Bass being commercially exploited again!?

[John D]

Hello everybody.

Considering the recent proposal by the Federation of Irish Fishermen to allow bass to be legally caught offshore, I urge everyone to please send a quick, short and to the point e-mail to all the ministers working in the departments of natural resources, fisheries and tourism to do all that they can to reject this proposal.

I have already done it this evening.

Yours hopefully,
John D.

[bassbuster]

Agreed

[RockHunter]

Could you put up their email addresses

[Tomaszek]

Hi guys,
that is a bad news. Our action should be coordinated somehow to be better noticed. Could someone (who have more English than me) please put together an email and post email addressed there - so we could be perceived as whole not as a bunch of individuals. What do you all think?

[JimH]

Go here and see what was said on this subject on this forum in May about the same subject - unity?
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21492&p=165385#p165385

[i]....because I’m afraid some day it may well happen – how well prepared in hard facts and figures will anglers and other organisations be on that day, how strongly united, cohesively proactive and energised will they be, to stand up and protect what is a national resource and...[/i]

This is a copy of the internal communication - which is not a rumour!

From The Department of Communications Energy and Natural Resources on the 16th December
The Minister of State (MOS) has received representations from Mr Tony Killeen TD, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food regarding a proposal by The Federation of Irish Fishermen (FIF) to allow Irish commercial fishing vessels to target sea bass and land it when caught in offshore waters. FIF proposal is that they propose that Irish regulations be changed to permit Irish commercial fishing vessels to retain and land sea bass caught south of (51.30’N) in area VII. This area is approx 50 km off the SE coast of Ireland and the UK advice for 2007 states that this stock is in a healthy state. FIF in making this proposal is taking a precautionary approach to avoid any fishing whatsoever of the Irish inshore stock. If the sea bass fishery is opened in the area south of the 51.30’N, FIF is fully committed to engaging with the Marine Institute through the Industry/Science partnership to work at carrying out a full assessment on the stock North of this position in area VII.

As usual we depend on data from another country to assist us in destroying another species - data thats speculative and more than three years old now. What a mess.

[Tomaszek]

So what would you suggest to do?

[JimH]

As a stakeholder involved in Angling Tourism for the past eight years and trying to present the country in a positive light I do have a number of suggestions. As a bass angler for the past thirty five years I also have a number of suggestions.

In this country during february there are two Angling Shows - the greatest collection of anglers in the one (or two) place at the one time. Thousands of anglers, celebrities, journalists, fisheries boards, etc, etc

If only one hundred interested anglers were to committ say five euros to a fund - lets say www.irishbass.org then irishbass could have a stand, a physical presence at one of these shows - now why not leverage this opportunity to collect physical signatures from people entering the show, voice opinions in the open air, lobby the celebities whom are quite prepared to walk in and use the resource to promote themselves but dont seem to want to get involved. Determine exactly what is the situation as regards FIF etc.

Bring a politician to the shows to show him this unity and the huge number of interest there is in angling in this country - show him or them the money, the sustainability, the potential

Make a small team (or a number of small teams) to determine from the FB's, the marine institute and Bord Failtes situation as regard what they intend to do in the face of the many issues facing bass in Ireland today (like the post above this one) - then analyse this and much more information that could be garnered from such an opportunity and publish it using www.irishbass.org - then go from there.......

[Tomaszek]

Thank you JimH for your reply. Very informative.

If it’s down to 500 quid, one may think that action to take is quite easy. I’m sure that just a few of us from this site could donate even bigger amount. However is irishbass.org ready to take this action? If yes, surely we should support them in the way that this organization thinks is most suitable. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like they ready – please correct me if I’m wrong.

Why there is no initiative on their website to take action as you described? The ‘donate’ button is nowhere to be find on their website either. This means that the whole structure of the organization needs to be supported first, before any action will take place.

So going back to original issue. I’m pretty sure that this site has capability of raising funds to support actions like described. Someone needs to coordinate them though. According to what you’re saying irishbass.org should be that someone. But looking at their website you don’t have any sense of “something is going wrong we need to act” kind of attitude.

