IT’S ALL A LOAD OF POLLACKS

There is still a lack of clarity on what a longer-term strategy looks like on how the stocks will recover and how commercial fisheries can remain viable when access to resources is being eroded at every turn. Last year saw a Zero TAC advice from ICES which resulted in a small bycatch allowance for the UK fleet. The aim of the advice was to allow the stock size to recover by 20%, an integral step on the road to full recovery. However, ICES advice for 2025 is still a Zero TAC with a reduced bycatch allowance compared to  2024, for example Area 7 has seen a 17% reduction in bycatch TAC for 2025. Therefore, it can be assumed that the Zero TAC advice is not working, despite the overwhelming impacts to the sectors that relied on pollack as the backbone of their business. We have to ask ourselves why this stringent measure, the most restrictive advice to come from ICES, is not working.

It was felt by all commercial fisheries in the meeting that the reason for this is the complete lack of control the recreational sector is under. ICES acknowledges that recreational removals of Pollack is likely to be a large component of the catch. This was supported by scientists (from the Pollack FISP project) presenting at the RFG as a reasonable assessment that reflects what their data shows. Data from the Pollack FISP that was presented, highlighted that a single recreational charter landed 400kg of pollack in a single trip, it is hard to believe that this is purely for personal consumption. Whilst this was an outlier, average catch of pollack by recreational fishers taking part in the project was 40kg/trip over 807 trips – a potential total removal of over 32 tonnes from the subset of vessels sampled as part of the project.

We have to ask if pollack fisheries are truly considered to have a zero TAC when recreational removals are so great and currently uncontrolled. Defra are keen to roll out voluntary guidelines for the recreational sector to help get a handle on the issue and they wish to give the guidelines a chance to work before seeking further restrictions. The reason for this, as always, a lack of data. However, the Pollack FISP, funded by Defra to the amount of £859,400 is essentially already providing substantial evidence to the scale of the problem. Commercial fisheries see the precautionary principle used when data is lacking, why is this not the same for recreational fisheries, surely this established method should be applied to all removals.

It is a growing concern that commercial fisheries always feel the most impact when compared to the needs of the recreational sector. This is not specific to pollack but is evidenced in bass fisheries and also the fact recreational take of crustacean fisheries is excluded from welfare concerns that are applied to commercial fisheries. In the new world of the UK Fisheries Act and fisheries management plans, we would expect to see more effort given to understanding and controlling the recreational sector to create a level playing field with the commercial sector.

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