The Scottish Government

Forum 2: Question and Answer - Session 1

John Webb, Biologist, Atlantic Salmon Trust:

Could I ask please whether there is a consensus within the Group regarding the main purpose of a weekly close time, particularly for brown trout; and then the next question then is, irrespective of the demand possibly for allowing continuation of fishing for 7 days a week, whether biologically it is currently justified?

David Dunkley: Could I take the first part of that, and palm the second part off to Peter.

The discussions in the Steering Group certainly did not indicate any consensus on the idea of a weekly close time for brown trout, or indeed any other species apart from migratory trout and salmon. I think maybe others would be better qualified than I am but I didn't get the impression that it was something that people thought would have any significant value.

Repeat of question

John Webb: It's really basically whether brown trout stocks in Scotland can continue to sustain a fishery that operates 7 days a week potentially.

Peter Maitland Well, each fishery must be treated on its own, that's my view, and I think it's the consensus view of the Forum, Steering Group, and I think our belief is that at the end of the day we want local management bodies which will look after the appropriate waters and if these waters are over-fished then management will be able to step in and put bag limits and so on on their waters; it's the only reasonable way to manage fisheries. Fisheries information of course we are dependent on anglers for fisheries information to manage the waters so there should be a good match between the fisheries data coming in in terms of catch and the management procedures needed to try to regulate that catch if it seems to be damaging the local fish stock.

Rab Lee, Pike Anglers Alliance for Scotland:

It's with regard to Peter's comments about his ethical concerns for live baiting. Now you were saying that you think it's cruel because fish feel pain. This seems to be contrary to some recent scientific study, but surely if we go down the road if it's cruel to put a hook in a fish, then why should we be fishing for them at all if you are trying to catch them on hooks?

Peter Maitland: Well I think the response to that is that you have a particular object in catching fish. You are trying to catch fish, hopefully with minimum of pain, you are either going to catch them and kill them to eat or you are going to do catch and release and release them. The difference between that and live baiting is that here you are unnecessarily taking live fish, you are impaling them on hooks and causing them pain.

Rab Lee: But surely that's the same thing if you are trying to catch them on a hook you are impaling them on a hook.

Peter Maitland: Oh, yes you are, but you are trying to minimise that. Here you are giving the fish unnecessary pain. It was interesting for me. I tried to see if there was any scientific data on the catching of pike by either live baiting or dead baiting. I could only find one site that gave me information. It was catches of large pike in the British Isles and it was extremely interesting to me that all of the large pike where the method was defined were caught by dead bait. So we are not restricting pike anglers from catching pike by using dead bait.

Rab Lee: Surely you are though because this is a legitimate method all over the world?

Peter Maitland: No it's not all over the world.

Rab Lee: You've named Ireland and Netherlands , but other areas, America , Australia , rest of Europe , this is a legitimate method for catching predatory fish.

Peter Maitland: No that's not true in North America for instance, there are state and provincial regulations in North America related to the use of live bait.

Rab Lee: But there's not an all out ban which is what you are proposing.

Peter Maitland: I can't understand anglers who profess to be interested in fish and regard them with some interest, give them considerable pain in doing this and I should say that the most recent research in Britain from Liverpool has shown in fact that fish do in fact have extremely sensitive pain sensors and there is no question that they do feel pain. Anyone who has kept fish and I have for 60 years can see that in aquarium conditions it's very easy to see that fish can easily detect something like a small parasite on their skin, they try and rub this off. If fish are unwell you can easily tell, just like us they hang about looking rotten, all the fins are down and so on. So there is no question that they do feel pain.

Nick Yonge, Tweed Commissioners:

Could you explain what discussion the Steering Group had about Sunday fishing?

Ron Woods: Do you mean Sunday fishing in general or in relation to salmon and sea trout where it is currently prescribed?

Nick Yonge: Well, in general, but specifically for salmon and sea trout because there is a considerable discussion about whether it should be allowed on Sundays because that it is the day that most people would like to do it but it is the day when it is most frequently not allowed.

Ron Woods: I think the essence of the discussion, and again I am happy to be corrected by any of the Steering Group members, Peter included as the nearest one, but others as well. The essence of the discussion was that there is a general perception of conservation benefit for migratory fish on having a closed day. There was a feeling among some of the people there, and I think perhaps particularly the game angling representatives that shifting that close day to a day of the week when perhaps a higher proportion of the population wasn't working would be seen as a social benefit, I think the converse view that was suggested by some of the perhaps fishery management/fishery science people in the Group was that in order to have the same conservation impact you would have to reduce the angling effort perhaps by 2 days if you were having it on other days of the week, and also bearing in mind that, and I have no statistics on this, that a fairly a high proportion of the population nowadays compared to, say, 50 years ago is free on a Saturday or in fact is working on a Sunday and free other days of the week that there was no universal way of managing the close day thing that wouldn't disadvantage some potential anglers. So on balance I think the general feeling was to stick with the status quo rather than create something else that just gave you a slightly different group of winners and losers.

