Labrax Squad

As the European Fisheries ministers still deem it unnecessary to take strict emergency measures for the Bay of Biscay, the annual commercial slaughter of bass that assemble on the local spawning grounds in winter has taken place once again. Although the first trimester is supposed to be the 'high season' for commercial fishermen, figures from the French government institution AGRIMER show that bass landings have plummeted once again – like they have been doing since 2014.

After bass landings have gone down considerably in 2015 and 2016, the first trimester of 2017 confirms this worrying trend. In absence of any real protection measure, bass stocks are dwindling in the Bay of Biscay. With limited supply, prices are going up and consequently fishing effort is intensified. Hence the vicious circle is reinforced. If no sustainable bass management is put into place, bass stocks in the Bay of Biscay will soon go down the same sad route as stocks in the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean…

The name of the lure refers to Nasu no Yoichi, a samurai who fought in the Genpei war (1180-1185). In the Battle of Yashima in 1184 he sat atop his horse in the rocking waves, but still managed to shoot down a fan provokingly placed upon a pole on an enemy ship with only one shot. In angling terms that would roughly translate to catching a really big bass on the first cast.

May usually is the month when the bass season in the Netherlands really kicks off. That was the reason for the chief-editor of Zeehengelsport to ask Jelmer for a contribution about bass fishing. The subject of the article? Lures. His top ten bass lures, to be more precise. Hard baits and soft plastics, modern JDM stuff and old school Dutch classics – it’s all thrown into the mix. Make sure to pick up a copy of Zeehengelsport at your local bookstore in the beginning of June!

The recent results from a study on bass migration in Cork harbour not only proved that bass display long-term residency and inter-annual fidelity to specific areas. It also demonstrated that all fish that were captured, tagged and released, survived the experience. Local Irish bass anglers did the first part of the job, using rod, line and lures. By treating the fish carefully and releasing them to the water quickly, bass will survive the encounter with an angler.

This points to catch & release angling to be the way forward to promoting good fishing and healthy bass stocks. The latter is no surprise when you look at the table below. The bigger an adult female bass gets, the more eggs she will produce for every kilo body weight. Given the fact that bass is a slow growing species, it is important to keep the spawning stock biomass as big as possible – especially now this parameter is below the biomass limit reference point. 

Of course anglers certainly are not the only ones to chip in here. Heck, from a sustainable fish stocks management point of view recreational angling should be highly favoured over commercial fishing – which has depleted bass stocks in the Northeast Atlantic over the last few decades. But then again, every little contribution counts when it comes to safeguarding the future of our bass.

Wind speed is a meteorological factor that affects bass swimming behaviour. For example, wind speed higher than 8 ms–1 increases swimming activity. One of the effects of wind on coastal waters is the generation of waves and turbulence in the breaking zone. Moderate turbulence increases contact rates between predator and prey, therefore stimulating bass to feed – it’s no wonder bass anglers like to see fizzing conditions for their fishing.

However, too much turbulence – mainly in extreme events like storms – also has negative effects. Especially for bass larvae inhabiting estuarine environments. High turbulence conditions increase diffusive mixing, and negatively affect swimming speed and performance. Moreover, the hydro-mechanical signals and sensory field that bass larvae use to detect prey, may be blurred. As a result the success of pursuit, the attack efficiency, and the capture of prey are reduced. Thus turbulence acts as a limiting factor for feeding activity of bass larvae.

Due to the northward expansion of bass populations, seasonal migration occurs less frequently in recent years. Research has revealed that more and more adult bass seem to hibernate and presumably also spawn in the southern North Sea. Indicators for this assumption are the discovery of early stage bass eggs and bass larvae around the Dogger Bank and west of the Voordelta (the coastal area located to the west of the islands of the Dutch provinces of South Holland and Zeeland, around the deltas of Haringvliet, Grevelingen and Oosterschelde) during IMARES surveys. The idea that bass spawn in the Dutch and Belgian part of the North Sea is confirmed by market sampling research of landed bass in the Netherlands (Bierman et al. 2010).

