the next formal ten-year review.
Of all the issues that most concern both anglers and inshore commercial fishermen, the amount of access allowed to other EU nations to fish-stocks within close inshore waters probably causes the greatest concern.
Although the previous review in 2002 allowed EU nations to create their own conservation rules within their own 6 to 12 mile zone (to which some other country's fleets have 'grandfather rights' of access), such rules can only apply to foreign vessels with the agreement of those nations, and the EU.
This has led to UK conservation rules such as those preventing pair-trawling for bass, and the protection of tope, both prized sport fish, only applying to UK vessels, whereas foreign boats fishing alongside UK boats close to our shores are not subject to such restrictions, considerably weakening the effectiveness of such legislation.
Of even greater concern is the reluctance of fishermen and Sea Fisheries Committees to adopt conservation measures within our own six mile limit (which is reserved for UK licensed vessels only), when foreign boats fishing only just outside the current six mile limit can legally ignore such measures. It was this situation that allowed the UK commercial sector to oppose the increase in the bass MLS from the current 36cm (650 grams) to 45cm ( 1 kilo)
BASS Restoration Project chairman John Leballeur said "It is essential for the adoption and effectiveness of UK fisheries conservation rules that they should apply to all, and that UK fishermen are not put at a disadvantage when trying to protect the valuable inshore stocks upon which both anglers and commercial fishermen depend."
"It is time to beef up the UK position to ensure a lasting legacy that will improve our fishing in the years and decades far beyond 2012"
posted at 8:25 PM - [email this]
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Bass Lure Storage System
Durable, Transparent, Light Weight
Its O.k. untangling a box full of lures at home, but when bass are on the bite, you need lure changes to be slick & trouble free (I tried lure bonnets . . . but always ended up dropping/losing them).
Using individual lure boxes makes changing lures quicker & hassle free. Take the top off the box, the eye of the lure is there ready to accept your loop or clip.
Before going fishing, consider the ground over which you will be plugging and sort out the lures you are going to use. Put them in the individual storage boxes. Five will fit in a Titan front pocket.
After fishing, wash your lures & boxes in clean water, dry & then mist the hooks with WD 40. Catch more fish with help from B.A.S.S.
The BLSS are constructed of a robust plastic (not brittle) which is clear enough to identify what the box contains and also has the facility to adjust the length for different lures(5" to 8") and with small lures you can get two to a box.
Cost is £1.50 per box. P&P is extra - for up to six boxes this will come to £1.50; to 10 items £2.00; to 15 items £2.50 (UK postage only - for overseas please enquire).
All proceeds are going to the BASS Restoration Project Fund.
Please send cheques made payable to BASS to:
Frank Whittingham
Shawe Cottage
Shawe Park
Kingsley Holt
Cheadle
ST10 2DL
posted at 9:17 PM - [email this]
Friday, September 05, 2008
The Fisheries Challenge Fund Project
The view from Bob Cox and TSF>
We reproduce below, an article which appeared in the most recent issue of Total Sea Fishing Magazine (a David Hall Publication). The article provides an update on the first Fisheries Challenge Fund project to directly involve anglers. BASS is not itself involved but is watching these developments with keen interest. We feel that visitors to this site might find it interesting and informative.
We are grateful to Bob Cox, TSF and its editor Barney Wright for allowing us to republish it here.
posted at 4:43 PM - [email this]
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Bass on Bass
The book of the Society: 'Bass and B.A.S.S.'
A superb selection of articles and letters from the B.A.S.S. magazine over the years, with some new material specially written.Designed, edited and published by Geoff Gonella in conjunction with Peter Macconnell and John Morgan.
