Since its conception in 2009 the Angling Trust, and the National Federation of Sea Anglers (NFSA) for many years before that, has been campaigning for greater protection for one of the UK’s premier sporting marine fish – the European bass (Dicentrarchus labrax).

This campaign has been a partnership between the Angling Trust and the Bass Angler’s Sportfishing Society (BASS, also encompassing Save our Sea Bass), and the European Anglers Alliance who have also long campaigned for increased bass conservation. Over recent years the scientific advice published annually by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) has repeatedly shown a stock that is at serious risk of collapse, which is a result of commercial overfishing, successive years of poor recruitment and a lack of coordinated management and harvest control measures.
The key outcomes that the campaign to rebuild bass stocks has sought, and the progress towards these outcomes, are:

• An increased Minimum Conservation Reference Size (Minimum Landing Size) – we have been successful in increasing this from 36 cm to 42 cm, allowing female bass the opportunity to have spawned before capture. 

• An end to the midwater trawling of vulnerable spawning aggregations of bass.

• Hook and line only targeted fishing for bass in 2017 (recreational and commercial) with limited bycatch allowances for unavoidable catches from demersal trawls, seines and gill nets 

• Development of a Bass Long-term Management Plan – in 2015 our campaigning efforts forced the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to agree to work with the Angling Trust and BASS on a Long-term Management Plan for the species. This work is ongoing and we continue to work at an EU level with the European Angler’s Alliance to influence the European-wide management plans.

Major changes in 2015

Bass Campaign in 2016

Unsurprisingly following the lack of action to decrease commercial catches of bass, the 2016 scientific advice from ICES revealed that stocks of bass around the UK and North European coast were below the critical level at which recovery can be guaranteed. Following the publication of this advice, the European Commission proposed that drastic changes be made to the bass fishery in 2017:

• A complete ban on all targeted netting of bass
• A monthly bag limit for anglers, as opposed to the current daily bag limit
• A bycatch allowance for demersal trawls and seines
• A closed period during February and March to protect spawning bass

The Angling Trust and BASS were in full support of these proposals and campaigned strongly to see them implemented in full at the Fishing Opportunities meeting in December. Ministers agreed to a complete ban on all targeted netting of bass but failed to allocate by-catch allowances based on percentage of total weight. Instead, they gave commercial fishermen targeting other species a 250 kg per month bass by-catch allowance, which the Angling Trust has deemed a “political fix”.

The restrictions for recreational anglers failed to change, with a no-take period from January – June inclusive and a one-fish-per-day bag limit from July – December. 

Proposals by the European Commission to ban recreational fishing for bass in 2018 would have criminalised hundreds of thousands of members of the public. Under these proposals, commercial hook & line boats would be allowed to continue to catch up to four tonnes of bass each in 2018 – a measure that would only restrict one per cent of these UK boats.

We also launched a campaign ahead of the fisheries debate in the House of Commons in December calling on the public to email their MPs asking them to support the right of anglers to fish for and keep bass.