* You Didn’t Expect Them To Go Quietly Did You? – Bass 2017

You didn’t expect them to go quietly did you?

The proposals adopted by the EU fisheries ministers at their December council did not exactly mirror the proposals put forward by the EU commission before the meeting.

Anglers were fairly excited by the proposition of gill netting being banned and bass only being targeted by hook and line fishing only. In fact the Hook and Line commercial fishermen were also quite excited at the prospect of gill netting being banned too. They would wouldn’t they – commercial fishermen have a track record of targeting the competition, any perceived competition.

It was never going to be an easy fight. The commercial lobby is strong, persuasive and professional.

We would look at it this way: The bass situation was never going to be a sharp shock to commercial fishing. The EU tends not to work that way. No, they funnel the effects year after year while monitoring the outcome. If the outcome is not satisfactory, they go again. What you are seeing is realpolitik in action. What you are seeing is commercial bass fishing running out of room and road. If the measures to protect bass do not yield the desired result in 2017 then you can now begin to see where we are heading in 2018. The road is getting very narrow for netting. The wriggle room is disappearing. You didn’t expect them to go without a fight though?

The proposal for anglers to be allowed to retain 10 fish per month rather than the current 1 fish per day was well received by some – certainly the south coast of England based charter skippers that have a bass track record were in favour. The 10 fish model was not going to suit the Irish model. More importantly the proposal would create an enforcement headache. While most measures are self-policing such a measure was likely to be well-nigh impossible to police. The old method was simple and enforcement is simple (The level of enforcement being questionable anyway). The EU acted to form here: It left well enough alone. While this might not suit some south coast of UK charter skippers it has to be considered as one part of the overall scheme of things. The UK skippers may need their lobby group to fight for a better outcome if they reckon their businesses are suffering as a result of the 1 fish per 24hrs rule. (The 2.8 million loss purported by the Angling Trust seems excessive without further explanation)

Anglers took their heavy lifting early in the game and therefore it is unlikely that further pain would be inflicted. If people can come up with an easily workable plan that might make something like the 10 fish per month plan seem attractive it might be adopted. We think you are straying into licence territory to make a salmon type scheme work in a bass environment.

Anglers in the UK created a .gov petition. It could (should) only be signed by UK citizens and residents It was signed by 14500 (14/12/2016) people. It was not effective.  Was it not effective because the commercial lobby is just plain stronger? Who did the UK minister support? Did the UK argue for netters? It is possibly the case that the UK minister has lost any real power or sway in EU matters due to imminent brexit.

Whatever the reasons for the decisions taken at the December council we think that anglers can be fairly pleased with the outcome with regards to bass. In simple terms there should be less bass commercially caught in 2017. That can only be a good thing for bass stocks and therefore good for anglers. The incredibly destructive pair trawling and drift netting for bass is a thing of the past. Gill netting is restricted. There have never been so many protections in force.

In Ireland we will continue as we have for years: Fishing away, keeping one fish if you want, but the committed release the majority of what they catch. Do matters bass in the UK affect us in Ireland? A bass that was tagged by an angler in Cork in October was caught at Land’s End in Cornwall in late November. Was that bass an exception or is there lots of mixing of bass from different stocks?

We know so little about bass and their habits….

The amended EU regulations are as follows: