stupid rules

[roger de dodger]

is it just me or does anyone else think the new 5 pionts for undersize fish in comps stinks any rule that encourages the mass slaughter of undersize fish and encourages anglers to target small fish is a joke, in my humble opinion if one angler can catch one counter he should beat an angler with 100 undersize fish ,personally unless this rule is changed i wont be bothering fishing anymore comps where this rule is causing normally sane people to go fishing in such a unsportsmanly fashion ,is 20 cm not small enough whats next 10 cm come on lads cop on!it kinda makes a joke of the term COUNTER

[eric]

i think this is related to us younger anglers, as poor oul rodge is unfortunetly at the age of zimmer frames and bus passes. just cause you cant get your arthritic legs round fast enough to get loads of fish signed in or have eyes good enough to tie size four hooks,doesnt mean you should take it out on us seriously i agree with you, im hate the undersize rule now!!

[kstaff]

Totally agree, it can't be good for small fish, it also leads to mass chaos on the beach with signing cards etc.. I could easily of had the same US fish signed 50 times and nobody would of been any the wiser! Not that I'm suggesting I did and I'm 100% certain nobody in SAI would do it either!

I'm not agianst anyone catching loads of small fish and fair play in being able to do it in a match but I do believe it benefits nobody! I liken it to having a Mackie bashing session to be honest.

We recently berated somebody for asking about a 6 hook rig knowing what the consequences of that would be!!

Anyway that was a long winded way of saying Under size fish are exactly that, under size and have noplace in a comp in this day of Conservation and pressure on fish stocks! The trawlers catch loads of undersize too remember!!!

[Al and Jordan]

seems a bloody daft rule i know all too well that 20cm+ fish can be few and far between at some venues, but what lunacy would encourage people to target such young fish come on lads, give em a chance. lets hope common sense prevailes and we go back to tiddlers not counting, that way hopefully we can ensure future stocks at least have a chance.

[petekd]

As our MA series is geared up towards selecting the best anglers from our club to compete at a national level in the masters and hopefully the fish offs we try, where possible, to follow the current scoring in place for THESE competitions. Because this rule was brought in for the Fish Offs then it makes sense, you must learn to fish to the rules that will be applied. There is no point sending lads out not ready for this. You simply cannot avoid undersized fish especially if they are appearing in the proportions the whiting did this year, so therefore it stands to reason you should be getting something for them. Not every competition is going to be a whiting fest lads.

[oneillphil]

Couldn't agree more and to be honest 200mm is too small in my opinion

[paul mason]

sometimes you have to ask yourself why do we fish competitions ? the answer is #1 to catch fish #2 to win the competiton #3 to be famous in our own lunchtime.
I'll ask this question has anybody noticed that there are not many big fish anymore.
I fished a competition last week and had 50 fish and not one counter and i blanked i caught these fish although i was fishing for fish over 20cm so why should i not get points for them anyway, it would have saved a blank.
I have a great idea lads why not play cards instead of fishing, no bait required no dragging gear down ect ect. come on lads get real its forward we need to go.
i love match fishing and hope to see it keep going in these hard times, sometimes you can only catch small fish and maybe the some anglers are more prepaired to hang on for the lucky bigger fish

[oneillphil]

Forward ?
So forward is catching as many small fish as you can to win a comp
if you say so.
Isn't that the kind of near sighted approach that has fishing the way it is.
We want all the trawlermen etc to stick to sizes and quotas but not us "match fishermen"
we can catch whatever we want and we want points for it too so we can win some competition
does that sound odd to anyone else

[uvox]

i have no problem with the rule as long as the fish survive. i'd sooner see a rule that any fish caught must be put back alive and if it doesn't survive, then you're deducted points. it's just ludicruous to see the the wheeling gulls sweeping down at these comps picking up tiny dead fish. sorry, but if we're to come to the conservation table with clear hands, then this has to stop.

if that isn't feasible, then scrap it.

[dbrock]

the small fish are going to be caught either way, so its simply a debate as to if we give points or not for them, personally i recon drop them to 2 points,

was there not a pic not so long ago with someone pleasure fishing and a bucket load of whiting, im sure the guy didnt go out to catch these but they got caught,,,
download/file.php?id=6637

[eric]

suppose i should write a constructive responce to this, match angling for me is about catching fish, whatever the size, person with the most fish wins hands down, cant handle that then get better or get over it!! a minimum hook size limit will limit the 'targeting of these mini fish'. sad truth is they are simply unavoidble on our stretch of the coastline, and justifiably should be rewarded. the comp i fished at arklow the other where i caught 40 something fish with only 4 counters was not because i was targetting them, i went up to size one hook, full sandeel and mack baits to try and winkle out a counter out of the sea of minis, at 5 points each they are simply not worth tageting when 1 counter equalls 5 of them. the 5 pints you get does nothing more then give you confindence up, gets you out of the blank and gets you to fish harder to find the better fish. either drop the minimum size to 18cm or drop the points of undersize fish to 2pts, as paul said its the way forward.

