Makes The Fine For Fishing Without A Licence Quite

[Afishionado]

Will they pay it?

Will they comply with the rules?

 

 

 

France gets record fine over fish

 

France is being penalised for endangering fish stocks

The European Court of Justice has fined France 20m euros (

[Swainiac]

At long last!! Long overdue I'd say.....be interesting to see what our Fisheries guys have to say.

 

Rich

[jack]

THE French fishermen will blockade the ports,and dump thier catches[probably undersized Bass] on thier town hall doorsteps and thier Government won't pay it anyway....jack

[Maverick Martin]

Fair play for once from the eec but where are their teeth. Its no good fining if you cannot collect.

 

The French never appear to comply with anything unless it suits them so why would this be different

 

Martin

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4674885.stm

[petesnr]

We ought to be a little careful in our criticism of the French. Whenever I have been over there I have been impressed by the quality and size of fish in their markets indicating that the stocks are perhaps not quite so overexploited as our own. If you see the pathetic size of 'skate' wings for sale and the tiny flatfish in our shops you know that it is our own stocks that have been hammered by our own fishermen. Incidentally the French have set up a no fish zone for bass off the Brittanny coast during the winter breeding season--as yet I have seen little progress in this country apart from a ban on pair trawling in a small area off the West Country where the majority of breeding bass are not found anyway.

I challenged three anglers on the Sandbanks Ferry slipway two nights ago who were keeping undersized bass and we know that certain boats keep undersized fish so lets not not imagine that we have anything to be proud of here. Lets get our house in order before we take issue with the French.

[Maverick Martin]

Pete

 

Nobody is saying that our house is yet or ever will be in order. Why is the eec taking a hard line against the french and not our own goverment or indeed the spanish who come in for a fair amount of criticism from all quarters. The eec also state that they have no intention at the moment of bringing charges against any other government for breeches in fisheries policy which speaks volumes.

 

I think it probably amounts to the scale of abuse and the long history behind the story

 

Martin

[Sam]

pete size of the fish on the markets have always been small when i have been over there.

 

there was even adults fishing off the key catching pollack about the size of our finger and keeping them for soup i fort dad was going to kick him i certainly wanted too.

 

sam

[jack]

I have watched 100's of shore fishermen in France,do-ing exactly what Sam has said.If they can catch it on a hook,they take it home in a bucket,regardless of species or size!. One gets the distinct feeling that,to them its like picking mushrooms..they are gathering food and in all probability,dont know or care about conservation;size limits or anything related. With the exception of the odd kiddy in this country,taking his fish home to show Mum,I have not seen this type of fishing attitude here...You believe what you see!!...jack

[petesnr]

We can rant and rave all we like about the French but we are rapidly heading to a situation where we ourselves will be fishing with smaller and smaller hooks and baits in order to catch what remains out there and it will have nothing to do with the French at all. It will be due to a lack of regulation and a lack of political will in our own country to implement measures to conserve and restore fish stocks. Even the present rules are little known by the majority of anglers and there is minimal manpower put into policing either anglers or commercial fishermen. It is that lack of will and men which will see the end of stocks in our own waters not the French.

[great white]

Peter

 

Are you instigating that we should be returning to Proper fishing and minimum sizes in our comps.

 

If you are, I am happy to stop the targetting anything that swims is big enough policy we are currently using

But not this season and not without Committee and members input.

 

If you are in support of a commercial method of fishing that counts all fish caught in decent mesh size nets, as marketable but part of the quota.

So that the system of dumping tons of dead unwanted or un sellable fish can be stopped. I would support that too.

 

But if you think that the heavily subsidised french fisherman have it right, ARE YOU MAD.

I have been to markets all over France and while they stock some impressive fish they also stock loads of TINY fish.

We went to a fishermans museum in Brittany last year and you would be surprised to see that thier fishing grounds cover French Spanish Irish English and Scotish waters

 

Charlie

[Seamouse]

Hi folks,

Just to muddy the waters a little here, is it not actually going to be better for fish stocks if we take the bulk of the immature fish and conserve the bigger fish of breeding age? Commercially it is impractical, unworkable and definitely not PC but I'd have thought that in terms of impact, it is the breeders you should protect. So the French are halfway there, we just need to get them to chuck the big 'uns back

 

Steve

[Newboy]

When we species hunt, how much of our catch die as a consequence of being reeled up? We return most if not all fish, barring a couple for the pot. I can't see it does any harm to the fish number.