Bound in hardback with dust wrapper, a high quality book.Price: £28+Post & packaging:UK: £5 (1 copy), £8 (2 copies)Rep. Of Ireland: £7 (1 copy), £13 (2 copies)Rest of Europe: £10 (1 copy), £15 (2 copies)Other quantities & destinations: Please send request by post or to sales@anglersbookcase.com
Ordering
By post: Send UK cheque, UK Postal Order or Bankers Draft in UK Sterling, made out to Geoff Gonella, with your details to: 26 The Firs, Reydon, Southwold IP18 6YS
By Internet: via Payment by PayPal using the button. Sorry, cannot take cards directly
posted at 8:18 PM - [email this]
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Bass Slaughter
We are losing our bass stocks
A combination of unfolding circumstances is leading to the rapid destruction of the country's inshore bass stocks and a loss of the valuable Recreational Sea Fishery, along with thousands of jobs in the Recreational Sea Fishing sector.
Already under great pressure, and with a legal minimum landing size set far below spawning age, because there is no quota for bass, commercial fishermen are free to help themselves to bass stocks almost without restriction.
And with little available quota for other species, many more fishermen are increasingly turning to bass to maintain their profits.
Appallingly, DEFRA simply have no idea of the number of boats now targeting bass, nor the amount of netting that is being deployed (which can be up to 20 miles of net from one small vessel), and so are completely unable to manage the fishery.
The fuel crisis too is playing its part, as fishermen turn from making longer sea journeys and concentrate on exploiting local inshore stocks.
They are also turning away from fuel-hungry fishing methods such as bottom-trawling to setting static gear such as gill-nets for bass, with a huge increase in the numbers of marine mammals and birds becoming entangled in nets set for bass.
And if this was not enough, illegal fishermen have realised that budget restrictions have severely affected the ability of Sea Fisheries Committees and the Environment Agency to carry out enforcement of the few existing regulations protecting bass, and within protected areas to anything like the extent required, leading to widespread illegal fishing by 'bass pirates'.
With a recruitment failure evident in bass stocks over the last three years, unless the Government takes rapid and firm action to further protect bass stocks and to ensure adequate enforcement, it is likely that the developing and valuable Recreational Sea Fishery for bass will become another 'what could have been' to be laid at the foot of the Government.
In view of these concerns, John Leballeur, chairman of the B.A.S.S. Restoration Team has written to Jonathan Shaw MP, the UK's Fisheries Minister, demanding urgent action on measures to protect bass stocks, and to ensure that enforcement agencies are properly funded to meet the rapidly growing need for more robust enforcement.
posted at 10:16 PM - [email this]
Sunday, June 08, 2008
BASS Challenges Minister's Smokescreen
Minister's Parliamentary answers duck the issue.
BASS, the Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society, has rounded upon the answers given in Parliament by the Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw, to Bill Wiggins the Conservative Shadow Fisheries Minister, seeking information about recent scientific evidence pointing to a recruitment failure in the UK bass stock.
In a statement issued in response to the Minister's replies (see below), John Leballeur, chairman of the Bass Restoration Team says "The public and anglers are increasingly fed up with the same old rhetoric from the stuck gramophone record of DEFRA, that the fishery is being fished sustainably, when mounting evidence shows that this is not the case and that there is a real cause for concern".
Statement from the Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society (BASS) regarding answers to recent parliamentary questions regarding failing recruitment to UK bass stocks.
On Tuesday 3rd June the Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw, provided answers to a series of questions asked by Bill Wiggins, the Conservative Shadow Fisheries Minister, relating to recent scientific evidence warning of a recruitment collapse in the UK bass fishery in years 2005, 2006 and 2007.
The Minister's replies side-step the main issue with an apparent smoke-screen constructed to play down the alarming evidence of the possibility of an imminent collapse in the fishery, and to maintain the false impression that there is little need for concern.
In the answers provided he did however acknowledge a similar pattern of pre-recruitment indices for the Solent to that of the Tamar since records commenced in 1997.
CEFAS, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science at Lowestoft, is the authority who's Marine Biologists have the responsibility of conducting and collating of bass pre-recruitment survey results from the Thames, Solent and the Tamar.
These surveys indicate the spawning success of the bass breeding stock during the winter months, and it is the juvenile '0' Group bass which in five year's time, enter the fish stocks around our coasts.
