kippercave

Tescos at Fleetsbridge is good on aThursday, suggest drop anchor at the fish counter.

Agree with Tarlach, seems a good idea but if everybody did it,it would no doubt cause wide spread polution.There are enough chemicals in the sea already,especially in areas such as Poole Harbour where it becomes concentrated. If it was okay , the manufacturers would use it.This is a none starter.Years ago AF manufacturers had to change their formulas because some chemicals in AF were changing the sex of whelks.I am quite happy as a man!!!!!!

I have fished the harbour since the fifties.In those days there were far less anglers fishing the harbour and you could catch the flounders all year except when they went out to sea to breed,You could catch them everywhere.An example was the blue lagoon at lilliput. From the entrance to the lagoon on the ebb tide you did not stop catching them until the ebb stopped.It has to be accepted that over the years with more and more taking up angling that the flounders have been fished out.Up until about three years ago you could catch a few flounders in Holes Bay,including some around the four pound mark but no more.They have got less and less over the last few years.I have good information that for the last couple of years pot baiters have hammered Holes Bay.Look out for a grey Poole canoe with two old timers in it.Not registered.They are the boys doing it. If it was not for the plaice and gilt head bream the harbour would not be worth fishing now. As we know trawlers are devastating the bay between Bournemouth and Boscombe Piers.There won't be much left there soon.The plaice will not reach the harbour. To sum up, the harbour is now overfished and in a minute there will be no fish left. It will take years to recover if it ever does. Just out of interest years ago you only caught flounders in the pound to pound and a half range.As the years went by you started to get bigger fish.In those days a four pounder was unheard of. Getting the odd bigger fish is not doubt because there were not so.many flounders and therefore more food for the odd flounders which were left.My opinion.

long shaft seagull with clutch,good condition considering age,used only as a spare for most of its life as far as I have been able to check.kippercave@gmail.com. Reasonable offer accepted.

Re Holes Bay flounders and my above reports,for those who are not aware a net which is attached to the seabed and is left in situ is known as a fixed engine.I have now reported the matter to the EA.

It is not illegal to catch and keep flounders but using a net in the harbour which is anchored to the sea floor and left and later collected is illegal and is enforced by the EA.I presume to stop the illegal catching of. salmon and sea trout.I have some evidence that they are using a fixed engine.I will inform the EA.

LASTEST FLOUNDERS I have ascertained that two men in a blue canoe have been netting all winter in Holes Bay for flounders for pot baiting.Have even been doing it in the F pontoon channel at Cobbs Quay.THIS IS 100% information. I can supply made in China hand grenades two for the price of one.Small orders only.

PART TWO OF ABOVE corrections: limpets and Round Island. In the fifties and sixties cockles were picked by hand and to my knowledge there were no clams which later were introduced from USA.There then was no disturbance to the mud flats.However as we all now know the cockles and clams are either dredged or hoovered up by professionals going round in circles in their grey flat bottom boats with no thought for the mud flats which they can only be destroying and from where the flounders get there food.There seems to be little or no regulations respecting their activities. My conclusions are ; That the flounders over the years have been overfished There feeding grounds have been and are being destroyed There are no regulations to protect them or their feeding grounds There are no controls over the professional cocklers or clammers. There is no control over the trawlers for ragworm.In the long term this cannot be sustained. I am of the opinion that the harbour as a fishery can only he sustained if it is managed by regulation with a system of permitting and licensing and that professional fishermen are tightly controlled. I would suggest that it would a good project for a university to undertake.If nothing is done I can see that there will be a complete collapse of the fishery in the harbour One of the problems today is that the people that can make changes were not around years ago and have nothing to compare the present day with The inside passage off the western coast of Canada is heavily regulated by licensing and permitting etc. by rangers 24 hours a day,this includes periods when no commercial or recreational fishing is permitted.It has been extremely successful and is respected by users due to the fact that the stocks are kept high and the fish reach the weights they should. Nobody wants to be over regulated but I can see there is little choice. FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!!!!!!

