Fishing industry doomed?

[Annie]

Fishermen with multimillion pound bank loans for boats KNEW what the quotas were, and KNEW exactly how much black they'd have to land to pay for it. They went into it with their eyes open.

Sad, but true!

[dunoon]

safe to say with hindsight from a safe distance

iceland recently impossed a zone in which they will hunt whales, funny thing is their waters come within about 40 miles of the scottish coast.

if its agood enough reason to invade iraq to ensure an oil supply, then its a good enough reason to blow french, spanish, danish, icelandic, russian and portuguese factory trawlers out of the water to ensure fish supplies.

i once visited a portuguese fish market on xmas day as the boats were landing, big 40m trawlers home from fishing off rockall, the size of the hake they were landing was no bigger than your finger, ( they had a security guard throw me out when i complained) and it's all the fault of scottish fishermen lying about their catches?

spain has less fishery officers than peterhead, spain, portugal and france still give grants for new builds while scottish boats are being broken up.

danish factory, industrial trawlers in the north sea hoover up everything in their path to feed their pigs so you can eat danish bacon?

some may lie for greed, but i'm sure an overdraft in high five figures and a bank loan for a million or two would make liars of us all.

i'm disappointed, poacher turned gamekeeper, turned judge and jury!!!!!

This is all true, but so is the fact that overfishing and lying about it by Scottish fisherman have been the cause of the apparent demise of the Haddock and Cod stocks. Peterhead was built on the backs of undersized Haddies. It's NOT the Spaniards or Portuguese or the Danes fault, sure they contributed to it, and yes the Spaniards don't police their fishery. When was the last time France or Spain submitted figures to Brussels, if ever. They submit estimates, which are about as accurate as the UK figures. Sh!te in Sh!te out.

Fishermen with multimillion pound bank loans for boats KNEW what the quotas were, and KNEW exactly how much black they'd have to land to pay for it. They went into it with their eyes open.

I know the guy who admitted scuttling his boat for the insurance, what was it 750,000? He was at the end of his tether, but he KNEW what he was getting into when he bought the boat.

Have to FULLY support sweltered here - having done the same job at Peterhead. Scottish fishermen have no-one to blame but themselves. I saw cod recoded as dogfish, tonnes of illegal fish driven away in lorries as large amount of cash changed hands - some people got very very rich out of all of this. And was anyone ever prosecuted - naw. maybe some of the wee guys were but teh big guns knew exactly whose pockets to line and it certainly wasn't mine.

[EMDEE]

Apart from observations about the Scottish fishing industry, I think we are talking about a global issue, unless you are saying that the Scottish dimension is typical. If this is the case, then we have shot ourselves in the foot.

What about the wider global warming issue?

[Sweltered]

Apart from observations about the Scottish fishing industry, I think we are talking about a global issue, unless you are saying that the Scottish dimension is typical. If this is the case, then we have shot ourselves in the foot.

What about the wider global warming issue?

There's always some other excuse, Global warming, the seals ate the fish. You can't get away from the fact that hundreds of thousands of tons of immature fish are caught every year. The Scottish fishermen refused to co operate with the scientists, to provide accurate data. Every other country was the same, but that's no excuse. I can only write about what I saw on a daily basis for 11 years. It's not so much the overfishing that annoys me , its the hypocracy & lies, and the failure to be accountable for what they do.

Plenty were caught at it, the courts gave them a slap on the wrist, until the owners of the shetland boat were done earlier this year, I believe that cost them about a million. A drop in the ocean (pardon the pun) to those guys.

What Dunoon said was true, I once saw over 1000 boxes of Saithe in Peterhead fishmarket, which were reported in official records & the newspaper report as Cod. The fishermen should have been prosecuted, becasuse the landing of this species was banned, but since the officials turned a blind eye, nothing was done.

[big tony]

seems some folk forget what paid for their claithes and shoes when they were growin up?

too young to remember three mile limits and quota restrictions in the clyde?

no much difference in my book, but then you never look at yir ain door

[Sweltered]

seems some folk forget what paid for their claithes and shoes when they were growin up?

too young to remember three mile limits and quota restrictions in the clyde?

no much difference in my book, but then you never look at yir ain door

If you have a point, please make it.

I'm dealing in facts, not sentiment. I know what I saw. I really don't care that they did it, but it annoys me when they deny it and lie about it, and refuse to take ANY responsibility.

[big tony]

that is my point, you go on about greedy fishermen breaking rules and making illegal landings, i'm saying that things were no different in the clyde during the sixties where every day the rules were broken, every day was a battle against fishery protection boats to make a living, doesn't matter if it was for a few pounds or a million, its just the same, thats the world i was brought up in, i remember the stories about hiding trawl doors when the cutter was steaming over the horizon, i have charts with the three mile limit marked on them and if it hadn't been lifted then of course there wouldn't have been a fleet in the clyde by the mid seventies. in the fifties more than a few ended up down a pit to try and make a living, but of course that was before your time
if the CFP had never exsisted and things were the same, then ok, blame the fishermen, but as it does exsist and has done for over thirty years then i don't think you can lay the blame solely at the door of scottish fleet.

there are more foreign boats fishing british waters than there are scottish, every day, they don't land into british ports they don't record their catches, they're not policed as rigouresly as scottish boats in their own ports, and they don't play by the same rules when it comes to mesh sizes,fish sizes or days at sea. you blame what you saw, which as only a small part of the jigsaw.

i suppose the families of three men that lost their lives last week as they were reduced to guarding a pipeline will feel a whole lot better knowing well at least they didn't die fishing over their quota!!!!

can't seem to recall many fishery officers losing their lives doing their jobs in recent years?