The scientific evidence which John Leballeur, Chairman of the Bass Restoration Team, is questioning the Minister, is in respect of CEFAS's survey results against the sampling he himself conducts on the Tamar, which clearly shows a pre-recruitment collapse.
B.A.S.S's own records (commencing in 1977) and that of CEFAS (Solent data), also clearly show that the pre-recruitment stock has actually halved in size since the good year classes of the 90's.
It is the breeding stock in the Western Approaches and English Channel from which juvenile '0' group year classes derive to populate the estuaries along the southern part of the United Kingdom, including the Tamar and Solent estuaries, and it is this fishery which has seen over-fishing of the breeding stock in recent years.
Anglers have witnessed the year on year decline of size and quantity of bass.
In the coming next two years, we will begin to see an even further decline when there will be no replacement year classes to enter the fishery.
The public and anglers are increasingly fed up with the same old rhetoric from the stuck gramophone record of DEFRA, that the fishery is being fished sustainably, when mounting evidence shows that this is not the case and that there is a real cause for concern.
posted at 9:53 PM - [email this]
Monday, June 02, 2008
Stop Eating the Babies
We should never eat a fish that has never had the chance to breed.
With widespread and still growing public concern about over-fishing, and the terrible waste from fishery discards, most people would be horrified to realise that some fishermen are targeting the wild bass stocks before they have ever had a chance to spawn.
Despite the fact that such small fish are readily and cheaply available on the fish counter as farmed bass.
"Wild baby bass are just too valuable a resource to be wasted like this" said John Leballeur, Chairman of the Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society's Restoration Team.
If these baby fish were allowed to grow for just a little longer, every wild bass now served up at merely plate-size would have the opportunity to grow and spawn, and to be served as fillets providing two or more good meals instead of just the one, reducing the need to kill so many wild fish to fill our plates.
"We really need to start taking the conservation of our marine resources seriously, rather than simply talking about doing so", he added."And consumers can make a real difference by being more selective about what they buy and what they order when they dine out."
Responding to claims that increasing the legal size that bass may be taken would only lead to more discards, John Leballeur points out that young bass congregate in shallow inshore waters.
And that by allowing their exploitation at such a small size trawlers are encouraged to fish where small fish are gathered.
That only leads to already unacceptable discards of fish smaller than even the current legal size.
Around 65% of what should be the future stock is being destroyed by trawling in the Eastern Channel, and yet it was to defend this fishery that the Minister rejected all previous advice to increase the Minimum Landing size of bass.
And for every baby bass served on a plate, many other smaller fish will have died simply to be dumped back dead.
The ethical course of action, when demand for small fish can readily be met from fish farms, is to preserve our precious stocks of wild bass, by only taking fewer, larger, more valuable fish from the stock, and by avoiding fishing where the future stocks are growing.
"The Government backed down on its plans to increase the Minimum Landing Size for bass. They must now urgently deliver on their promises to protect these small fish by closing the areas where they gather to feed and grow, and introduce measures to protect the areas where breeding fish congregate, as well as introducing a close season leaving them to gather to breed in peace"
"Successive governments have ignored warnings from fisheries scientists about the measures needed to restore fish-stocks, preferring to bow down and placate short-term commercial fishing interests with the predictable results now apparent for all to see".
Recent scientific evidence has raised concerns about collapsing recruitment levels in the UK bass fishery, the time to act is now.
posted at 8:57 PM - [email this]
Thursday, May 22, 2008
RSA strategy - Trade view
[Comment - We reproduce below, an article which appeared in the June 2008 issue of the angling trade magazine 'Tackle & Guns' (a David Hall Publication). The article covers the tackle industry's only trade body, 'The Angling Trades Association', suggestions for the future of sea fishing in the UK, in connection with the Government's proposal for a Recreational Sea Angling Strategy. BASS is grateful to the Editor of 'Tackle & Guns' and the Chairman of the 'Angling Trades Association', for allowing BASS to publish the article on this website.]
