Beach Bass
- Thread starter RossW
- Start date
davem2005
Well-known member
Wallsendo,
Just an update or eye opener on the bass.
Take a look at Bass Anglers' Sportfishing Society
Basically they started the whole RSA v the government debate when they proposed the BAss Managment Plan.
You could read forever and ever on the bass issue and I wont go into it here...basically bass in a non quota species...anglers wanted a 45cm MLS and were given a smaller size than that after a public consultation. read the rest for yourself on any forum or the BASS site.
One point is that when I first started going to london to meetings about recreational sea angling the conversation was about nothing but bass!!! This was to an extreme as if no other fish existed. This has moderated a little bit but it is still a major topic of conversation.
As far as the NE is concerned they used to be very limited in distribution but this is getting wider and wider all the time. The old blyth power station was a known mark with people queing up to catch them. It closed and they went away.
Speaking to the SFc officers they are mainly caught commercially by the salmon netsmen whilst targeting salmon , as an off quota fish they can keep them as they do have a good market value. There are very few gill netters up our way because the salmon laws do restrict there operations.
So this leaves a couple of things to bear in mind.
Firstly there are plans to build a new power station at blyth...the likely hood is it will create a similar bass spawning area as the last one did. Hopefully with pressure from anglers this can be made into a protected bass nursery area with a no take bylaw which would allow the bass every chance to establish themselves and spread out over the region making blyth beach a bass mecca. The power to make such a bylaw exists even now....and in my opinion the time to get the sfc looking at this kind of eco tourism based bylaw is now.
Secondly... many of the NE bylaws both SFC and the EA ( they control the salmon fishing) are based around a tradional fishery. These are the nets you see working a few hundred yards off the piers. They take into account any cod the guys catch as that is a traditional bycatch but bass are a free for all with nothing but a MLS to consider...they can take as many as they like as long as they are big enough. With bass appearing in bigger numbers its time we put pressure on to ensure the future of this branch of our sport. Just maybe we could end up with a winter cod fishery and a summer bass fishery.
In the meantime ...catch a bass...please be vague
Cheers
Dave
Just an update or eye opener on the bass.
Take a look at Bass Anglers' Sportfishing Society
Basically they started the whole RSA v the government debate when they proposed the BAss Managment Plan.
You could read forever and ever on the bass issue and I wont go into it here...basically bass in a non quota species...anglers wanted a 45cm MLS and were given a smaller size than that after a public consultation. read the rest for yourself on any forum or the BASS site.
One point is that when I first started going to london to meetings about recreational sea angling the conversation was about nothing but bass!!! This was to an extreme as if no other fish existed. This has moderated a little bit but it is still a major topic of conversation.
As far as the NE is concerned they used to be very limited in distribution but this is getting wider and wider all the time. The old blyth power station was a known mark with people queing up to catch them. It closed and they went away.
Speaking to the SFc officers they are mainly caught commercially by the salmon netsmen whilst targeting salmon , as an off quota fish they can keep them as they do have a good market value. There are very few gill netters up our way because the salmon laws do restrict there operations.
So this leaves a couple of things to bear in mind.
Firstly there are plans to build a new power station at blyth...the likely hood is it will create a similar bass spawning area as the last one did. Hopefully with pressure from anglers this can be made into a protected bass nursery area with a no take bylaw which would allow the bass every chance to establish themselves and spread out over the region making blyth beach a bass mecca. The power to make such a bylaw exists even now....and in my opinion the time to get the sfc looking at this kind of eco tourism based bylaw is now.
Secondly... many of the NE bylaws both SFC and the EA ( they control the salmon fishing) are based around a tradional fishery. These are the nets you see working a few hundred yards off the piers. They take into account any cod the guys catch as that is a traditional bycatch but bass are a free for all with nothing but a MLS to consider...they can take as many as they like as long as they are big enough. With bass appearing in bigger numbers its time we put pressure on to ensure the future of this branch of our sport. Just maybe we could end up with a winter cod fishery and a summer bass fishery.
In the meantime ...catch a bass...please be vague
Cheers
Dave