Peter Maitland: I think the question is, it's really just what you have emphasised. Do salmon and sea trout in Scotland need more pressures at the moment? There's a simple answer to it. No they don't need more pressure.

Nick Yonge: The question really wasn't so much there shouldn't be a closed day, but whether that day should be a Sunday. That's the question I am most commonly asked.

Peter Maitland: Yes, you are giving that question because most people are free on a Sunday but that means a lot of pressure on the fish so if we are taking it off Sunday as Ron says we need perhaps to do 2 close days during the week.

David Dunkley - I maybe shouldn't say anything as Chairman, but I am also a member of the Steering Group, but I think there was also the perception, especially with people who are visiting, perhaps for a week's fishing, you know to have a day off in the middle of it, or 2 days of in the middle of it, would actually cause marketing problems as well so, you know, as Ron says, it doesn't matter which way you carve this up, somebody ends up with rather less than they want, and as Peter says probably the last thing that we need at the moment are increased pressures, increased exploitation levels..

Simon McKelvey, Conon Fishery Board:

Now, I'm sure a lot of people will agree that movement orders would be very, very useful to control the spread of alien species around Scotland . But has the Steering Group got any views on how these licences would be administered and enforced and how this would be resourced as well?

Ron Woods: Well this is the kind of issue that we have constantly come to in the Steering Group. Whichever aspect of fishery management we discuss we come round to the same point, how is it going to be managed and you are going to have to wait until the afternoon to hear about the management proposals that we have been putting together and the issue really is that it is likely that licensing will be done by local management groups. That seems to me, certainly personally, the obvious route because it's in local waters that these fish will be put in and it's the local management group that needs to be sure any introduction is appropriate. But it is a difficult area at the moment, the whole management issue is the most difficult area, it's caused us greatest concern in the Steering Group and you will hear from Andrew the kind of issues that we have been coming up with.

Paul Knight, Salmon & Trout Association:

My first point was really the problem of disturbing salmon and sea trout in a river while fishing for brown trout in a river, the second point was having an open season on rainbow trout, I've fished a lot of fisheries in the south, like the "Itchen" for example which is a wild brown trout and a rainbow trout fishery. I mean, how do you reconcile the fact there may be a by-catch of brown trout in a close season?

Ron Woods: I think the essence of this is again, and I realise it's beginning to sound like a cracked record, but I think the essence of this again is contained within the issues related to local management bodies. And one of the reasons if I can elaborate, one of the reasons that there was such a debate in the Steering Group about close season for grayling for instance wasn't that anybody was particularly opposed to protecting grayling, but rather that it seemed impossible to devise some way of preventing people from fishing for grayling that did not also prevent them for fishing for trout. And I think something of that is coming out in the issue that you are saying. My perception of the Steering Group's view on this is very much that this is something which has to be dealt with on a local level. Patently if you have a single species stocked rainbow trout fishery then it's not an issue and aside from anything regarding the conservation issue which is non-existent in relation to rainbow trout one presumes that it is reasonable to allow people to make their living as best they can by allowing fishing through the year. If you have a water where there are brown trout and there is a serious danger of destructing the brown trout fishing, then it is a question of how that is managed for the best interest of the fish population in the water as a whole, and again I think the same thing is true perhaps in relation to the brown trout and coarse fisheries in waters that also contain migratory species. It may be that there has to be some limitation placed on angler effort or whatever. The advantage of, I'm stepping ahead here, so forgive me. The advantage of some of the things that we are talking about in terms of local management is that by having local management bodies where there is much more integration and a much more holistic look you don't end up with a situation where you have the salmon proprietors wanting to do something for the preservation of the salmon angling but not having any co-regulation over the fishing for the other species or indeed vice versa. So hopefully you will be encouraged by some of the things that come out this afternoon that will help to address that. But I think the bottom line is that it's got to be locally, you know there is a different solution for every water.

Eric McVicar, Salmon and Trout Association: Question for Peter Maitland

Some years ago "Coregonus Lavaretus" were transferred from Loch Lomond to Caron Valley , obviously with Powan being an endangered species this was done ostensibly for their protection, would you say that future operations of that nature would be sanctioned under some sort of provision on the movement of fish?