I suggested above why it could be that the flounders in any numbers have disappeared.The answer could be that it has been over fishing over the years and disturbance of the sea bed in the harbour which I shall come to later. I started fishing in the harbour with my father in the mid fifties.You could then catch quantities of flounders from a boat all over the harbour from spring until mid winter when they went off to .spawn.Fishing from the harbour shores in the winter was first class,you could guarantee fish.A little known spot for shore fishing in the summer was the Blue Lagoon on the ebb tide.On low tide you could walk across the mud and pick them up.You were very unlucky if you didn't take a few fish home. In the winter months you could guarantee flounders from the shore between Sandbanks and Bournemouth pier.The best bait was slipper limper and razorfish.An old boy used to fish most winter days at Canford cliffs with three bean pole rods and three string handlines and catch fish after fish.At Durley Chine on a frosty you would catch quantities of sand dabs.In those days there were not the number of anglers and because of the number of fish there was little thought for conservation, it would always be the same.Pro. fishermen used them as pot bait.The favourite summer food for flounders are baby crabs which they catch in the small channels between the reed beds.There used to be two huge reed beds on the south side of the harbour , one between the south of Brownsea Island and to the east of Furzey Island and one between Green Island and Road Island.Now long gone, washed away by boats with powerful boat engines which arrived in the early sixties.The demise of the seagull.These reed beds were feeding grounds for the flounders,full of small crabs.PART TWO TO FOLLOW

Another angle is that we now have to consider climate change.It is a fact that the seas are becoming warmer and it has been widely reported that a number of species of fish are slowly moving north where the feeding grounds are much better due to the fact that the sea water is still a lot cooler the further north you go.As you properly know the cod have multiplied in the northern north sea as their favourite food,the kaplin,a small type of sardine has moved north where their is more plankton.There are now huge shoals of cod off the Norwegian coast including recording breaking fish.Plankton need cold water to exist.Bass are known to be moving north. We all remember 2015 when thousands of jelly fish appeared in the Channel and Poole Harbour which included squid.They like warm water,perhaps because the waters in the channel have and are becoming warmer.Is the warmer water effecting the flounder. JUST THOUGHT,I HOPE I AM WRONG!!!!!

It has been very noticeable how quickly the flounders have disappeared from Holes Bay in the last few years.Recently I have seen two men in Holes Bay in a small grey/blue flat bottomed boat putting down nets and leaving them.I have also seen them returning to check the nets later.They were clearly not professional fishermen.I have heard that there is generally a lack of flounders in the south west which is being put down to the professionals using them for pot bait.

I recently wrote a letter to my MP Michael Tomlinson pointing out all the issues especially that the Gill Netters are getting away with murder, that this is for financial reasons and nothing to do with saving the bass.I further pointed out that this would seriously effect the angling businesses,shops and charter boats etc. I received a letter back which he clearly wrote himself.He first stated that it was important that a healthy stock of fish,including bass, was maintained.He said that stocks of other fish has increased but more must be done to protect bass stocks. He realised that the exemptions on gill netting creates a difficulty because of the restrictions on recreational anglers. He said he was very happy to pass on my comments to Julie Girling MEP who is heavily involved in such matters in Brussels Finally he said that we must get the balance right between protecting fishing stocks and the fishing industry and also the ability of recreational anglers to continue participating in the hobbies that they enjoy.BULLSHIT. I am forwarding the above because if we wish to get anywhere we must all write to our local MPs.If we do this they will do something about it.Must MPs will not know anything about it.Once they know that anglers are outraged including the angling industry they will might do something about it.Remember they rely on our VOTES. Get your pens out. ADDRESS Name House of Commons London SW1A 0AA PS Did you see the EU Commission on the TV who was the Chairman of the committee that made the Regs.He openly stated when asked that the commercial gill netters jobs were more important.HOW ABOUT THE POOR OLD BASS. Kipper

I can spell,els is eels although it was a long time ago that i went to school!!!!!

As we all know under POOLE HARBOUR fishery regs. no fishing for bass or using sand els to catch any other fish.Would magic minnows be described as sand els,a mute point but could be important.