[dbrock]

i agree with eric there should def be a minimum hook size, and maybe award 2 points for the undersized fish, as i said before they will and have always been caught, in the last comp i had 26 of them and hadnt targeted any, all day

[roger de dodger]

was this before or after you got the hook in your hand?

sorry i have to disagree with denis and eric here ! i proposes a minimum hook size at a recent club meeting and you 2 guys shot me down !! so what are you sayin make up your minds lads

ok lets try an experiment at our next eastcoast raiders comp all fish under 20 cm returned scoring no points and min hook size 2 ,oooh real fishing

[alby]

Minimum hook size doesn't really work in practice. Not all hooks are kamasan and so all are different even if they are at the same size i.e. 2 (carp hooks, fly hooks, spade end, fine wire coarse etc.)

It's impossible to police this on a beach without looking at each individual trace and then looking at the packet to see where the hook has come from. Also nothing stopping someone buying a packet of obscure brand size 2's and filling it with B940 size 6's.

[eric]

some good points lads i,m glad to hear theirs still a few real anglers out their who do think like an old lad like me ,eric your not getting the point i often use size 8 hooks for coalies in the surf,hooks to mono mind you its not the hook size its the fact that when an angler comes up to me with two dead whiting and a see through dab looking for his card signed ,and he,s all in a tizzy cos he might miss 3 more while he gets his card signed,seems to me like he has lost sight of why we fish ,personally i recon he should just keep them and post them all to portugal or spain at the end of the match for someone to get a feed,the best chance for the undersize fish is to unhook it and return it ,not run up and down the beach like a kid with his first tiddler ,"sure their only whiting and dab and flounder",funny thing that, ever see what a trawler dumps back dead after a trawl ,"sure their must be millions of em"yea just like cod, eels ,salmon and sea trout

very true rodger i agree with what yours saying, but sure even a quick release is going not going to save their lives, they are as fragile as one of me mams porcelan vases, and as i stated earlier they are unavoidlbe, they get their mouths around any bait, any hook size, any time. im the first to agree putting them in a bucket aint gonna save them one bit either, before you say anything uvox! one way around the problem is to ban night sessions in winter and spring time.

[Pat Spillane]

First off I am not a match angler but I am not knocking it, each to their own. Personally I already feel the size limit is too small and should go higher. If this means that there will be no fish big enough then fish the competition somewhere else. I have walked along the beaches during a couple of matches last year and the numbers of dead or dying fish was massive.
Yes I know that once you stick a hook on the end of a line then the chances are you will get some small stuff, and I do despite size 2/0 3/0 but usually with the bigger hooks the return rate is higher. So do something to help improve the return rate.

Bigger hooks
Barbless hooks
Whatever it takes

Trying to police a comp where everyone is getting 2 or three mini whiting must be a nightmare.

OK go ahead I am prepared for the barrage but I am not trying to slag anyone off just stating a fact the has been mentioned on several occasions.

We cant whinge about the trawlers and netters if we dont practice catch and return ALIVE ourselves.

[captain AHAB]

well put pat,i agree 100%.

[dan]

should be changed i agree. i know coarse fishing comps you put them into a keepnet to keep them alive, after a few hours the fish are weighed recorded and released and then you start fishing again..... and so on.

[dbrock]

personally there still going to be caught no matter what, and if we look at our last comp eric had 48 fish to my 26 fish although i had more counting fish, bringing our scores to an exact equal,,,,, how do you guys presume that eric should have lost this comp,


he still would have had these fish even if they didn't count, and i know for a fact he moved his hook size up through the comp to try get some counters,,,,,,, although he peg was covered in smaller fish,,,

so simple facts are
these fish will be caught no matter what and have been for years and all the pleasure anglers do the same, me included,

why shouldn they count, and not every one dies, its the same as catching them at any stage wether its a comp or not,

every one on this site who fishes the east coast is responsible for catching small whiting, its not all MATCH anglers

[Pat Spillane]

Denis I agree that a certain number of fish will be caught no matter what but if you encourage the catching of small fish by lowering the size limit (which is what in effect is happening) then even smaller hooks will be used and more will be caught and killed. I dont have any magical answers or solutions but I dont think this portrays a good image for our sport.

As far as who wins competetions if a rule states that fish have to be a certain size then the winner is the person who has the highest total of legal counters same as it ever was (David Byrne). Its just hard luck if you happen to be in the wrong peg. The same used to happen on the south beach years ago (1970's) when if you were not pegged on the Ballygannon end you were unlikely to win or be in the prizes.