Why oh why ????

[Dave Jolly]

I was Looking forward to the fishoffs this weekend in Cork Harbour, after there were 6000 fish of 17 species caught and released there last year, things were looking good for this year, that was until I heard the news from the Harbour....
All week 2 trawlers have been trawling inside the forts, indeed today there were 3 boats trawling, 2 x 36 footers and one 50 footer, trawling the channel from the middle harbour right up inside the harbour towards Spike Island.
Now 2 miles outside the harbour it's alive with cod up to 8lb, haddock to 4lb, whiting to 1.5lb, megs etc, inside the harbour it was paved with 20 to 28cm dabs and 18 to 30cm whiting.. with the odd codling mooching around.
Today you could have gone to the gas rigs 27ml offshore in a warrior 165 !!!!
I ask why were these boats in the harbour, I understand it's their living, and that its perfectly acceptable to trawl the harbour when it's too rough to go outside and as such is invaluable to the local trawlermen etc, but when dabs are fetching almost nothing commercially, it makes you wonder what they were after? is it acceptable to kill thousands and thousands of fish for maybe a box of codling or half box of plaice ???, in the process destroying the best inshore fishing in the country 2 days before an angling event worth over 10,000eu to the town of Cobh, it makes you wonder if it's deliberate ??
Is it time to talk to mr Coveny about some kind of inshore trawling limit ?
maybe it was all to save 5 miles worth of green diesel ??
the mind boggles at this
Without being militant, what do people think about this ?

[Preston]

I agree totally , there was war when the so called "non nationals "cleaned our rivers and lakes of their stocks and ruined the tourism they generated over the years when they were fruitfull.I say so called because there are plenty of Irish netting rivers too and passing the buck. The trawler men will blame the foreign fleets or the weather or whatever for fishing close in but either way its depleting stocks that draw the anglers who provide all the tertiary sectors with badly needed revenue. The government needs to employ the same conservation rigours which are now in place in our inland fisheries before we loose another fantastic asset to short sightedness

[beachbuddy]

Shocking to read this but suprised,not at all Pure greed once again and once the reports start to come in regarding "DE WALL" of fish knocking about no doubt that will be netted and trawled as well,peeps ye have been warned
I suppose it depends what was been targetted but very strange considering the reports of the quality fish within a short distance outside the harbour.It seems this year anything goes inside the harbour ,eg plenty bass been netted also and now this ,no wonder the angling tourists are thinning out as well.
Would'nt it be lovely if all trawling and netting within the harbour was more heavily restricted,now im off to collect my lotto winnings,well one can dream can't they

[Creep]

Seen something very similar up in Dublin trawlers draggin nets very close to shore, Is the fishing really that bad out further? Is the first question I have to ask, and if it is...then why? There seriously needs to be a trawl limit as the younger fish normally stay within the shore distance. 40 mile limit, I hate to say it as it uses more fuel, and more importantly puts trawler mens lives at greater risk now winter is well on its way , But fish stocks are most certianly down and something has to be done

[twinkle]

no lads its just coinsidence that there was reports of large amounts of fish be caught in cork harbour.comercial fishermen dont bother with our site like this has never happened before.

[Creep]

Well the Dublin shore I was refering to there was no reports made, and I blanked myself .

[Al and Jordan]

i think beachbuddy hit the nail on the head, GREED!
i'm all for people earning a living, but the commercial sector would have no problem with killing a tonne of fish to fill one box of something they were after
no care or respect for the seas, just get what they can as quick as they can and to hell with the consiquences.
you don't see them crying their eyes out when they are dumping boxes of smaller fish they have quotas for when they hit into a better grade of the species at the end of a trip. the pratice of "high grading" has been going on for years, but it just dose'nt get talked about as it would show them for what they really are.
added to that all the "black" fish being landed in our ports and the systematic beam trawlling that goes on i'm amazed that stocks have'nt already collapsed beyond the recovery margin.
just another nail in the coffin for the fish in the seas.
other countries recognize the importance of inshore habitats as nursery grounds for all species to be left alone and aid in the chances for the fish to reach a size they can go out to open water and breed. just a pity out country could'nt follow suit

[d.kane62]

is the fishoffs still on over the weekend ? we had our boat cancelled out of cobh last night because of weather for saturday . still in bad form . damian

[donal domeney]

The fish-off will be on there are plenty of place to hide even in a force 10 Southerly

[d.kane62]

thats what i thought one of the biggest natural harbours and all that. we where supposed to be on the catamaran so it must be bad if he cancelled the days fishing.

