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Sea Angler Issue 563 On sale Oct 18 – Nov 14

Want to catch more fish this autumn? Then get your fishing off to a great start by following our 80 tips for success for shore and boat anglers. You’ll find loads of simple pieces of advice throughout the magazine to get you catching.

It looks like moves might be afoot to force all European governments, including the UK, to bring in a registration or licensing system for recreational sea anglers. This news is buried in a Regulation of the European Council to amend earlier laws on fisheries control, and will apply to any recreational fishing activities. This was being talked about several years ago when Sea Angler contributor Dave Barham visited the EU Parliament building. As Dave has now highlighted, if this proposed EU regulation is accepted and posted into the Official Journal of the EU before next March, it will be among the body of EU law that is automatically integrated into UK law until (or if) amended by the UK Government.

The proposal suggests that considering the “significant impacts of the recreational fishing on certain stocks”, it is necessary to provide the means of allowing effective control of recreational fisheries by the Member States.

It continues: “A registration or licensing system should allow a precise census of physical and legal persons participating in recreational fisheries and the collection of reliable data on catches and practices.”

The Council says this is necessary “to evaluate the impact of such fishing practices on stocks and provide Member States and the Commission with the information necessary for an effective management and control of marine biological resources”.

All this calls for Member States to put in place a registration or a licensing system monitoring the number of persons involved in recreational fisheries; and collect data on catches from such fisheries through catch reporting or other data collection mechanisms to be decided.

Member States will have to ensure that those involved in recreational fisheries record and send catch declarations electronically to the competent authorities on a daily basis or after each fishing trip. There could also be a registration or licensing system for vessels used in such recreational fisheries, and the tracking of vessels used for recreational fisheries, and, yes really, the control and marking of gears used for recreational fisheries. The sale of catches from recreational fisheries will be prohibited.

No doubt, this will go down like a lead balloon with many sea anglers opposed to any form of licensing scheme. We will keep you informed of any developments on this one.

It’s worth reminding readers that the EU has amended the bass legislation for 2018, and from October 1 anglers were able to keep one bass a day, subject to the minimum size limit. There have been some big bass caught in the last month and this should continue while the water temperature remains above about 10°C (check out page 38). In addition, we’ve some great bass advice, starting on page 8, along with the story of Henry Gilbey’s 10-pounder, plus some other great doubles on page 18.