I remember the front page headlines for events in that area when they tried to stop CN queenie boats fishing, or remember the blockades in 73? i was only 11 but i was there and knew the significance of it.

how do you think farmers would react if french farmers were growing potatoes on the british farmers land and the british farmer was restricted as to how many potatoes he could grow, how many days he could work the fields and his potatoes measured to make sure they were the right size. all the while the french farmer was thumbing his nose at all these regulations from within view of the farmhouse window?

i suppose over in the good old us of a they would just invade another farmers field for his potatoes and liberate the supply of mash for the good of the free world

20yrs and my health i gave to the fishing industry and hated every day of it, but i reserve the right to support them to my dying breath, maybe an independant scotland will give them a break.

ever wondered what its like inside an iraqi insurgents brain? take a look in mine, the more i look at it the more i think we should have gone down the irish road long ago

brits out

[petewick]

It's like everything else, all good things come to an end, and if you don't like it, change it.
Accept, overcome and move on.


petewick

[big tony]

spoken like a man that never worked a 100hr week and never knew where his next pound was coming from?

how he was going to pay the mortgage or the bank or his crew!!

i'm not going to add anything more to this topic, how do you make those that can never know what it's like understand?

its either in your blood or it isn't, its not like working on a production line making cars or in a call centre answering phones, the only thing that can begin to compare is the small corner shop owner, watching everone pass his window on the way to tesco, he still has to open at 7am to get the few loyal customers, still has to work till late cos he can't afford to pay staff, still has to stock his shelves because you need to have what the few customers you get want, otherwise its off to tesco and they don't come back.

no wonder theres such a high rate of alchoholism and marraige break ups in the fishing industry, drugs now too, i had to stop for health reasons and i count myself as one of the lucky ones!!!!

[petewick]

spoken like a man that never worked a 100hr week and never knew where his next pound was coming from?

how he was going to pay the mortgage or the bank or his crew!!

Planned ahead and be aware of personal limitations!

[big tony]

maybes aye!! maybes no?

my personal limitations are multiple sclerosis

whats your reasons for sitting posting on a forum in the middle of the day?

[petewick]

I'm off on holiday at the moment, back in the wee toon which I truely love.
Edited by Admin
As for your illlness Tony, one of my family suffered that for years and is sadly no longer with us.
A young person who even after being diagnosed kept her head up, kept fighting and looked for the good things that came her way, always concentrating in the positives, the MS words never passed her lips.
Sorry guys that is totally off thread.
Fishing industry doomed maybes aye, maybes no, see the front page of todays Oban Times.


petewick

[Malky]

This was going off topic and some posts were inappropriate to the original subject. These have been removed.

Malky

[Reidiboy]

that is my point, you go on about greedy fishermen breaking rules and making illegal landings, i'm saying that things were no different in the clyde during the sixties where every day the rules were broken, every day was a battle against fishery protection boats to make a living, doesn't matter if it was for a few pounds or a million, its just the same, thats the world i was brought up in, i remember the stories about hiding trawl doors when the cutter was steaming over the horizon, i have charts with the three mile limit marked on them and if it hadn't been lifted then of course there wouldn't have been a fleet in the clyde by the mid seventies. in the fifties more than a few ended up down a pit to try and make a living, but of course that was before your time
if the CFP had never exsisted and things were the same, then ok, blame the fishermen, but as it does exsist and has done for over thirty years then i don't think you can lay the blame solely at the door of scottish fleet.

there are more foreign boats fishing british waters than there are scottish, every day, they don't land into british ports they don't record their catches, they're not policed as rigouresly as scottish boats in their own ports, and they don't play by the same rules when it comes to mesh sizes,fish sizes or days at sea. you blame what you saw, which as only a small part of the jigsaw.

can't seem to recall many fishery officers losing their lives doing their jobs in recent years?

Blackfish is a thing that you rarely come across nowadays. With the introduction of the Registration of Buyers and Sellers system, the opportunity to land and sell blackfish has virtually ceased to exist. Its more the case of the mis-reporting of the area of capture of fish thats a problem. I have known vessels to steam hundreds of miles to cross from one area into another, "tow" for a few hours and record 20t+ fish caught in that area AND be in port two hours later with the deck clear, all fish boxed and iced AND be labelled with labels dated from the previous day at the earliest. Most fishing vessels have AIS systems aboard them which picks up the FPVs a considerable distance away so if they are up to anything that they shouldnt be they can either put the hammer down and steam in the opposite direction or take appropriate measures to make sure that they are complying with all rules and regulations.

There may be more Foriegn or Foriegn crewed but British owned vessels fishing in British waters than British vessels but there is more Scottish vessels fishing in Scottish waters than Foriegn vessels, being British owned or not, fishing in Scottish waters. Its just that some of the Foriegn vessels have perhaps a larger quota available to them for certain species than the Scottish vessels i.e most deep water species. These Foriegn vessels do land into Scottish ports, take Lochinver and Ullapool for example. Hardly a day goes by without at least one Foriegn vessel landing at either port and I can assure you, they ARE checked thoroughly when they land into Scotland. There is no favoritism, everyone is treated the same no matter what flag the vessel is flying. There are steps being made to set up an agency in Vigo that will monitor and control the landings made into Spain which in my personal opinion is long overdue.

As for comparing the jobs of fishermen with the jobs of fishery officers, what point are you trying to make? They are not in the slightest degree the same.

Rant over!

[Sweltered]

Sounds like they've taken all the fun out of it! Still I suppose that it's done away with the surveillance teams sitting outside your house, peering in your windows. Now theres a nice feeling for you, no wonder I was I was paranoid!

I can remember numerous landings fron VIIa which would have needed steamming speed of 40 knots to accomplish!