[PaulOC]

very annoying!! must of the female plaice are carry,n roe at the moment too! can people get together to finally stop this?

I was Looking forward to the fishoffs this weekend in Cork Harbour, after there were 6000 fish of 17 species caught and released there last year, things were looking good for this year, that was until I heard the news from the Harbour....
All week 2 trawlers have been trawling inside the forts, indeed today there were 3 boats trawling, 2 x 36 footers and one 50 footer, trawling the channel from the middle harbour right up inside the harbour towards Spike Island.
Now 2 miles outside the harbour it's alive with cod up to 8lb, haddock to 4lb, whiting to 1.5lb, megs etc, inside the harbour it was paved with 20 to 28cm dabs and 18 to 30cm whiting.. with the odd codling mooching around.
Today you could have gone to the gas rigs 27ml offshore in a warrior 165 !!!!
I ask why were these boats in the harbour, I understand it's their living, and that its perfectly acceptable to trawl the harbour when it's too rough to go outside and as such is invaluable to the local trawlermen etc, but when dabs are fetching almost nothing commercially, it makes you wonder what they were after? is it acceptable to kill thousands and thousands of fish for maybe a box of codling or half box of plaice ???, in the process destroying the best inshore fishing in the country 2 days before an angling event worth over 10,000eu to the town of Cobh, it makes you wonder if it's deliberate ??
Is it time to talk to mr Coveny about some kind of inshore trawling limit ?
maybe it was all to save 5 miles worth of green diesel ??
the mind boggles at this
Without being militant, what do people think about this ?

[knightser]

very annoying!! must of the female plaice are carry,n roe at the moment too! can people get together to finally stop this?

I was Looking forward to the fishoffs this weekend in Cork Harbour, after there were 6000 fish of 17 species caught and released there last year, things were looking good for this year, that was until I heard the news from the Harbour....
All week 2 trawlers have been trawling inside the forts, indeed today there were 3 boats trawling, 2 x 36 footers and one 50 footer, trawling the channel from the middle harbour right up inside the harbour towards Spike Island.
Now 2 miles outside the harbour it's alive with cod up to 8lb, haddock to 4lb, whiting to 1.5lb, megs etc, inside the harbour it was paved with 20 to 28cm dabs and 18 to 30cm whiting.. with the odd codling mooching around.
Today you could have gone to the gas rigs 27ml offshore in a warrior 165 !!!!
I ask why were these boats in the harbour, I understand it's their living, and that its perfectly acceptable to trawl the harbour when it's too rough to go outside and as such is invaluable to the local trawlermen etc, but when dabs are fetching almost nothing commercially, it makes you wonder what they were after? is it acceptable to kill thousands and thousands of fish for maybe a box of codling or half box of plaice ???, in the process destroying the best inshore fishing in the country 2 days before an angling event worth over 10,000eu to the town of Cobh, it makes you wonder if it's deliberate ??
Is it time to talk to mr Coveny about some kind of inshore trawling limit ? GOVERMENT MY ARSE
maybe it was all to save 5 miles worth of green diesel ??
the mind boggles at this
Without being militant, what do people think about this ?

[jw]

excellent post dave. i agree commercial fishing is economic stupidity, selling off the fish for a few cents
instead of generating 1000's of euros of activity from angling tourism.

i guess the bass issue has shown that sense can prevail and an effective lobby can work. A lot
of people are badly informed and get over excited about fellow anglers keeping a few fish for
the pot, which is completely irrelevant and lobbying on this issue would just make them look
foolish and be counter productive

the commercial gill netter here is tied up this year because of no quota to land cod or pollack,
he would usually be netting the wrecks off cork this time of year, im hoping for a fine
spell now and getting a trip out with colin barnes . i guess those boats are in the same predicament and
trying to get some ray or flatties to sell?

[fastnet]

Just to back you up Dave.I couldn't agree more.
There is a bye-law that no vessel over 40 feet can trawl in Cork Harbour.
This has never been enforced however.
One word of caution, if limits are enforced more than likely nursery areas like Cork Harbour will be made consevation zones and NO FISHING for anyone could be enforced, so if one section is excluded all of us could suffer!

[beachbuddy]

the commercial gill netter here is tied up this year because of no quota to land cod or pollack,
he would usually be netting the wrecks off cork this time of year, im hoping for a fine
spell now and getting a trip out with colin barnes . i guess those boats are in the same predicament and
trying to get some ray or flatties to sell?

