Catch and release

[MartinB]

I think that C & R is a matter of common sense,which everyone you meet will profess to have,however im slowly becoming of the opinion that the Oxford English dictionary seriously should re-define this word or change it to 'rare sense',especially in ref. to where some of the fishing in this country is concerned...as 99.9% of people who keep a seriously undersized fish will give you a quick demo of their 'common sense' with pearls of wisdom like "if i let it go,someone else will catch it,so why bother?/jekk nitiltu jiena biex jaqbdu hadd iehor.." 

Don't get me wrong i don't judge people who keep fish to eat as id be a total hypocrite,i like fresh fish just as much as anyone,but there is a difference between keeping a few barracuda's and keeping a 10cm grouper or dentex to feed the 'cats' 
This is one of the reasons i gave up shore angling from certain spots as this kind of thing makes my blood BOIL!! & just try "educating" some these people who frequent certain places if you ever feel like wasting some of your precious time and just see how far you get!!..and whilst im sure there are people who don't know all the exact minimum sizes of frequently caught species (ill include myself here,i don't),im sure that there are many who do and just don't care!..i mean for gods sake do you really need to be told that a 10cm grouper is undersized?!!!!!

So im all for minimum sizes,at least the ones that make sense..(a minimum size for bogue???!! eh? ) im just not so sure as to how practically this could be enforced as many have already posted,so i think it all boils down to the individual at the present moment,and so i just do my bit and release what im not going to eat or use as bait (Bait e.g kubrita/plamtu/imsell) or what is blatantly obvious as being undersized and let someone else catch them as these vastly intelligent people think.. 

[clutch_kick]

so i think it all boils down to the individual at the present moment,and so i just do my bit and release what im not going to eat or use as bait (Bait e.g kubrita/plamtu/imsell) or what is blatantly obvious as being undersized and let someone else catch them as these vastly intelligent people think..

Amen.

p.s. ... Bogue is 90mm ... LOL

[MartinB]

so i think it all boils down to the individual at the present moment,and so i just do my bit and release what im not going to eat or use as bait (Bait e.g kubrita/plamtu/imsell) or what is blatantly obvious as being undersized and let someone else catch them as these vastly intelligent people think..

Amen.

p.s. ... Bogue is 90mm ... LOL

thanks mate
Now id love to see a future inspector going through a whole bunch of nassi/fish traps of bogue with a ruler checking sizes! it will solve the unemployment problem overnight  
But seriously that's exactly why i commented on it tbh as it just shows me that even a welcome & intelligent legislation in this country is not given the minimal ammount of 'fesability study' time..i mean for f**k sake all they had to do was ask just about any fisherman in this country as to why this would be impossible! or failing that just use good old common sense "rare sense" (see my post above!  ) 

[caldaland]

i just eat what is eatable and release what is not.when i eat pork,chicken,cow,etc,i never ask if they where undersized or not. leaving fish on the pier to rot is a sin but, so is throwing good healthy food in the sea for that matter!be sensible and dont waste.it works both ways.

[shanook]

That was exactly the reasoning done by pioneers in certain countries.......and now we have so many eatable fish, poultry and fowl that are extinct or on the brink of extinction............oh well

[Granitu]

the mediterrenin cuda clutch kick is different from the common cuda we catch.

the mediterranean cuda has a light yellow line throughout it body and does not growmore than 35cm-45cm

the cuda we are catching is the pacific cuda, very common and adaptable. they grow for as much as 4-5kg easily and when they reach full size(they narrate a 6-8kgs examples) they are not edible due to cotogera poison (being a predator and having a polluted sea, they end up dying because of an accumulation of poison from every fish they eat.)

if you catch the med cuda release it because that species is threatened, if you catch the common cuda enjoy your meal. Consider cuda's like rats, they are impossible to contol.

[sg]

According to law, there is no minimum size for the transparent goby
makku) and whitebait (srajdna and nemusa).

The minimum sizes of all other fishes and cephalods, measured overall,  is as follows:

Voparella and Vopa (Box boops) ..................... 90 millimetres

Arznella and Munqara (Smaris vulgaris) ......... 90 millimetres

Trilja or Red Mullets (Mullus barbatus and
Mullus sarmuletus) including Triljetta ........ 100 millimetres

All other fishes ......................................... 115 millimetres

Cephalopods, measured from the anterior side of the eye to the posterior end of the body:
Cuttlefish (sicc) ....................................... 75 millimetres
Squid (klamari) ....................................... 100 millimetres

[clutch_kick]

@ SG ... I think there was an update of the minimum fish sizes, with a more elaborate list of species and sizes.  For example off the top of my head, wreckfish need to be a minimum of around 45cm i think.

@ Granitu ... I did a bit of search online just to clarify what i had in mind, before i write it down.  Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a Mediterranean Barracuda.  The most common species is the European Barracuda (Sphraena Sphyraena), the one you call the rat.
Another common but endemic to the eastern mediterranean shores of Israel and lebanon is the Yellow-Mouth Barracuda (Sphyraena Viridensis).  The Yellow Stripe Barracuda (Sphyraena chrysotaenia) is not endemic to the mediterranean at all! It was one of the fish species introduced to the Med via the Suez Canal.  Hope this helps.

[Granitu]

mm i wonder how they have become so abundant compared to older days....

could it be that they are finding no natural predators to them ( they are ranking in the highest placeof the food chain)

10x for the correction clutch kick good to know

[clutch_kick]

Granitu, Their natural predators have declined a lot in the past few years (when juvenile seabass prey on them, when they grow larger they are preyed up on by large AJ's, Dentex and Dolphins are known to hunt them too).  Barracuda also exhibit a strong cannibalistic nature.

Also, as mentioned before, sea temperature may play a big role in the barracuda population.  Another 'conspiracy theory' that i have heard is that the bloom in barracuda numbers coincides with the introduction of the BFT Farms. in my opinion it does not hold water since other countries like Sicily and Sardegna who do not have BFT farms are still experiencing the large Barracuda catches.

[sg]

i quoted the fishing regulations which can be downloaded from the justice ministry website

[caldaland]

shanook,can you please quote one single species of fish that  "is extinct or on the brink of extinction" just because amature fishermen eats them instead of throwing them half dead to rot in the sea?

[Granitu]

groupers have decreased a lot caldaland....

[caldaland]

since the introduction of aqualungs granitu and not by amature fishermen. 99.9% of amature fishermen dont even fish for grouper!

[clutch_kick]

shanook,can you please quote one single species of fish that  "is extinct or on the brink of extinction" just because amature fishermen eats them instead of throwing them half dead to rot in the sea?

half dead? why would you want to throw a fish back half dead?

ofcourse one needs to use some common sense.  A grouper pulled out of 70m depth will come to the surface with it's swim bladder inflated.  That's useless to release, although there are studies today that these fish can be released after you help them depressurise their swim bladder.