Portuguese May Cull Carp And Catfish

Choas reigns supreme in Portugal again after government agencies voiced plans to kill all ‘exotic species’ in the nation’s waterways........


The list of fish includes carp, pike, perch, largemouth bass and the wels catfish to name just a few .


The move could be devastate to the Portuguese tackle trade, which is still recovering from the hammer blow handed to sea anglers in the form of a sea fishing licence introduced two years ago.

But the main focus will be to eradicate carp from Portugal’s waterways.

“Most Portuguese anglers are saltwater specialists. The few that do fish the inland waterways find them to be full of carp and bass .
“The proposal, if it gets passed as law this will mean that anglers are supposed to kill any fish they catch.

fully story

http://www.tackletradeworldmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=311&Itemid=1

don’t think that this will happen but then again, Get some politicians round a table and give them something they know F**k all about and I’m sure they can screw it up

why is it a problem removing non native species?

There are plenty of other species that could be removed here in the UK for example signal Cray fish or my favorite the mink but then again I know fisheries that have been devastated by people reintroducing Otters back into the wild but like the Zanda it normally evens it self out in the end.
I can see your point but if we stuck with that we would have no carp and zanda in our waters (in some people eye that’s a good thing) But I see it like this Portugal is not a poor country by world standards. Its GDP per capita is about 75% of British or French, also in terms of technology and infrastructure it's not very far away now . The difference between Portugal and Northern-European countries is still visible but it tends to diminish rapidly if somthing goes slighty wrong, the bulk of the country money comes from tourism. Tourism is playing an increasingly important role in Portugal's economy The potential in angling tourism is massive. Why would you try and kill millions of euros of tourism money off. As stated in the article the notion has arisen because of Portugal’s ongoing problem with supplying freshwater.
“Plant life diversity is being mentioned but the real problem is the water. In the summer it is so hot there that there is no freshwater – the rivers dry up and the plants die. Killing ‘exotic species’ is not going to stop that problem.” Its far to late to remove these fish now its like the match angler every time he catches a pike throws it in a bush is he right to do this?

Any way most Protégées are into sea fishing and that’s another thing that a lot of us don’t relies is how good the big game fishing is out there


http://ukfishingforums.darkbb.com/sea-fishing-f10/big-game-fishing-in-madeira-t1538.htm

It’s a great county and its not about removing the carp its about its economy and how it would knock on. )in my Eyes)

ok fair point but how much of its gdp is supplied by angling tourism?
i suppose to be fair it should be freshwater tourism alone but i cant see those figures being readily available

for all my bluster about carp cats zander etc

its only in open water courses there is a problem, in contained systems for me we could have allsorts id like to see some largemouth bass etc, but only if they could be guarenteed not to spread

noodle wrote:ok fair point but how much of its gdp is supplied by angling tourism?
i suppose to be fair it should be freshwater tourism alone but i cant see those figures being readily available

for all my bluster about carp cats zander etc

its only in open water courses there is a problem, in contained systems for me we could have allsorts id like to see some largemouth bass etc, but only if they could be guarenteed not to spread

You might know this but the reason Dan and I met was my love of tropical fish I have kept large predatory fish for years. I have even got a nice channel cat in my pond in the garden but I looked into the Bass thing a few years back. One problem in England may be we might not have warm enough summer temperatures. They require warmth during their growing season (even if it's brief) to grow rapidly and large. They exist in cool summer water fisheries but usually are kind of stunted. They do not feed during spawning; as well as when the water temperature is below 5°C so I think we would end up with shoals of what could be the equivalent of a maggot sucking Perch Not the big bad boys your after Mr Noodle.

how big did your channel gets get

we have em in a canal that are getting close on to 20's

noodle wrote:how big did your channel gets get

we have em in a canal that are getting close on to 20's

they get large this is my one



you can see him on the left of the ghost

i would say 5-6lb

but this is what they can turn into



the thing is this coldwater Catfish will tolerate a wide range of water conditions so it can do well here but is small when put next to the wels catfish.


As of November 1998 in the U.K.you must have a licence to keep the above species. This licence is now issued free, but does take a few months to process. For more information log on to the DEFRA site.

This has really f**ked the tackle trade in portugal my cousin says that the majority of guys he fishes with on the shore are fishing illegally (no licence) i asked him how it had stopped people buying tackle he reckons that people had boycotted the shores for a while but he reckons things are starting to improve.