Scottish Fly Fisher on MSN

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:11:59 +0200, "Mike Connor"
wrote:


"Scottish Fly Fisher" schrieb im
Newsbeitrag ...
SNIP
I couldn't agree more. As individuals, we fishermen can make a
contribution by practicing catch and release at least. However, the
environment is so out of kilter, more needs to be done at a national
and international level.

Look at the cormorant problem in the UK. Due to over-fishing at sea,
these birds are heading inland, and the effect on wild fish stocks has
been devastating in some areas.

Over use of pesticides not only screw up the insect life on which the
fish feed, but they stay in the food chain and accumulate to toxic
levels in predator species.

Unless something is done soon, all we will have to look forward to is
days of stockie bashing in muddy puddles.

John
http://groups.msn.com/scottishflyfisher
Responsible anglers catch and release.
Lose the barbs or lose the fish!

Practising catch and release is unlikely to solve any European problems at
all. Even if you took all the fish you ever caught in your life, including
undersized ones, you will never even get close to a fraction of the amount
in one trawl, or drift net. Alone the fish being taken from the sea to
produce pellets and similar material is in the millions of tonnes, and
increasing daily. This is completely destroying whole food chains, beyond
hope of recovery in a reasonable time scale.

Sadly, you're right, and I probably only doing it to salve my
conscience. However, it is something that I have the power to do.

The cormorant problem is not only a result of overfishing at sea, but
because the birds are protected. Populations have increased massively since
these birds were placed under protection.

LoL. I had an interesting conversation with a twitcher on the Clyde
early in the season. The RSPB had set up a peregrine watch near a nest
near the Falls of Clyde. I was only out for a walk, so I wasn't kitted
up, and it wasn't obvious that I was a fisher. I was spoiling for a
debate, so I asked them if they had seen any cormorants in the area.
The guide proudly told me that he'd seen several in the area,
including several fledglings.

I know it was petty, but I was smarting from a few unproductive
outings on what used to be some of my favourite stretches of the
river, and he was a convenient target for my griping.

The sad thing is that conserving the cormorants is probably their
version of catch and release... trying to do something in the face of
overwhelming adversity.

If only the could adapt like the gulls, and live off land-fills and by
mugging the occasional drunk for their kebab. :-)

Pesticides are a considerably lesser problem than fertiliser!

One I forgot to mention.

Many anglers nowadays, especially in the UK and various parts of Europe,
spend their lives looking forward to "days of stockie bashing in muddy
puddles". Fishing for fish which have been raised at an incredible loss
ratio, on wild protein obtained at the cost of massive and in the meantime
irreparable damage to the environment. This is quite apart from the
horrendous damage and wastage engendered by various other fish farming
projects world wide.

I could be wrong, but isn't the fish food made from the wastage... the
stuff that people don't eat? I could be wrong here, but does the
production of fish food pellets make a significant difference to the
amount of fish that are hoovered up from the sea?

Anglers ( apart from the stockie bashers), are not responsible for these
things, and as ever, most are quite powerless to do anything about it.

But it feels better if you try to do something, no matter how
insignificant. Most of us are stockie bashers, BTW. There are few
truly wild waters left in Britain, (I can't speak for the continent.)
It's hard to find any water that doesn't have its population
supplemented by triploid stockies. If these fish are wasteful,
ecologically speaking, we are fooling ourselves that they help to prop
up the resident populations of trout.

While catch and release may be of some use in management of fisheries, ( or
more accurately, in management of anglers who use them!), it will do no good
at all in the face of the now huge problems in much of Europe, and indeed,
in many cases it merely serves to sop people´s consciences, as many cite it
as the moral high ground, when in fact, it is completely irrelevant to the
problems we are now facing.

You're probably right, but it can't hurt, can it? If I don't kill my
fish and treat them with care when returning them, that still makes a
difference, albeit a small one. Every journey starts with a single
step...

John
http://groups.msn.com/scottishflyfisher
Responsible anglers catch and release.
Lose the barbs or lose the fish!