Fish Conservation

Is this one of the answers ?

Our sport has recently taken at lot of bad press.

The unnecessary killing of fish does not help our case when we criticise the Commercial Fisherman for over fishing.

During a recent visit to the USA, I had the pleasure of watching a Bass Fishing Competition.

After watching the match, I had to ask myself, "Is this part of the solution ?"

The USA has gone through a massive decline in the BASS fishing stocks. Like us the Anglers were the subject of mush criticism. However they have taken action and their fish stock are improving.

The major difference I witnessed between a UK match and one in the USA was simple. No contender is allowed to keep more than five fish in any one match. All the fish are kept in containers, with air being pumped in, so the fish remains healthy whilst it is being kept.

Once a contender has caught his five fish, he improves his bag weight by checking each fish against his recorded catches, if the catch is bigger than one in his "Tank", he releases the smaller fish and retains his new catch.

At the weigh in each contestants bag of five fish is weighed and the biggest bag wins.

Then comes the second major difference. The contenders MUST record the approximate area where the fish were taken, these details are passed to the match officials, who then take the fish, by dinghy and return them to where they were caught.

I asked one of the contestants what he thought of the scheme, he told me, "I have two young boys who want to fish when they are older. We realised that our old "Catch, Keep & Kill" system was wiping out the sport. If we did not take action our sport would be dead in twenty years. What I want is that my sons can come here when they are my age and enjoy this wonderful sport in the same way as I can."

Those words have played on my mind, because I can see a striking resemblance between where they were and where we are. We all know that some action must be taken, is this a possible route for UK competitions.

What are your views, tell us your comments and we will publish your views.