Not sure how the quotas work for the differant areas and size of boats etc,but theres been plenty of bigger boats inshore netting for cod the last few weeks and pollack during the summer off the east cork coastline so its a bit confusing to say the least how some boats are able to target cod etc and others cannot.Can anyone explain how this scenario occurs,is it just a case of some trawlers still have quotas for cod left whilst others have used their quotas up for the year and are now targetting differant species ie ray and flatties or is it a licence issue?

[fisherboy]

Just to back you up Dave.I couldn't agree more.
There is a bye-law that no vessel over 40 feet can trawl in Cork Harbour.
This has never been enforced however.
One word of caution, if limits are enforced more than likely nursery areas like Cork Harbour will be made consevation zones and NO FISHING for anyone could be enforced, so if one section is excluded all of us could suffer!

well said,,but as far as i know there is no such bye law ? 50 foot boats fishing in the harbour would it have the room? The harbour is full of these zones all ready and us anglers are good men to damage these areas as well,,i'm not standing up for commercial fishermen but any body that tries to make a living in this country in these times i take my hat off to him or her,,,,,so i think people should not be so fast to judge,,,,,

[fastnet]

There definitely is a bye-law.My grandfather shaved an inch off the bow of the boat he built to bring it under the 40 foot limit when she was measured for a licence!

[Mohawk]

There definitely is a bye-law.My grandfather shaved an inch off the bow of the boat he built to bring it under the 40 foot limit when she was measured for a licence!

There is no such by law!!! can you quote this by law or point us to the source of it???

There is also another often mentioned mythical by law that "Cork Harbour can only be trawled under sail or steam and only then to feed a family", but alas there is no evidence of such a by law so the trawlers once licensed are not breaking any laws so we need to be very careful what we accuse law abiding commercial boats of, are we forgetting the recent blonde ray indecent

Another myth is that the commercials are using reports from this site believe me most of the trawler men that Dave is referring to here couldn't turn on a computer anyway they don't need to read reports they know the harbour better than most anglers ever will as they are out there daily some for over 50 years now

Anglers would probably have never heard of "De Wall" had it not been for the commercials fishing it in the first place "the narrows" as locals call it has been netted since at least the 1800s

It is a shame that the harbour is trawled and Dave has a good idea in trying to do something about it but we need to be factual and not throw around accusations of breaches of non existent by laws etc

Also we should not compare these legal trawling activities to the illegal bass netting activities of a few, they are completely different issues

Anglers talking "with" (not "at") the commercials would be a first step for any idea to succeed. With the quality of fish that Dave is describing just outside the harbour the commercials are not fishing the harbour by choice, think about it

[twinkle]

to the comercial fishing boats this is economics .do we head out 100 miles useing x amount of fuel for 3 days for say a 1000euros or stay in the harbour useing little fuel and time for 800 euros. when you look at there options
its easy to pick the reason why they were fishing in the harbour. maybe the flats were fetching a better price than cod or maybe there was a short suppy of rays and they were getting top price for them. these are a number of factors we have to take into account but i still stand by my first statement. with the amount of publicity cork harbour gets not just on this site its a wonder its not an every day occurence.

[beachbuddy]

Anglers would probably have never heard of "De Wall" had it not been for the commercials fishing it in the first place "the narrows" as locals call it has been netted since at least the 1800s



Also we should not compare these legal trawling activities to the illegal Bass netting activities of a few, they are completely different issues

Anglers talking "with" (not "at") the commercials would be a first step for any idea to succeed. With the quality of fish that Dave is describing just outside the harbour the commercials are not fishing the harbour by choice, think about it

Fair points Mohawk and well made .Can i just say a few words regarding the above as they kind of relate to my post but correct me if im wrong.Yes im aware De Wall,has been netted for years im even friendly with one family that used have a licence to net salmon in years gone bye,was even told a story about how a relation of theirs was shot by baliffs at the turn of the century for netting salmon trying to feed his family and died[history lesson over ]I also know a chap whose family still have a licence to net and he told me that once reports of fish start to be told they walk de wall and if they see numbers been landed for themselves they will then set their nets.
On the bass front i was'nt comparing legit trawlermen to the ones illegally netting bass and would be stupid to do so and as such i should'nt have been mentioned as it could cause confusion,however you cannot deny illegal bass netting has'nt gone on inside the harbour alot more this year than in the past few years but as you correctly say this is a completely separate issue and one unfortunately that will never go away.
On the last point im genuinely wondering is it down to target species,low quotas or licence issues why these trawlers could'nt target the quality fish that Dave is refering to outside the harbour.The only reason im asking is because some trawlers down this neck of the the woods have been targetting cod and would like to be a bit more informed and you seem to know what your on about.
Tight lines