eating coarse/game fish

[Nick Hodgkinson]

I have to say I totally disagree, eel numbers throughout Europe continue to crash and taking elvers from the wild and stocking them into Loch Neagh & other waters for future netting and consumption is sustainable? Surely if Loch Neagh was a sustainable eel fishery there would be no need to top up levels from other sources, so denuding those sources of there brood stock. I think you will find that eels are abundant in certain waters, e.g. the lower Severn but overall in massive decline compared to historical levels.

sorry to be rude but can you read?

Loch Neagh is stocked with elvers from farms - these are NOT elvers taken from the wild

many companies are now farming eels commercially by the way

i generally try to be polite to people but you are really pushing my limits

some eco systems are at risk and as such no commercial fishing is permitted - other systems are performing well and can sustain a level of commercial 'harvest'

its simply checks and balances

 

[Steve Roffey]

Predatory/game fish always seem to taste better than traditional coarse fish which always seem muddy.And yes whilst fishing in India i caught a purple coloured double figure Barbel,the guides called it a pink carp,but it was a Barbel. It went up the bank and was taken back to the camp to be eaten by the guides. After a couple of weeks of just eating Chicken we asked them to bring down some for us ,yep Barbel taste very muddy. The next day we fished for Murrel (a large Indian predatory Snakehead) they were excellent and were cooked like Scampi but tasted better.

I agree, the Murrell(snakehead) are great eating and also very good sport, caught plenty on a light spinning outfit and a Mepps spinner.

 

[Andrew Burt]

sorry to be rude but can you read?

Loch Neagh is stocked with elvers from farms - these are NOT elvers taken from the wild

many companies are now farming eels commercially by the way

i generally try to be polite to people but you are really pushing my limits

some eco systems are at risk and as such no commercial fishing is permitted - other systems are performing well and can sustain a level of commercial 'harvest'

its simply checks and balances

I was concerned about where you wish to go with this and that you are simply after a reaction from a group of anglers who will regard themselves as conservationists. I spend a lot of time working in marine fish conservation work and have seen the sort of argument you seem determined to have many times. The when I looked at your last pompous, antagonistic and ridiculous post about 'farmed raised elvers' I could not believe that a company could claim that elvers originate from anywhere other than the single source in the Sargasso sea and people were being fooled, so I had a look.

I was heartened to see that this was not the case, they are quite open about where these elvers originate and clearly tell the sorry story of the demise of the fishery They do however fail to detail how removing 100 million elvers from the River Severn is deemed sustainable to anywhere else than Loch Neagh and how this could ever aid stock recovery of the European eel. It is yet another example of mis-management for commercial benefit.

Historically, Lough Neagh had an average elver run of 11 – 12 million fish annually. Unfortunately this figure has fallen dramatically since 1983 and the present annual recruitment figure is around 2 – 3 million. It has only been by careful management of the fishery, through the control of fishing intensity and the strict application of a raft of conservation measures, together with significant investment in restocking, that it has been possible to maintain current levels of production from the lough.

Prompted by the decline in natural recruitment, the Co-operative embarked upon a programme of supplementary restocking of glass eels/elvers in 1984. Since then more than 100 million of these juvenile fish from sustainable sources elsewhere in Europe, mostly the Severn River, have been released into Lough Neagh. This approach has helped secure a viable and sustainable future for a large number of fishermen and others who make their living from the eel industry, while playing a vital role in the recovery of the stock levels of the European Eel.

https://www.loughneagheels.com/sustainability/

You say in your post you are sorry to be rude and yet made a conscious decision to do just that. Steve Cotton is 100% correct and should get an immediate public apology from you.

Previously you extol the virtues of Scottish salmon farming, an industry that supplies salmon with toxins into the food chain, millions of tonnes of faeces into waterways and has almost entirely wiped out salmon and sea trout stocks on the west coast of Scotland. Ireland are banning it, Norway moving it ashore, Scotland? Exasperating the problem! The latest great idea is transporting wild wrasse caught in the south UK, transporting them as cleaner fish, (which isn’t very effective anyway), to Scotland where those that do not die on the way have a few years of eating salmon lice to look forward to before being destroyed and going to landfill. If you want to know more about this disgraceful industry just ask you will never eat farmed salmon again. By the way I have previously been a fish farmer and know exactly what goes on.

I look forward to seeing Steve’s apology.

 

[Mark Mole]

Well said Andy.

 

[Paul Whiteing]

Yes, well said Andrew.