Anyone know where I can get rigs locally for above without crossing the Atlantic

I am sorry but I should have said that the value of each haul is £500K

A Dutch trawler gets a QUARTER of Englands entire fish quota and each catch is worth £500,000. Two English fishermen are allowed two crates worth £50 and barely survive.The Dutch trawler, the biggest in Europe and owned by a Dutch family under EU rules is allowed 23% of the English coastal qouta and the English fleet which is mainly small boats in allowed 4%.The trawler can haul in 150 tons of herring and mackerel in just one haul. The trawler can hold 2,000 tons of fish worth £500,000. Each lorry load is 26 tons and where does it go,Egypt,Japan and Nigeria. For health reasons the Government suggests I eat herrings as it is an oily fish.I have not seem herrings for sell in fish mongers for sometime now.I asked a fish monger where they had all gone and he said big companies were buying them up.The trawler is registered to a British Company called North Atlantic Holdings and has a £20 million turnover. According to the Mail on Sunday,30 November, the villains are bureaucrats in Brussels and the politicians in Westminster who created a market rigged against small players,one that is wasting vast quantities of fish by them having to be thrown back and gravely threatening many traditional fishing communities. Well another slant on the bass conservation.With the one bag limit who are we protecting, the big boys with the big trawlers scooping up the bass or the likes of ourselves catching a few for sport. The number of bass being caught by sport fishermen can be no more than a needle in a haystake. Should the authorities not be looking at how many are being hauled out by the big trawlers,surely the numbers they are catching should be reduced.It all goes back to money.It would be interesting to know how many illegal netsmen are brought to task in a year by the protection boys in the harbour.

Last Friday a fishing friend had a tour round the steam ship parked at Poole Quay for the airshow.At the stern of the ship he saw a crew member fishing. He asked him what he caught and to my friends surprise he said a three and a half pound plaice.When asked what he caught it with he said a slice of wrasse.He had previously caught wrasse to use as crab bait when they were anchored off of Bournemouth pier for the airshow.I saw this man also fishing off of the ship the following day when I went past in my boat.hAS ANYONE HEARD OF A PLAICE BEING CAUGHT AT THE QUAY!!!!!!

I am sure the commercial fishermen have a lot to do with the problem,up until a few years ago to my knowledge you rarely saw bream on the fishmongers counter and you certainly could not get them in a restaurant unless it was posh and you had a few bob.The fish you see in the supermarkets are on the small size,albeit some are farmed.If the demand is there the commercial boys will naturally fish for them. It was the same with bass,years ago you never saw them in the fishmongers,not many people had heard of them.Then some bright restaurant chef,good marketing, called them sea bass and everybody wanted them in the restaurants, it was the in thing to ORDER sea bass,not bass.I hate it when people call them sea bass.They used to to bass and that was that.As I have said it was the catering trade that hit the bass.The same is now happening to the poor old bream Up until a couple of years ago small gilt head bream used to frequent an area in the Wareham channel,however last year and this one I didn't see one/

Talking about monsters,on several occasions when I was out with my father in his boat we saw schools of porpoises in the harbour once was of off pottery pier,there were three or four of them,was frightening because they went round and round the boat.There were also some very large ills,in fact there are some still residing in Holes Bay and around Cobbs QUAY.

Have been fishing locally for many years but had a break when I was working.Now well retired.Out of interest when I was a youngster in the fifties and sixties I used to fish in the harbour with my father in his 14 foot rowing boat with a 40 plus seagull.There was plenty of fish then,not like now.We used to catch bass up to 15 pounds on rag worm at the old Dorset Lake Shipyard next to the marine camp and big bass in some numbers at the haven.We motored up to the ferry on the flood tide and drifted back towards Branksea Castle ,quite hairy at times.A chap called Mike Trott also did the same at the ferry but could see money in it and started taking out paying anglers. The charter boys soon got wind and within a few years they fished it out.Also the pleasure boat traffic increased and made it difficult.You were never bothered by the harbour board.``````you could then catch flounders all over the harbour in large numbers ,summer and winter The commercial crabbers used them as boat. When I first started fishing the only charter boats operating were boats used for ferrying visitors round the harbour,the two main orators were Harveys and Davis Boat yards.. You could hire rowing boats from Davis. In September and October you could catch bass by trolling abit of white rag on the hook.Bass were very numerous at the Black Bridge at Rockley sands. The night watchman at Sydenhams timber yard used to fish off of Poole Bridge on a flood tide with rag and prawns and catch huge bass. Oh what times. I only mention this to show how the fishing in the harbour has changed for the worst. If you went out on the rocks in the bay with the ferry operators in the summer evenings when they were free you could always guarantee a bucket full of fish. I started fishing again in 2003 when I bought a Parkstone Bay with an old friend.unfortunately he subsequently died.I fish mainly in the harbour but do venture outside for the plaice and bream. When I started fishing again I was surprised at all the new regulations.Because of low fish stocks there is some sense to this but as anglers we must be mindful of this,how far could these regulations go. I believe there is talk of stopping the digging of rag.