The 'Angling Trades Association (ATA)' plea for more fish in our seas
The Angling Trades Association, which represents our industry, has produced its views on Government plans for a national Recreational Sea Angling Strategy. Here's what it had to say ...
With many of the leading suppliers, retailers, press and fishery owners, the tackle industry's only trade body is uniquely positioned to get across our views to Government.
When plans were unveiled for a Recreational Sea Angling Strategy, it made sense, for the sake of everyone in the business, that the association put across a strong and coherent argument.
Recent research indicates the trade is worth approximately £500 million per annum and employs some 24,000 full and part-time people.
Given that the Angling Trades Association (ATA) promotes, represents and protects the trade across all angling disciplines - including sea fishing - to achieve long-term stability and, more importantly, growth. T & G felt it was important that the entire industry could read its suggestions.
Sea angling
The popularity of sea angling is directly linked to the availability of suitable fish to catch. When fish are plentiful, angling participation increases markedly; conversely, there is a widespread perception among sea anglers that there has been a decline in the abundance of many marine species in recent years - attributed to commercial overfishing - and this has adversely impacted on sea
angling activity.
It follows that any meaningful recovery of fish species targeted by anglers will stimulate a rapid upsurge in recreational sea angling. More than any other, this branch of angling has huge potential for expansion and offers substantial opportunities to existing and new sea anglers.
The development of recreational sea fisheries
For this reason, the ATA welcomes the development of a Recreational Sea Angling Strategy and the improved management of marine fisheries resources it could bring. However, it is vital for the future of sea angling that many of the measures in the strategy are reflected in subsequent policies that take into account the legitimate rights, needs and aspirations of all stakeholders.
Historically, the angling sector has had to exist on what fish stocks remained after exploitation by commercial sea fishing interests, an outdated, inequitable and inevitably unsustainable means of managing marine resources.
The ATA urges the Government to seize this perfect opportunity to firmly establish the principal of 'how much can we leave', rather than 'how much can we take' and to ensure that this ethos is given practical expression in the development of its strategy.
It is perhaps inevitable that any debate on the management of sea fisheries resources will focus on the control of use or exploitation, rather than development of sea fisheries. The most controversial issue - that of licences for sea anglers - has coloured the debate and would have dominated the
ATA's response. We are pleased that, in his recent statement, the Fisheries Minister has ruled out the imposition of sea angling licences.
The ATA also expects the Government to act to ensure that, within the new legislative framework provided by the Marine Bill, the needs of sea anglers are an integral part of management and development policies, equitable representation is afforded to anglers' representatives and organisations, and that the underlying scientific basis for sea fish management policies takes full account of the sea angling sector.
Strategy goals
We fully support the aim of the strategy and the four objectives it contains. However, the overarching principle is that recreational sea angling is dependent on the presence of more and bigger fish (objective 1). Improved stocks are
fundamental to the future of sea angling, the numbers who fish, the enjoyment that anglers derive from their sport and the trade that it supports. Without
more and bigger fish, the other objectives will not be met and the strategy will fail.
Fisheries management
Clearly, the reform of the Sea Fisheries Committees (SFCs) is central to the strategy. In the same way that land and freshwater management policies have altered from simply exploiting the resource to protecting and conserving it, the
same change should be enshrined in the new committees.
It is vital that the SFCs are powerful, well funded and truly representative of those who use or enjoy sea fisheries and, specifically, that they work effectively to develop recreational sea angling. Indeed, the strategy will fail sea angling if the composition and work of the SFCs is dominated by
commercial sea fishing interests.
Species, stock impact and habitat management
We support the principle of specific management plans for fish species of particular interest to recreational sea anglers.
During the debate surrounding the decision not to raise the minimum landing size for bass, the most striking argument has been the need to ensure that fish are able to reach maturity and breed at least once. We endorse this underlying ethos.
There are other potential initiatives which would benefit the RSA sector and which we endorse. They include the establishment of a 'golden mile'.
Much recreational sea angling takes place along or close to the shore, and measures to improve marine fish stocks will prove meaningless to sea anglers if inshore areas are so exploited commercially that anglers are unable to catch fish there.