Peter Maitland: Well all fish movement in the future, if we have proper legislation, will be done under licence and you've mentioned the transfer of Powan to Sloy and to Caron Valley that was done under licence because as you say the Powan is a protected species so in order to do this transfer I had to go through a number of hoops, I had to make sure that scientifically the transfer was acceptable both in terms of what is happening in Loch Lomond and what is happening in, say, Loch Sloy. I had to get a licence from SNH to handle this fish and move it and I also had to get clearance from the Hydro Board for Loch Sloy, the owners of Loch Sloy, so I would see this as being entirely the kind of situation that one would hope might pertain for any movement of fish in the future whether they are rare and protected or whether they are common.

Alexander Fell, Forth Foundation:

Has the Steering Group considered the inconsistency in the legislation for brown trout and sea trout when current scientific advice suggests that they really are one in the same?

Peter Maitland: Yes, we have considered some aspects of that. Just from a personal point of view, I raised the issue in relation to the economic study that was done in relation to fisheries in Scotland and I maintain that we should try to separate the value of sea trout and brown trout on the one hand and salmon on the other as being two species so that we can have a clearer idea of the importance of salmontrata as against salmonsala but we haven't really discussed it. The others in the Steering Group may well come in and I'm sure we'll get some advice from the chair. We haven't discussed this in detail.

Alistair Hume, Dee District Salmon Fishery Board:

For the last while there have been one or two rivers looking at views of maybe trying to extend their season and I noticed on the Steering Group Report that "retain current annual close season provisions including flexibility to adjust at local level". Is the view to clarify the point of flexibility at local level, is the idea being that local boards if they are still in place can do that or would they still be looked at having to go through SEERAD.

David Dunkley: That sounds more like a sort of technical/legal issue. I think that the way the legislation is framed at the moment District Salmon Fishery Boards can apply to Scottish Ministers for changes in the annual close time. When we were talking about enabling provisions and flexibility that's the sort of mechanism that I still had in mind in that instead of being absolutely prescriptive and saying on the face of any Act when the annual close times will be that it will be something similar to what we have for salmon at the moment which is annual close time of a continuous period of not less than 168 days, but of course as you know each salmon fishery district has slightly different starting and stopping times. I still think personally, but the Steering Group, indeed the Forum, are perfectly entitled to comment on this that there is a useful set of checks and balances in the system whereby Boards can make applications but the Instrument is made by the Ministers because that allows for proper full public consultation and advice to be taken from statutory advisers as to whether or not that is in the best interests of sustainable fisheries. So, I think the extension to other things like grayling and coarse fish and what not, you know we were thinking along the same sort of lines in that rather than being absolutely prescriptive with dates in the face of the Bill that we would be providing enabling powers so that Scottish Ministers could make these things upon application a case having been made. But that is as I see it, I don't know if that fits with how the rest of the Steering Group thinks.

Rob Murray, Pike Anglers Club of Great Britain:

Recently the Environment Agency in England and Wales stated there were no grounds to ban live baiting on an animal welfare basis. Does it not just prove the fact that all that is needed is education to ensure anglers do not translocate fish?

Peter Maitland: Well, education is extremely important no matter what legislation we have, we obviously need to have education among people, but of course you don't need too many people moving fish to cause problems, possibly only one bucket of rough into Loch Lomond. There have been bans in England as you know in Cumbria.

Rob Murray; Yes, but not on animal welfare. They were banned purely on the basis that there are endangered species of fish in that water, and they did it to protect those species.

Peter Maitland: Yes, that true but the point is that fish were transferred there and in terms of trying to monitor what is going on it is going to be extremely difficulty for anyone monitoring this to ensure that the bucket of perch, say, that an angler is using beside him has in fact come from that lake as opposed to being brought up from the south or whatever.

Rob Murray: But in the North West where the ban was put in they already had legislation to prevent the live baiting being done by fish outside the area because they had the Section 30s in place. It was the lack of policing that caused translocation. If people know there is a chance they're going to get checked then they won't move fish. It's the same as it's now illegal to use a mobile 'phone when you're driving a car, but how many people do you still see doing it because nobody's getting prosecuted for it. If you put laws in place to prevent the translocation of fish but still allow live baiting and you catch people with buckets of fish in the car and you prosecute them and get headlines then you'll discourage other people from doing it. You don't have to ban live baiting to prevent it.

Peter Maitland: I accept that's an important approach but of course my second issue is the ethical one.

Rob Murray: Well as I say again England and Wales say there is no grounds to ban live baiting on an ethical basic.

Peter Maitland: Yes, well I'm afraid I can't agree with that.

Alastair Stephen, Institute of Fisheries Management:

Following on from that comment about Section 30 down South, I was wondering whether we've got representatives of the EA here that we could hear comments about how they feel that the Section 30 restrictions on movements of fish actually works because I think it may be very useful to see what resources are required up here to do a similar or better job?

