I accept that without good information
on catches you can’t manage the stock
properly and the Angling Trust is on
record as saying that, in principle, we
support the collection of good quality
reliable data from all sources.
But there’s the problem, there’s simply
no way the average angler is going
to believe the gures now being used
to justify restricting members of the
public from catching a bass for their
tea. None of the gures being used
make any common sense to your
average angler who is convinced that
angling is a low impact activity to
begin with, not to mention the fact
that he’s been clobbered with a closed
season, a bag limit and a higher
minimum legal size over the least
three years.If this wasn’t bad enough the scienti c
advice also fails to include any post
release mortality estimates for
commercial hook & line shing, nor
does it include any gure for discards
of dead bass from commercial
sheries. And despite agging it up inSaltwater Boat Angling 89
The Angling Trust won’t be encouraging
members of the public to ll in log
books next year as part of the Sea
Angling 2018 catch data recording
project. We didn’t support the projects
in 2016 or this year, and we won’t do
so until more e ort is made to collect
better data from commercial sheries.It’s impossible for us to justify data
collection from anglers when all it is
used for is justifying yet more angling
restrictions. The most recent scienti c
advice for bass is now suggesting 600
tonnes of bass die after being released
by anglers – on top of the estimated
1000 tonnes anglers across Europe are
taking home for tea. The result of this
is that recreational catches are now
estimated to account for a half of all
the dead bass in Europe.The two questions I keep hearing from
anglers are, “where the hell do they
get this gure from?” When we tell
them it’s the result of surveys the next
question is. “Who the hell are they
surveying? No one’s ever asked me”.the advice in 2014 is still hasn’t done
anything to account for the fact that
landings from the under 10m eet in
the UK, could be up to three times
higher than the o cial landings gures.As a result, recreational catches are
now being based on questionable
survey results using the ‘worst case
scenario’ at every opportunity (and
a substantial amount of guess work)
while no attempt at all is made to
address the holes in the data for
commercial landings and sources
of sh mortality (ie dead bass).Is it any wonder that members of the
public who go angling are confused,
fed up and feel victimised by the system?
Surely, it’s time to take back some control
and say enough is enough. In the mean
time we stare down the barrel of yet
more restrictions on bass shing as the
crisis deepens and anglers are asked to
shoulder even more of the responsibility
for clearing up a mess they didn’t create
in the rst place.Where the hell
do they get these
fi gures from?
More data collection – and look where it gets us
Th e Angling Trust’s Head of Marine, David Mitchell,
on why data collection could be damaging anglingIssue 019 48-92.indd 89 14/11/2017 16:57:04