Maybe the real question is down to “how to support irishbass.org” so the voice of bass anglers can be heard.

[John D]

Go to http://www.gov.ie/en/sites/departments/ and there you will find all the relevant government departments and there corresponding e-mail addresses.

However, JimH's ideas are much better.

I for one would be willing to contribute up to 50euros at this present time for any expenses that may need to be incurred for this mission.

The best of luck,
John D.

[rory from cork]

I for one would be willing to contribute up to 50euros at this present time for any expenses that may need to be incurred for this mission.

I'll contribute €50 also...paypal,check or cash..whatever suits you Jim.....anyone else care enough about this to contribute

[Pat]

I'll donate €50 - just tell me how to; who to make a cheque out to, etc.,...?

[Tomaszek]

I'll donate €50 - just tell me how to; who to make a cheque out to, etc.,...?

And that is my point. If this irishbass.org organization is capable of working towards resolving this serious issue, why don't they collecting funds already? I'm afraid that just donating money may not be enough as it looks there is no one to donate to. Hopefully I'm wrong as reaching to the pocket is always easiest thing to do.

[Pat]

I assume JimH is one of the people instrumental in setting up http://www.irishbass.org. I'd have every confidence in Jim and think his idea of the organisation having a stand at the show as an excellent one. My money's on that. I would think its a great way of raising the profile of the organisation and galvanising support.

[Pat]

....reaching to the pocket is always easiest thing to do.

With respect Tommy, reaching into my pocket to me is my way of putting my money where my mouth is .

[Tomaszek]

Pat, I'm also thinking that Jim's idea is great and I will support irishbass.org in their effort to protect and develop bass awareness. By saying "reaching to the pocket is always easiest thing to do" I meant that it is far far easier to donate a few €€ than actually run the organization, coordinate action, plan and execute the plan.

I'm also thinking that Jim may require more help (project of stands, preparation of stands, thinking over the campaign etc etc) than just paying money. And this is my main concern as I know from experience that it is easier to give money that actually make good use out of them - if you know what I'm trying to say.

I guess this is down to JimH now to post what help is required and up to us to volunteer to help in the way that is possible for each one of us.

[teacher]

Hi guys. Just a quick note on irishbass.org for now. For both personal and work reasons I'm unable to commit the same time, effort and motivation to this as I have in the past. Its not something I'm happy about but unfortunately its unavoidable.

Fresh blood is needed to get something off the ground again.

I will drop an email to everyone who has signed up to the website over the coming days to this effect. Anyone interested in taking up the reigns should drop me a PM.

[RockHunter]

I will contribute € 50 also.
Unfortunately time is what I can't contribute at the moment due to work commitments.

[red]

id gladly pop €50 into a kitty if i thought it was gonna help set up a stall and make a difference. that would make me the 6th person and €300 in just 3 days. the €500 should easily be gotten.

[Bradan]

FYI, the CFB and several RFBs have made submissions on this outlining the reasons it should not be allowed. Hopefully those submissions from official bodies advising the minister against a resumption will help sway the argument.
All the same, I think it would be important for as many people as possible to write to the minister, and especially their local TDs, outlining their objection, and don't forget, reminding them how you will vote next time out may be based on the decision taken.

[patk]

Im more than willing to donate to this too. A couple of points though in terms of making noise about it which is probably whats needed. I tried to leave an email on the angling show website yesterday to ask for space to be given free to a non selling stall providing information to anglers who would appreciate a gesture such as this and feel more inclined to attend if unsure put money raised into a print run with information on this and signage for the stall. I was involved in a campaign pre budget which was succesful and got numbers through a facebook page "protect our bass" eg if this could be set up where all information and historical evidence etc could be collected on line all angling clubs fresh sea coarse could be contacted and asked to sign up here people could give reasons why this cant happen and it would be nationwide. I would do this but im not great at doing this stuff on computer(I still cant put photos up on reports) but maybe someone would have time? once set up its fairly easy to run and allows all access to it and all discussion could take place through it. Anyway easy to say this when i cant do it but there you go anyway pat