Thread: Commercial fishing industry trying to do the right thing

I honestly don't see how returning small ,undersize ,non-quota & dead fish is a waste.It is being put back into the ecosystem /food chain where it will be of benefit.That applies to both recreational & commercial sectors ,it will not be wasted .

Originally Posted by Chris

I honestly don't see how returning small ,undersize ,non-quota & dead fish is a waste.It is being put back into the ecosystem /food chain where it will be of benefit.That applies to both recreational & commercial sectors ,it will not be wasted .

On a small scale ie inshore fishing i agree in part. Yes it will be eaten mostly by birds but 1 ton of 1 pound fish would have been 20 tonne of 20 pound fish if they had the chance.
On a large scale dumping 150tonne of black dory without even landing it because your targeting roughy most of it sinks to the ocean floor and apparently forms a toxic sludge.
While Im sure that wouldn't happen anymore on any of the big 3s boats Im not so sure of there joint ventures.

I really got down in the mouth about our fisherys a couple of years before i left for good.
There was voluntary conditions for those company's in the hoki management thing including not fishing less than 450m steaming x miles if x percent were less than x length etc.
Unfortunately when fishing was tough it was always a sure thing to catch plenty of small fish in spot x.
I moved boats and one trip we were into the small fish an all the small small were going straight to meal plant. I asked why they were mealing them and was told they are to small for the Baaders to fillet. Be Buggered ill tune the machines to fillet them. And we did, because i hate seeing whole fish sent to meal.
Result was product in freezers which ment we(or more accurately the skipper) continued catching undersize fish for the rest of the trip.
When you start talking thousands of tonne size makes a massive difference to the actuall take in numbers of fish.