I got this little bundle of joy in the post a couple of day ago. A while back (I forget how long exactly), I agreed to participate in a national sea angling survey. Some of you may remember the ‘Sea Angling 2012’ project that, funnily enough, ran in 2012. Sea Angling 2016 is a follow-up study with a slightly different objective. The SA2012 project was a pretty ambitious undertaking and attempted to provide a broad overview of sea angling in the UK, gathering data on numbers of regular anglers, how much they spent on their fishing, how much time they spent fishing, and what they caught. Whereas SA2012 seemed to be more about getting an idea of the scope of sea angling in the UK and its worth to the economy, SA2016 appears to be much more directed towards the fine details of what sea anglers actually catch and what they do (keep/release) with their catches.
Having picked through the report from Sea Angling 2012 as part of my college work, I came away feeling that the data really wasn’t representative of my experience at all. The survey concluded that mackerel were by far the most numerous species caught by sea anglers, making up 27% of catches. Second and third were whiting and bass at 19% and 10% respectively. Our old friend the dogfish limped in at fourth, making up 6% of total catches. The idea that I could go through a year catching almost twice as many bass as doggies is pretty laughable. Maybe if I spent most of my time fishing in a designated bass nursery area at night it would be possible, otherwise forget it. There is no way that mackerel make up a quarter of my catches either. I reckon I caught around thirty to forty mackerel last year, indeed, I probably caught more cod than mackerel. Not that I actively fish for mackerel all that often but, as I’m sure you will agree, they are the kind of species that you will pick up unintentionally if they are around, and seeing as I do lots of daylight fishing for flatties and such, I should have caught a good deal more if they were still that common.
With this in mind, I was more than happy to sign up to be one of the six hundred anglers participating in the 2016 scheme. The format is simple, I have to record when and where I go, for how long, and details of any fish I catch (species, number of fish, length in cm, whether kept or released etc.). Included in the pack is a tape measure and a notebook with waterproof paper, along with a pretty comprehensive fish ID guide. The session and catch details are logged in a user-friendly online diary. Hopefully I can manage to keep all the records and whatnot in good order and contribute a more accurate picture of what the average all-round sea angler’s yearly catches look like.
I do think surveys like this are important. Without data on recreational sea angling, government bodies literally can’t factor their interests into their decision making. Seeing as sea angling lacks a unified body (the Angling Trust’s attempts to fulfil this role have been pretty much rejected wholesale), sea anglers must appear fragmented, hard to reach and impossible to quantify. I think the bottom line is that if the government doesn’t know who you are and what you contribute to society and the economy in pursuing your interest, why should it care about you? I know that some anglers view this kind of inquiry with suspicion and resent their catches being pried into, but through the course of their activities sea anglers do collect a lot of valuable first-hand information that commercial fishermen and fisheries scientists are less likely to come across or identify patterns in. I think it would be in the interests of all stakeholders for there to be some sort of permanent medium for anglers to report their findings and flag up any concerns so that they can be factored into local marine management strategy. The more complete a picture there is of what is happening out there in the sea, the more effective the reactions can be to subtle changes in the state of play.
For more details on the Sea Angling 2016 project visit: www.substance.net/seaangling2016/.
Having picked through the report from Sea Angling 2012 as part of my college work, I came away feeling that the data really wasn’t representative of my experience at all. The survey concluded that mackerel were by far the most numerous species caught by sea anglers, making up 27% of catches. Second and third were whiting and bass at 19% and 10% respectively. Our old friend the dogfish limped in at fourth, making up 6% of total catches. The idea that I could go through a year catching almost twice as many bass as doggies is pretty laughable. Maybe if I spent most of my time fishing in a designated bass nursery area at night it would be possible, otherwise forget it. There is no way that mackerel make up a quarter of my catches either. I reckon I caught around thirty to forty mackerel last year, indeed, I probably caught more cod than mackerel. Not that I actively fish for mackerel all that often but, as I’m sure you will agree, they are the kind of species that you will pick up unintentionally if they are around, and seeing as I do lots of daylight fishing for flatties and such, I should have caught a good deal more if they were still that common.
With this in mind, I was more than happy to sign up to be one of the six hundred anglers participating in the 2016 scheme. The format is simple, I have to record when and where I go, for how long, and details of any fish I catch (species, number of fish, length in cm, whether kept or released etc.). Included in the pack is a tape measure and a notebook with waterproof paper, along with a pretty comprehensive fish ID guide. The session and catch details are logged in a user-friendly online diary. Hopefully I can manage to keep all the records and whatnot in good order and contribute a more accurate picture of what the average all-round sea angler’s yearly catches look like.
I do think surveys like this are important. Without data on recreational sea angling, government bodies literally can’t factor their interests into their decision making. Seeing as sea angling lacks a unified body (the Angling Trust’s attempts to fulfil this role have been pretty much rejected wholesale), sea anglers must appear fragmented, hard to reach and impossible to quantify. I think the bottom line is that if the government doesn’t know who you are and what you contribute to society and the economy in pursuing your interest, why should it care about you? I know that some anglers view this kind of inquiry with suspicion and resent their catches being pried into, but through the course of their activities sea anglers do collect a lot of valuable first-hand information that commercial fishermen and fisheries scientists are less likely to come across or identify patterns in. I think it would be in the interests of all stakeholders for there to be some sort of permanent medium for anglers to report their findings and flag up any concerns so that they can be factored into local marine management strategy. The more complete a picture there is of what is happening out there in the sea, the more effective the reactions can be to subtle changes in the state of play.
For more details on the Sea Angling 2016 project visit: www.substance.net/seaangling2016/.