A team of Irish scientists – led by Dr. tom Doyle of NUIG – monitored the movements of sea bass in Cork harbour over a period of three years using acoustic tags. They found that the vast majority of tagged sea bass stayed for 167 days on average in one place, and had a 93% return rate to specific areas. Individual fish had ‘core’ residential areas, swimming in a radius of 3km or less. Sometimes bass were so parochial that even the east and west siders wouldn’t mix.

“Knowing that sea bass return to the same little patch of coastal water each year is absolutely fascinating, and asks so many questions about how they navigate and recognise when they are home”, Dr Doyle says. “But it also has important implications for the conservation of this species. Overfishing of these local populations may take tens of years or longer to recover as any recruitment to these coastal areas may be initially due to chance”, he told The Irish Times.

Local anglers worked closely with the researchers during the study. Their expertise was essential for the success of the project as they caught the fish which were tagged. Co-author Jim Clohessy from Cork Angling Hub said the tagging study represented a phenomenal marriage between science and angling. The importance of ‘Citizen Science’ in supporting bass research is evident: bass is the only marine fish species in Ireland that is managed exclusively for angling.

In bass fishing you never know what you are going to get. There are so many factors involved, that it’s usually merely an educated guess on behalf of the angler what will be the outcome of the time spent chucking out lures. This can be frustrating sometimes – there are occasions that make you want to pull out your hair – but it’s also one of the reasons that make bass fishing such a great pastime. If we knew the result beforehand, the joy and fun of catching fish would be drastically reduced. The element of surprise is key here.

That morning on a particular piece of the French shoreline was a prime example of what makes bass fishing so great. I didn’t know the mark, simply took a punt and hoped for the best – including that the approaching storm (which prevented a boat fishing trip that day) stayed away for a while. The first hour all was quiet, but as soon as the outgoing tide started running things got going. Surface lures did the trick when the water was still relatively high, soft plastics on lightweight jig heads were the key to success towards the end of the ebb tide. A couple of hours later I had caught a nice mixed bag of wrasse and bass – and a big smile on my face. Right time, right place? We can only guess.

In the Netherlands the bass season usually starts somewhere in May and runs until mid-November. During the winter break we sort out and clean our gear, do ‘some’ fishing tackle shopping and turn to lure fishing for fresh water predators like perch and zander. This keeps us busy till the end of March. And that’s when things get tricky.

The closed season for lure fishing in inland waters starts on 1 April (no joke!) and lasts until the end of May. At the same time spring announces itself. The urge to go bass fishing is fueled by catch reports from other parts of Europe where they enjoy an earlier start of the season. However, the rise of the sea water temperature in our neck of the woods always seems to take ages.

Experiences in previous years have taught us to remain calm and not to hurry the first bass session of the year – a considerable number of consecutive (and logically expected) blanks just ain’t the way to kick off the season. So in the next couple of weeks we’ll try to be zen and keep our cool. Heck, we might even go float fishing for carp to pass the time...

The focus at this seminar called ‘Sustainable fisheries management and recreational sea fisheries: socio-economic value, data collection and data use in EU and US management’ on March 8 focused mainly on recreational sea angling - the biggest of the recreational segments measured in number of participants and economic impact. Europe’s 8 to 10 million recreational sea anglers spend on average about € 1,000 annually per person on their activity, an estimated total of 8-10 billion euro.

However, to this date the EU institutions have shown little interest in recreational angling. In the current Common Fisheries Policy, the recreational sector is not recognised or managed in its own right or on an equal footing with commercial fisheries and aquaculture. “This has to change”, Mr. Jean-Claude Bel (CEO of the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association) said. “Recreational angling is a sustainable activity of immense importance to European citizens and businesses. The recreational fisheries sector wants, and deserves, full recognition in the Common Fisheries Policy when it is up for revision, if not before.”