UK Match Fishing, YOU’RE BEING WATCHED! | Fishery management | A duty of care.

The false illusion of more fish means better sport is a grim representation of our industry. Fishery managers have a duty of care over their livestock just like any other livestock manager. Our industry is getting away with it, just because our livestock are hidden beneath a sheet of water. It’s time to hear some home truths and be held responsible!

Healthy fisheries are high performing fisheries!

This is how disasters happen the ugly end of the industry fish are going on top of fish on top of fish on top of fish they think that the bait is the problem it’s not they’re being caught they’re not being fed a fish kill what happens I

Feel like as an industry we getting away with murder I’m Ben and this is the BP Milling YouTube channel where I make diverse fishery management content to grow your knowledge and help improve your fishery enjoy the video we need to have a little talk about match Fisheries

Because I think that the industry and our sector of fishery management is poorly represented by match fishing lakes they’re usually where you start your fishing Journey as youngsters coming into the sport it might be as a densely populated fishery that you go to to catch smaller species like the roach

The skimmers the perch but I feel like sometimes these venues are actually poorly representing us as an industry and that view comes from working with lots of match Fisheries on the consultancy work that I’ve been involved in with andeles a Fisheries particularly in the early days being involved with

Lots of match fisheries and seeing really the ugly end of the industry where generally the thought is that the more fish the better the fishing it’s the most frustrating part of our job is fishery consultants in helping them the most frustrating part is getting over

That thought that you need a lot of fish for better fishing what other the livestock business business is like Fisheries where you keep on buying livestock and putting them into the same facility and keep buying more livestock every year and put imagine having a shed

Of cattle or you know a field of sheep and putting more and more sheep in that field every single year without taking any Out imagine having a shed with cattle in putting more cattle in every single year and taking nothing out what would you expect to happen the livestock

Are going to deteriorate it’s going to become overpopulated that those sheeper we going to overg graze that field and it’s exactly the same with fisheries and I don’t know why we look at it in a different light well I think I do it’s probably because we can’t see them you

Can drive up to a field of sheep and you can notice that they’re being overgrazed under conditioned if they’re malnourished if they haven’t got any water if they haven’t got any access to food they’re going to quickly deteriorate and you can drive up to that field and Report the the owner or the

Farmer and you don’t get that with Fisheries because you can’t see the fish so if I feel like as an industry we’re getting away with murder and it’s really it’s a livestock welfare issue and it’s something I constantly try to highlight and I know Andrew’s extremely vocal because because it’s so frustrating for

Us because we see it because we actually Harvest fish and we do population management surveys for fisheries and we see it all the time so this is probably the most frustrating aspect is getting people’s heads around you do not need lots of fish for good fishing you need

Healthy fish for good fishing you need stress-free fish for good fishing and you need well-nourished fish that are used to feeding are in great condition and are stress-free and those fish will feed far more frequently than an overpopulated stock of fish the annoying thing is that match Fisheries use that

As their USP is that they have a constant annual stocking program they’ll stock thousands of pounds weights of fish hundreds of thousands of pounds in value of fish they’re putting fish on top of fish on top of fish so if we look at it from a logical point of view that

A livestock facility any livestock facility and any livestock business can only support x amount of livestock if you look at Fisheries if you’re stocking at an Optimum those fish if it’s stocked at an Optimum level if those fish are stress free if they’re healthy if they’ve got ample nutrition they are

Going to grow and they are going to breed so the population biomass is going to multiply year on year if the that environment is healthy and lots of Fisheries like to think that they’ve got a healthy fishery and they try and protect that with lots of bait bands

This that and the other to protect their environment and their livestock holding facility when actually they’re stocking fish every year the fishery manager R remember when they put fish in it fished better and that is because the fish that went in were healthy they’ve come from a

Fish farm they’ve been fed every day and now they’re going into a fishery environment which is overpopulated they’re being caught they’re not being fed any supplementary food in fact there’s bait bands to stop Anglers putting in too much feed because they think that the bait is the problem it’s

Not it’s the overpopulated environment so they remember that that fish better when they put fish in so they put more fish in the next year because the fishing gets crap when those fish climatized the crap environment so they put more fish in the next year it happens again but they quickly climatize

To that environment again and the fish are going on top of fish on top of fish on top of fish and the biomass gets to an unsustainable level and a fish kill happens the key element for me is having the right density to keep the water turbid enough to stop weeds from

Dominating to keep a consistent algo Bloom through the air to keep a nice consistent environment for the fish that are going to thrive and then each year because they’re thriving and growing the biomass is pretty much doubling or tripling in fact in some of our ponds

Over the course of the year we need to be able to forecast for that and then plan for a harvest to crop those fish back to a healthy biomass so each year we have the optimum biomass stocked into the pond to keep coloring the water at the end of the year they’ve grown

They’ve reproduced and we’ve got loads of smaller fish to take out and sell and that’s the constant cycle of farming like is in any livestock business and that’s the key is really highlighting how our industry is not like any other livestock industry because we seem to

Keep stocking fish we keep seem to keep introducing Livestock in into our livestock facilities that doesn’t happen anywhere in any other livestock business if you look at any other livestock business they can see their livestock and they can see when there’s a problem we can’t those fish are covered by a

Canvas that stops us from being able to see how they’re doing so we need to take population surveys that’s why we do what we do like Andrew has a a full-time job that’s his job in consultancy and population management is so that you can manage your livestock and see what’s

Happening and be able to do what a livestock Farm that can see his Livestock in a field being able to see your your Livestock in your Lake hopefully my passion there is shined through enough but that is honestly what we see so much and I just hope that if

This video just triggers one or two of you to realize okay yeah that aligns with what we’ve seen in our fishery we’ve had a good year followed by a bad year you’ve put lots of new fish in the new fish have got caught then it slowed down again and you’re having this

Constant up and down and inconsistency in your fishing too many fish variable water quality high stress environment more mortality and ultimately putting fish on top of fish on top of fish really going far beyond the threshold of your Fisheries holding capability that’s when you get highs scale fish Mortality