Hughs fish fight

[Primrose]

John Walker,

. I watched a programme a couple of years back when an entire shoal of Mackerel were caught and that meant that there was no chance of any escaping the net to recolonize so that entire shoal was wiped out. That is evil!

JB.

What also shocks me is that so many small young & immature fish also die in this process so they have no chance to live out their sometimes long lives and reproduce themselves many times.

Whilst I can see the sense in the suggestion of a complete ban on fishing for several years, I don't think it would work. The whole fishing industry would effectively die out, the ships would decay and generations of fishing and trawling skills would be difficult to train up again, quite apart from the huge loss of livelihoods. What we need is a complete relook at the fishing regulations and quotas to come up with something that eliminates the waste which is currently happening, as well as re-education of the public in their attitudes to the types of fish we are prepared to eat.

Habits are difficult to break, but I do applaud what Hugh F-W and his environmental supporters and fellow chefs are doing. This has obviously been a well planned campaign involving a lot of people and I shall be watching and hoping that with a great deal of public goodwill and support behind them, this is one mountain they may actually be able to move

[Shallot Man]

Seem to recall a program on fishing many moons ago, where they used a net fitted on to a heavy beam that scoured the ocean floor catching everything, and ruining the seabed in the process.

[Johnboy]

Hi Shallot Man,
I suspect that this type of net is used for Scallop Fishing amongst other things like bottom feeders such as Plaice and Sole.
My brother in law who is a diver was always complaining about Russian Trawlers because they used to illegally fish off the Dorset coast but that was some years back and they had flails on the front of the net which destroyed the sea bed. Suspect that they were soon stopped.
I for one never ever shop at Tesco's and either use Morrison's or The Coop and many individual traders for real preference which thankfully we still have in this neck of the woods.
There is a plentiful supply of fish in the sea but we must all be educated to eat a more diverse selection of different species.
This is where the Chefs can make a great difference.
Strange thing is though that Norway, using their common sense methods, have plentiful supplies of the things we have almost fished-out in our waters.
JB.

[Colin_M]

Latest count today was over 291,000 (if you click refresh, you can watch the total rising before your eyes!).

Here's a suggestion: why can't they fish using nets with a bigger mesh size? That way the smaller fish (of some species) wouldn't be caught. From everything that's been said so far, the objective would appear to not catch fish unnecessarily in the first place.

[Primrose]

Thanks for the Refresh tip, Colin. I've sneaked back a couple of times to check how the signatures were totting up.

As regards bigger nets, I'm not sure how this would work because when you see some of the heavy weights of fish which are pulled up, I suspect that any fish which haven't managed to escape while the net was still in the water would still be suffocated and crushed under the weight of all the rest when the net was being pulled in.

We did our bit for the alternative fish campaign today, having mackerel fillets on top of winter roast vegetables. Having avoided mackerel for several years after we were both ill after eating some mackerel which was obviously not very fresh, we decided it was time to try again. But we did find it a little too rich, even in a fairly small quantity.

Do any of you mackerel eaters out there have some recipes or tips for reducing its richness. I'd be happy to try it again if we could resolve this problem; otherwise I don't think we'd be able to face it again very often. Would marinating in lemon juice help?

[Chantal]

I've just signed the petition and from the time I went onto the website until I signed up and then refreshed, a whole 3 minutes, over people 1,000 signed up. The running total went from 298,000 to over 299,000. That's some momentum!

[Primrose]

Chantal - it must have been my threat to drop all my friends from my Christmas card list if they didn't sign up which is making the numbers rise so rapidly

I'm not sure whether it's the general public reaction to the waste, or the power of the internet and networking sites which is driving it.

I see that Tesco have severed their relationship with the Tuna trawling company investigated by Greenpeace for admitting they catch sharks and turtles. . Bet the guy who talked to the Greenpeace girls got his P45 pretty quickly. Sad that innocent people sometimes end up being the victims in these campaigns.

[Primrose]

364,000 as I type. I've signed up to a few petitions over the years but can't remember any which have taken off like this one. I would love to see a map of this country with a little light switching on somewhere as another person signs up. There must be e-mails and Facebook thingies pinging all over the place.

I'd be fascinated to know how widely this campaign has spread and whether many people from other countries are now getting involved.

[richard p]

it seems to me that the ec fishing rules were dreamed up by suits in offices.... we need to goto the fishermen and get them to devise a policy that will let them survive and ensure that their grandchildren can catch fish.... nothing workable will come from a brussels office

[Primrose]

Yes. and force all the suits & MEPs who will be voting on this issue to go out on the trawlers and fishing boats and be forced to see all these dying and dead fish being chucked back overboard. I think they're so divorced from the actual reality of what it's like to be destroying wildlife and perfectly good food unnecessarily that they need a real dose of reality.

It's a lot easier to approve an execution order than it is to be the hangman.

[Tigger]

I find mackerel rich Primrose but it makes a great fish pate (acute accent over the e if I knew how to include it) with low fat cream cheese. Blend it if you prefer a smooth paste. Add other textures such as spring onions, chillies or chopped nuts.

[peter]

Primrose, smoked mackerel with plenty of mashed potato.

[macmac]

Did anyone see the programme last night ?
It was all about the fish we buy and how it's produced,stored and labelled.
Blimey what an eye opener.I thought when I paid for fresh i.e.not frozen fish that's what I was getting,sadly not always
I live in WSM and we had two splendid wet fish shops now sadly closed no doubt due to the big supermarkets and their "fresh" fish counters.
Now where did I put me rod ?

[Primrose]

Yes, I did watch last night and was pretty shocked. I too had assumed that everything sold as "fresh" fish was actually just that, and had not been previously frozen. We'll be looking at the labels on supermarket fish counters a lot more carefully from now on. And as for Tiger Prawns, much as I love them in Chinese recipes, I think I'll be a lot more wary about eating them now after seeing their provenance, or lack of it.

We do manage to get down to Eastbourne fairly regularly and usually buy our fresh fish from a Fisherman's shop on the seafront where we feel much happier buying our fish there than from a supermarket counter. (And most of the guys who work in there are volunteer crew for the RNLI, so that's another reason to support them.)

[Colin_M]

Do any of you mackerel eaters out there have some recipes or tips for reducing its richness.

I often fry Mackerel fillets with onion, garlic, bayleaves & oregano then when nicely done, add a tin of tomatoes. Simmer gently for around 10 minutes, adding a couple of teaspoons of red wine vinegar part way through.

This gives a full flavoured dish that's great with a baked potato, rice or couscous. The vinegar and tomato help cut through the richness and leave you with a nice full flavour.