We also agree that other areas could be reserved for recreational sea angling use only or managed in such a manner that commercial exploitation is restricted.
However, these measures alone will be insufficient: if commercial sea fishing effort increases around the edges of such areas, opportunities for fish to successfully enter or leave such areas will be reduced.
The ATA supports the principle of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and endorsed those sections of the Marine Bill that provide the powers to create them.
Nevertheless, MPAs can only deliver the benefits ascribed to them if they are managed in an enlightened manner, allowing non-damaging access and non- consumptive use.
Again, it is the association's opinion that the underlying foundation of what to limit, and how, should be based on the conservation of fish stocks, not their maximum exploitation.
Codes of conduct and best practice
We strongly endorse moves to develop national codes of conduct that promote best practice by recreational sea anglers. As the strategy acknowledges, this will require considerable and positive dialogue with other bodies and agencies.
In conclusion
In this response, the ATA has highlighted some of those areas of specific interest. In the association's opinion, all members of society have a right to enjoy the marine environment, and the actions of one particular interest group must no longer be allowed to subsume the enjoyment of others. Anglers have just as much right of access to marine fish as commercial fishermen, and the strategy - and the Marine Bill - provides great opportunities for the marine environment, and the fish it supports, to be managed sustainably and equitably.
For this to succeed, it is vital to move away from any automatic assumption that, because commercial fishing delivers a source of food, all other forms of exploitation must be subservient to it and automatically assume lesser priority in policy or implementation of management action.
But on purely financial grounds, it is also imperative that the Government recognises and acts on the huge financial value delivered by recreational sea
fishing.
The ATA is fully supportive of calls for regular monitoring of those financial benefits, via detailed socio-economic research, to both measure the current
economic activity associated with sea angling and to plot its increase as proposed in the Strategy.
[Comment - it is interesting to note, that the document that Sean O'Driscoll and Jonathan Shaw MP are seen holding in the photograph above, is a copy of the Bass Management Plan, produced by BASS.]
posted at 3:26 PM - [email this]
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Bass stocks are collapsing
Recent scientific evidence shows that UK bass stocks are collapsing.
BASS demands urgent government action
John Leballeur, Chairman of the BASS Restoration Project team has stated that in over 20 years of bass sampling, he has never seen a period when the numbers of young bass have been so low, for so long.
Shocked by the emerging evidence, the Society has written to Jonathan Shaw MP, Fisheries Minister (see below), demanding urgent measures to halt the disastrous collapse. The Society has requested, that both the recreational and commercial bass fisheries are closed during the 3 month breeding season, when spawning congregations of bass are particularly vulnerable. BASS have suggested the establishment of designated Marine Protection Areas to protect bass stocks.
Bass were recommended as a species to be regarded as 'recreational only', in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit 'Net Benefits' report (2004).
Last year, when he cancelled measures designed to protect the species, bass were described by the current Fisheries Minister as, 'an important displacement species' for the hard pressed commercial fishing industry, despite the superior value of the UK recreational bass fishery.
Even some commercial fishermen have since expressed concerns at the present unsustainable level of exploitation.
In his letter to the Minister, as well as offering the new evidence, John Leballeur has pointed out to the Minister, that he now faces a catastrophe on 'his watch', as Fisheries Minister, unless he acts with urgency, to bring in effective measures to protect the species.
Background
Since 1984, members of BASS have collected information each year from estuaries, such as the Tamar, on the number of juvenile bass present. The young fish are caught in nets, from the same place, at the same time of the year, to measure abundance and to estimate how healthy the bass populations will be in future years.
A variety of factors govern how many young bass survive, including winter estuary water temperature, natural predation and food availability. Cold winters can significantly decrease the survival chances of young fish.
The numbers of young fish captured each year naturally fluctuate. In some years the numbers of young bass are low, whilst in others, it can be high. In general, where there are large numbers of young bass caught, it indicates that there will be a lot more fish maturing seven years later. Often these years of high abundance are reflected in later years by an increased abundance of larger bass caught from coastal waters.