Cameron Durie, Environment Agency. We have had control of fish movement by a consenting process for decades now in England and Wales, and like all legislation it works up to a point. Where the legislation doesn't work is for the people who wish to bypass the consenting process so we've still got some people who want to stock fisheries without obtaining the necessary consents, without worrying about what the disease status of the fish they are getting is, without really being too bothered about what species come in the truck. So you've got people who deliberately try to bypass the system and essentially whatever type of consenting process you have it won't deal with that question. That's an enforcement question which more or less along the lines we've just heard from the other side of the room. But the other problem we had particularly, a specific problem which has also been touched on, related to pike angling. And we do have a particular problem with pike angling because the general situation in England and Wales is that if somebody catches the fish in the water that they are intending to fish then they are entitled to use those fish as bait whether they are undersized or not. So that general provision exists. And the majority of people who go pike fishing comply with those provisions but there is still a substantial body of pike anglers who find it easier to take the fish from their garden pond when they go fishing or from the local canal than waste time when they get to the venue at the other end to start your fishing exercises, and we had so many problems in our rare fish waters in the Lake District that the only way we could get round this was to actually introduce a ban on the use of freshwater fish as bait whether those fish were alive or dead for the sort of reasons that Peter's gone into that you cannot prove where those fish came from when you come across somebody on the bank of the lake or loch or whatever in question. So the only argument we could come up with was purely a conservation argument. We didn't deal with the ethical issue about animal welfare and so on because that was deemed to be outside the role that the Agency had been given. Not that the Agency had a stance on animal welfare, it was deemed to be outside the area we were entitled to consider. So really there is no intention at the moment to introduce a general live bait ban in England and Wales other than the specific conservation type of cases that have already been talked about, and I suppose my question which I'll take the opportunity to ask now is whether in fact in Scotland you want to think about a general process that applies everywhere or whether you actually want to give your rare species extra protection that the general ecology may not need, or you think may not need?

Peter Maitland: I'm not sure that I can respond to that properly but perhaps I can give an example which might sort it out a bit. The Powan which has been mentioned already occurs in only two lochs in Scotland. Loch Lomond and Loch Eck. In Loch Eck there are also Arctic Charrs so it is an extremely important Loch for both Powan and Charr. Very fortunately there are no pike in Loch Eck so there has been no pike fishing in Loch Eck and consequently there has been no introduction of coarse fish there. So the fish community there is a pristine community as it was post the ice age in Loch Lomond as I have already mentioned yes there are pike, many pike anglers seeking specimen pike and we now have an additional 6 alien species established there and causing massive changes in the ecology of Loch Lomond. So I think that comparison gives you the kind of problems that arise from one loch to another and of course one of the troubles is that most of our rare fish lakes in Scotland, in England and in Wales, have already, because most of them have pike in them, they already have alien species established in them so in many cases it is really too late to do anything. We try to save the more pristine, especially the Northern waters and I'm not talking about important in terms of rare fish here I'm talking about important in terms of the salmonid fisheries which are important economically there that we protect these from alien species.

David Dunkley: As always with these things, we could go on questioning and answering for ages and ages and ages but time is our enemy. Could I ask you to please take as much advantage as possible of the feedback sheets

Michael Brady, Chairman and Secretary of the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association: We have the task of managing the freshwater and the migratory fish stocks throughout Loch Lomond. In the year, just to give an example, there were anglers from Southport who regularly come up to fish Loch Lomond and it was them during the early 80s that started the introduction of various species of fish, not content to see pike, perch and roach as some of the best pike fish in the world, they wanted to change that fishery into something else. My water bailiffs in 2002 and in 2003 had caught coarse anglers coming up with large white containers with oxygen tanks installed inside them with barble. Their task was to put into the lower river end rate barble. We have other instances of this in other parts of the Loch so the regulation of fish movements is essential. But what the chap over there said is absolutely correct in terms of policing. In game angling there is a cost and in our particular area there is a large cost which the game angler has to pay with regard to poaching and the number of anglers because you are in a heavily populated area fishing without a permit. Now that cost is laid on to the game angler and he accepts that. The freshwater angler at the moment doesn't even pay for a ticket. A lot of them think that they should continue to get it free and if they do decide through the Scottish Office having regulation and legislation to allow us because at the moment we don't get one single penny of money coming in for the freshwater fishing in Loch Lomond which is absolutely disgraceful because Scottish Office legislation hasn't legislated to allow us to make it mandatory to purchase a permit. Now if that takes place and you get the permit and the income coming in where does the money come from ….

David Dunkley: Well can I stop you there Michael because these are things which are going to be going as part of the proceedings later on today when we get into management and funding and things.

Michael Brady: Yes, I agree. But the point is of course where does the money come from. The coarse anglers should pay for their two problems if they want to continue with live bait they pay for it through increased permit prices.

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