penn525magextra
Well-known member
Spotter I have pm you
middilton peir 28th
- Thread starter penn525magextra
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Ray.J.
Well-known member
I keep Whiting and Dabs as they are 2 of my favourite fish to eat.The legal size limit is 20cm, so I can see they are both size, no problem. I have had people criticise me keeping legal sized whiting while they are happily keeping undersized coalfish,(under 45cm).If they won't go back why waste them?
g-force
Well-known member
You need to familiarise yourself with the current Minimum Landing Sizes (MLS's) for these species. There is actually no minimum size for dabs, for whiting it's 27cm and the mls for coalfish is 35cm, not 45.
So long as a fish is of legal size, then you're quite entitled to keep it.
Gary
Stewart 1971
Well-known member
You need to familiarise yourself with the current Minimum Landing Sizes (MLS's) for these species. There is actually no minimum size for dabs, for whiting it's 27cm and the mls for coalfish is 35cm, not 45.
So long as a fish is of legal size, then you're quite entitled to keep it.
Gary
Gary is right, there is no MLS for Dab south of the Tyne Minimum Landing Sizes and as far as I can tell north of the Tyne also. Can't find minimum sizes on the Northumberland IFCA site so I assume they just use the EU ones (either that or they are very well hidden).
It is a moot point whether MLS apply to rescreational shore anglers anyway; the wording of the relevant laws suggests they apply to commercial landings only. That said I wouldn't want to be the one to go to court in a test case...
g-force
Well-known member
The whole business of size limits can get confusing! There are quite a few species that have no legal minimum size; two more I think are flounder and poutings - so you could quite happily fill up a bucket with dabs, flounders & pouts of any size to feed to the cat/make fish-cakes/boil up as a stew or whatever.
However, angling clubs have usually adopted the size limits established by the old Northern Federation of Sea Anglers, which will give certain minimum sizes for things like dabs (20cm) or flounders (25cm). Some take an extra step and up certain species by a few centimetres to avoid unnecessarily large bags of small fish being weighed in - such as upping flounders, for example, to 27 or 28cm. Probably the most commonly confused is the size for bass (there have been several posts in the past on this one!) - the legal size being 36cm, the "recommended retention size" being 41cm.
This is why when fishing matches it's worth checking the rules - I've fished matches where flounders, for example, have been 25, 27, 28 or 30cm depending on the event. Then, of course, there are your catch, measure and release match sizes (usually a minimum of 20cm, or 18cm for SAMF events) which are purely to reward the angler for their effort, as all fish are returned, not retained.
So long as you familiarise yourself with the sizes that the ICFA & DEFRA publish, you won't go far wrong (at least as far as the law is concerned!)
Gary
However, angling clubs have usually adopted the size limits established by the old Northern Federation of Sea Anglers, which will give certain minimum sizes for things like dabs (20cm) or flounders (25cm). Some take an extra step and up certain species by a few centimetres to avoid unnecessarily large bags of small fish being weighed in - such as upping flounders, for example, to 27 or 28cm. Probably the most commonly confused is the size for bass (there have been several posts in the past on this one!) - the legal size being 36cm, the "recommended retention size" being 41cm.
This is why when fishing matches it's worth checking the rules - I've fished matches where flounders, for example, have been 25, 27, 28 or 30cm depending on the event. Then, of course, there are your catch, measure and release match sizes (usually a minimum of 20cm, or 18cm for SAMF events) which are purely to reward the angler for their effort, as all fish are returned, not retained.
So long as you familiarise yourself with the sizes that the ICFA & DEFRA publish, you won't go far wrong (at least as far as the law is concerned!)
Gary
