We are getting a realistic chance as anglers/stakeholders to improve bass stocks, but it’ll take you getting involved - it’s easy, please do it

If we stand by and do nothing as a collective when we are being given the chance here to potentially directly affect these new “Fishery Management Plans” then we are shooting ourselves in the foot. As UK anglers we have a history of doing nothing and then complaining about it, so how about we actually do something here? Please, please read this blog post in full, and then act upon the (very easy to do) stuff that you are being asked to do. I am going to copy and paste from various sources. From the Angling Trust website here:

Bass Fishery Management Plan Process Begins

It’s a new dawn for UK fisheries management with a new Fisheries Act (2020) and the government’s stated ambition for our fisheries to be ‘World Class’. This is an exciting yet challenging time for sea anglers, who were finally recognised as stakeholders in 2020.

The bass fishery management plan will be one of the first to be developed – a so-called “frontrunner”. Bass is an important species to many recreational sea anglers, and bass angling is a valuable part of the social and economic contribution that sea angling makes to coastal communities. With bass stocks still in poor shape, the government must seize this opportunity to develop an ambitious fishery management plan that maximises socio-economic benefits, whilst securing the health of the stock for future generations.

Policy Lab have been commissioned by Defra to conduct stakeholder analysis and engagement as part of the development of the bass fishery management plan. This process has now begun.

The Angling Trust and Save Our Sea Bass met with the Policy Lab team in early May as part of initial stakeholder discussions to develop the bass fishery management plan. We are already working hard to try to achieve a bass fishery management plan that delivers for recreational sea anglers. We will need your full support as the co-design process gets underway over the coming months.

Members of the recreational sea angling community who wish to engage with Policy Lab now, to inform their stakeholder analysis, can do so by completing this online form here.

The Angling Trust and Save Our Sea Bass will provide sea anglers with updates throughout the process on how they can get involved and get their voices heard.

Hannah Rudd of the Angling Trust said, “If the government is truly willing to act on the recommendations of stakeholders engaging in the co-design process, this potentially represents a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a bass fishery that maximises the socio-economic benefits of the fishery for all society and prioritises improving bass stocks for a sustainable future. We will do everything we can to help achieve this outcome. The government must be ambitious – business-as-usual should not be an option.”

David Curtis of Save Our Sea Bass (the campaigning arm of BASS) said, “ The government must be genuinely open to an ambitious overhaul of the bass fishery. At the moment, we are concerned that the process will be rushed, and the government intends to simply codify its current approach to the management of bass: a patchwork of measures that are poorly considered, unsupported by evidence and, at times, irrational and incoherent.”

I am sure you can think of many things to say when you fill out that online form, but if not then here are a few ideas that might help: fewer large fish being available and that the smaller fish that are prevalent nowadays need protection for them to grow to larger fish. Slot sizes where 50cm to 70cms seems to be the consensus, as has retaining the current bag limit of 2 fish per day for anglers. Enforcement is a big issue with anglers too. The mental health and well-being benefits of angling, etc.

We also need to try and get the fishing tackle trade involved here, and yes, I will be pushing Savage Gear to do their bit. From an email I was sent: “We are keen to highlight what we call the Hidden Value of the Recreational Bass Economy ... the less well-documented and often ignored businesses and jobs created by the bass fishery.” If you are reading this and you are in the trade or if you have any contacts in the trade, please send them here to my blog or to the Angling Trust website page - and get involved. We need to be heard and we need to be fully heard and understood as these processes develop. We all know that the recreational fishing industry based around fishing for bass is worth far, far more than the commercial sector - but we need to prove it. Unless we get involved here then we won’t have a chance of having a say and potentially influencing which way the management of UK bass stocks goes…………