Size limits: Have we got it all wrong?

Daroxtar

Hi guys. I'm a keen trout fisherman and i have a question for ye. Should we be keeping the tiddlers and releasing the bigger fish?

If a fish has survived long enough to reach breeding age is it not wrong then to specifically target these fish and then remove them from the water? By taking the adult fish out of the system we are severely depleting the potential stocks of the area. To me it seems to go against nature.

I know that the law seems to protect adult pike and some other species so i just wonder why not change the laws across the board for all species and introduce a maximum size limit to protect the adult breeding fish instead of the current system which only protects the juveniles?

I understand that it may cause some consternation but my idea would be a catch and release programme for all adult fish above a certain size but allow the keeping of the smaller fish if people wanted to eat them or whatever- after all there are far more of them and thats the natural order of things. One plus side would be that instead of the " you should see the one that got away" stories now you would have "you should see the one i put back".

We all have phones with camera's so if we need a reminder of how great a fish was then its quite easy to remember things that way rather than killing a fine adult fish and potentially removing hundreds if not thousands of eggs from the rivers and lakes.

Dont get me wrong, i still want to catch big fish. I just want to guarantee that there are big fish there to catch.

Anyway, What do ye think?

Cheers, Steve

coolwings

Absolutely!

When we kill big fish we leave behind the slower growing fish as brood stock for the next generation. Over the years we breed out the fast growth genes that the big fish carried.

The juveniles must be protected until they get a chance to spawn, that is, up to maturity and a year after that. These are the most numerous spawning fish.

The bigger older adults have shown a genetic abiltiy to live longer than average ( a desirable trait) and to survive better (another desirable gene) as well as some of them growing for longer. These are valuable breeding stock, and bering outnumbered by younger fish makes their genetic value more valuable due to relative scarceness.

The answer is a slot limit.
No removing fish under the size of maturity plus a bit.
No removing the specimen fish over the size that is "unusual" for that water.
A limit of "x " fish per day/week/season to be taken from those caught in-between, and that number can be adjusted each year to bring up stocks if the catch is too high and fishing quality is observed to be falling.

This system has been proved the world over, and allows fish stocks to maintain good levels even with mush fishing pressure from anglers. It has been proved the most successful management method in waters that are fished exceptionaly hard due to being located near cities, where some harvest is allowed.

But if you fish catch and release already, you're doing that anyway, aren't you.

beer enigma

Yeh very valid point, agree strongly with both of ye on this.

There has always been wierd & wonderful ideas on these sort of things though - even down to records. Not sure about the Irish Record Committee, but the British commitee (BRFC) still prefer that you submit the body or carcass for formal identification before they will validate a record.....seems completely nonsensical to me !

We need to preserve the specimen fish - easier in coarse when its a 'catch & return' system (well it used to be :rolleyes:), but in Salmon & Trout, fish are often taken & a slot limit would make a huge amount of sense

stylie

+1 For everything Coolwings said, I would also add the small fish are food, and a target for predators.
In an ideal world if an angler was to take a fish, he could try to take one that has spawned 2-3 times(2lb Corrib trout for example). Less than that are to immature and more than that are valuable brood stock for their ability to stave off disease, predators, starvation etc...

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

I agree 100%

Daroxtar wrote: »

I know that the law seems to protect adult pike and some other species so i just wonder why not change the laws across the board for all species and introduce a maximum size limit to protect the adult breeding fish instead of the current system which only protects the juveniles?

adult pike will eat younger fish, so by killing the big ones there will be more jacks in the water. Pike are great at controlling their numbers, let them do it!:D