Pictured left is Mike Johnson of Paignton SAA with the new British rod caught Thornback ray. This huge ray was captured from East Portlemouth beach on the 16th march to a peeler crab bait fished on a Pennel rig. The fish when offically weighed came in at 22lb 11oz and 12dr. This new record almost smashes the previous record by almost a 1lb in weigh which was captured in 1985 by S Ramsey and weighed 21lb 12 oz.

We would like to offer our congratulations to Mr Johnson for his fine capture. A fish of a lifetime.

 

NO to sea fishing licence

Commenting upon yesterday's statement by Jonathan Shaw MP, the Fisheries Minister, that proposals to introduce a sea angling licence are to be dropped, BASS spokesman John Leballeur said "At last this administration is beginning to show some sense, when talking about recreational sea angling".

At the recent 'Angling Summit' held in the Palace of Westminster, the Minister had been told by BASS and other sea angling organisations, in the most forceful terms possible, that the current proposal for a sea angling licence was unacceptable to the UK's recreational sea anglers (RSA). This was especially so in the light of his decision not to increase the bass minimum landing size (MLS).

The Minister's failure to take the decision to protect juvenile bass meant, that he had lost the trust of the UK's recreational sea anglers. The overwhelming majority of whom, did not believe he was prepared to deliver any benefits to them. Yet sea anglers were still expected to pay for a licence. For decades the sea anglers' voice has been ignored, whilst at the same time, there has been relentless decline, in both the number and size of fish available to RSA.

Does this announcement mean that the Minister has begun to listen to recreational sea anglers? We hope so. We also hope, that he will continue to act upon what he has been hearing and deliver on his promise to work with BASS and other organisations to improve the UK's recreational bass fisheries, by implementing those other conservation measures, contained within the Bass Management Plan.

However, we will still need to see some positive benefits, in terms of improved fish stocks, before we can be confident that the tide really has turned.

Story from B.A.S.S

Managing the exploitation of tope

Jonathan Shaw, Minister for Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs & Minister for the South East, has taken steps to protect tope, a vulnerable European continental-shelf and coastal shark species. The Minister has prohibited fishing for tope other than by rod and line and has set a 45kg per day tope by-catch limit in commercial fisheries targeting other species.

Tope do not mature until they are around 12 years old and then produce a relatively low number of pups compared with other marine species (20 every 2-3 years), making them very vulnerable to fishing pressure.  Following reports of plans for a commercial tope fishing operation, Defra consulted on precautionary conservation measures. The majority of responses supported the prevention of directed fisheries or pointed out that tope were a low value but inevitable by-catch in commercial fisheries for other species. Full story HERE

uk seas "heavily impacted"

A new report in the journal most Science graphically illustrates how the seas around the UK are amongst the most heavily impacted in the world. "Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems" (Halpern et al.) shows that many areas of UK sea fall into the "very high impact" category, including the North Sea off NE Scotland and the English Channel. MCS is calling on Government to give further prioritisation to a Marine Act to provide better protection for the UK’s over-exploited seas.
You can help - sign up to our Marine Reserves Now! campaign (we've almost reached our target 100,000 signatures for this year!).

Another Spate of Dolphin Deaths hits Cornwall

26th February 2008

In the past two weeks Cornwall Wildlife Trusts Marine Strandings Network volunteers attended ten strandings, nine of which were common dolphins and one of which was a harbour porpoise. Volunteers along the south coast were called out to these strandings spread out between Downderry in the east to Penzance in the west. The Roseland peninsular was identified as a hotspot with three of the strandings recorded in the area.

Tom Hardy, Marine Conservation Officer for CWT says “Ten strandings in a ten day period is a cause for concern but when taking into account five of these were recorded over last weekend alone, it becomes a much more worrying trend.” So why are these dolphins being found on our beach? Tom Hardy explains : “The majority of the strandings showed signs of bycatch in fishing gear. This evidence of bycatch ranged from the very obvious marks such as amputation of the tail or the stomach being slit open, to help the animal sink and hide the evidence, to monofilament net marks across the body and the beak of the animal.”

Story supplied by SACN. For the full story click here

Trawlermen admit overfishing for Bass

Cornish inshore commercial fishermen have finally admitted that bass stocks in Cornwall are over-fished.  In the January 18th edition of Fishing News, skipper David Bond of Looe explained that the lack of available quota for species such as cod and sole has forced the inshore fleet to increase the pressure on non quota species like bass using gill nets.  In the article he states "We have tens of small boats from Mevagissey almost literally crying out after being forced to fish (nets) for bass when there's already too much pressure on that fishery.  For many years the Bass Anglers' Sportfishing Society (BASS) have advised Defra that increasing commercial fishing for bass was threatening both bass stocks and recreational angling quality.