In the period 1984-1986 the populations of young bass recorded from estuaries was very low, due to very cold winters. In response to this the government introduced measures to protect bass to keep populations healthy.
Between 1986-2006 the numbers of young bass recorded from the Tamar have fluctuated each year. However, since 2000 the netting samples from this west country estuary have shown a very worrying continual downward trend.
Between 1985 and 2006 there were 11 years, when the numbers of young bass recorded each year were below average. Of most concern is that five of these poor years all fell between 2000-2006. Since 1984, when recording first began, there has not been another period when the numbers of young bass in the Tamar samples have been so low, for so many years, in such a short period.
John Leballeur of BASS, who co-ordinates the sampling of young bass, is very worried about what these results mean:
"In over 20 years of bass sampling I have never seen a period, when the numbers of young bass have been so low for so long. With warmer winters giving ideal conditions for the survival of young bass and Defra telling us that the spawning stock is healthy, we should be seeing healthy juvenile populations. I am very concerned that what we may be seeing, are the first signs that adult spawning bass from the Western Approaches and from autumn inshore marks, have been over fished significantly, reducing the number available to spawn and sustain healthy populations in south coast estuaries. Inshore fisherman, who have run out of quota species, have now upped their effort on bass, which is also not helping matters.
Also, I believe that the biomass has in fact halved in recent years and not doubled, as Jonathon Shaw MP was advised, in the recent bass mls decision. A consequence of the poor recruitment will be that, in a short time, the stock will decline further and catches by the much-increased fleet that fish for bass, will exacerbate this. The fishery will then become uneconomical, or collapse, as has been seen, with so many other stocks of fish.
I ask the Fisheries Minister to consider a closure in the breeding season, for all stakeholders, commencing in February 2009 for three months of each year, so as to address the balance. I also ask, that he make the main offshore bass fishery area a Marine Protected Area, to run parallel with the closed season. The breeding stock and cetaceans would be protected during the main reproduction cycle. All stakeholders would benefit by this precautionary measure and we would not witness the collapse in the bass fishery some years down the line. Another benefit would be the protection of cetaceans that have shown unacceptable losses due to this fishery.
Alarm bells are ringing loud and clear and the pre-recruitment survey indices are an accurate barometer of the future spawning stock."
Open Letter to Jonathan Shaw MP, Fisheries Minister, dated 15 May 2008
Dear Jonathan Shaw
Bass recruitment failure
When you took office, you inherited the postponed decision from your predecessor, Ben Bradshaw MP, of the bass mls (minimum landing size).
After a long drawn out consultation, which received over 2800 responses, of which 85% were in favour of increasing to 45 cms, this was diluted down to 40 cm , as a result of pressure from the commercial < 10m catching sector whilst ignoring RSA's desire for more and bigger fish.
You took the opportunity of meeting both the commercial catching sector and RSA before making the decision not to increase the MLS. You were advised that the bass biomass had doubled since the 1980s and the fishery was being fished sustainably. You stated that you did not want any collapse whilst 'on your watch'. However, there is a danger that in the English Channel, this may soon be the case. I have enclosed two CEFAS documents; one is a graph displaying the bass pre-recruit index for the Solent, Thames and Tamar of both '0' group and '1' year old bass sampling survey results, together with the worked up data from the named locations.
On examining the recruitment indices for the period 1989-1999 and also from 2000 until last year.
Solent
1989-1999 = 1.42 average
2000-2005 = 0.60 * There is no up to date survey information for the years 2006 or 2007
Tamar
1989-1999 = 1.22 '0' Groups 1989-1999 = 1.34 '1 yr olds'
2000-2007 = 0.76 " 2000-2007 = 0.87"
Thames
2000-2007 average 1.45 This is a relative new sampling site, when compared to the Solent & Tamar, whose records commenced in 1977 & 1984 respectively.
The Tamar clearly shows the failure of the recruitment for the years of 2005-2006 and 2007, which is also indicated by the Solent provisional figures and graphs, which samples 2 yr old fish and above. These figures suggest the beginning of a decline for the Solent, which is two years behind the up to date sampling data of the Tamar. These figures clearly demonstrate that recruitment has halved since the 1990's.
The last time we witnessed these figures and circumstances was in 1985-1986-1987, when MAFF immediately implemented the precautionary approach and increased the MLS and introduced the nursery area legislation.
We have had no up to date landing figures from IFREMER, France regarding the winter offshore fishery for a number of years, since the last ICES bass conference study in 2004, which concluded that fishing effort should be capped to the year 2000 and average for the preceding five years. This has never been implemented and effort has significantly increased since. Global warming has contributed to warmer winters and higher sea temperatures around our shores for some time now, yet we are witnessing the failure of the recruitment year classes in the English Channel and Western Approaches at a time when, according to scientists, we should be seeing strong broods.
It is now very obvious that the increase in fishing effort and the reduction of the breeding stock is now seriously contributing to this state of affairs. Also, I believe that the biomass has in fact halved in recent years and not doubled, as you were advised. A consequence of the poor recruitment will be that, in a short time, the stock will decline further and catches by the much-increased fleet that fish for bass, will exacerbate this. The fishery will then become uneconomical, or collapse, as has been seen with so many other stocks of fish.
I ask you to consider a closure in the breeding season for all stakeholders commencing in February 2009, for three months of each year, so as to address the balance and also make the main offshore bass fishery area, a Marine Protected Area, to run parallel with the closed season. The breeding stock would be protected during the main reproduction cycle. All stakeholders would benefit by this precautionary measure and we would not witness the collapse in the bass fishery some years down the line. Another benefit would be the protection of cetaceans that have shown unacceptable losses due to this fishery.
Alarm bells are ringing loud and clear and the pre-recruitment survey indices are an accurate barometer of the future spawning stock. You indicated at our first meeting, that whilst you are on watch you do not want any catastrophes. Please treat this very seriously and urgently consider the above recommendations so as to address the last three years of recruitment collapse of bass.
I look forward to your speedy reply upon this matter.
Yours sincerely
John Leballeur
Chairman
BASS Restoration Project team.
posted at 12:05 PM - [email this]
Sunday, April 20, 2008
BASS measuring tape
Length to weight conversion measure for European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)
The BASS tape measure has been designed to enable bass anglers to have a packable and durable piece of equipment which dispenses with the need to carry a set of weighing scales. On one edge are the measuring increments (in centimetres) and on the opposing edge the length to weight calculations (in lbs and ozs). Whether you retain the occasional bass for the table (above the minimum size limit) or release all your catch, the tape allows you to measure your bass and be able to read off a scientifically calculated weight from the length measurement. To obtain the most accurate reading from the tape, it is preferable that you measure the total length i.e. measure from the nose of the bass to the end of the flattened down (and closed) tail.
The tape is made of a product called Tyvek and can be crumpled up and shoved in your pocket with no ill effects (to you or the tape!). Due to the nature of the material it is tear-resistant, rot-proof, water-proof - in fact it appears near enough indestructible (so ideal for a saltwater environment). It also does not stretch.
The tape is not only useful to bass anglers. As many angling competitions are currently run to total length of fish caught this measuring tape would prove invaluable to all anglers for measuring their catch. (NB - the length to weight calculation is only applicable for European sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax).
The tapes may be purchased by non-members as well as BASS members and are available for the princely sum of £2.00 (two pounds sterling) each [see note 1 below] with all proceeds going to the BASS Restoration Project Fund.
Please send cheques made payable to BASS to:
John Morgan
30 Thomas Street
Aberavon
Port Talbot
West Glamorgan
SA12 6LT
[note 1] This figure includes postage within the UK. Orders from outside of the UK will incur extra postage. For further information about postal charges to outside the UK, please contact John Morgan, whose email address can be found in the contact BASS web page.
posted at 3:04 PM - [email this]