Give Fish A Chance (GFAC)
When deciding whether a fish is a suitable size to take for the table many anglers have used their clubs’ competition size limits or government prescribed MLS (minimum landing size) as a guideline.
Unfortunately, neither offer anglers the reassurance that they are adopting an approach which is consistent with stock sustainability, as they bear no relationship to the maturity of a species.
GFAC sizes enable anglers to do their bit to help ensure the future of a species, as they can be reasonably certain that it has had at least one chance to breed.
Each species also has an ‘at risk’ rating reflecting its general status in Scottish waters; obviously we would recommend that anglers think twice before taking any quantity of those rated 3 or 4 without recommending an ‘open-season’ on 2.
Looking down the list you may well think you’ll catch very few that are ‘table-sized’ and none rated as ‘1′ - this is very much a reflection of the state of our stocks and perhaps even more reason why you should support SSACN and all our efforts.
An easily printable version of the table is available here . We would naturally be grateful for any feedback.
Give Fish A Chance
| At Risk | EU Legislated | SSACN – GFAC | |
| Species | Rating | MLS – Cm | Voluntary – Cm |
| Bass | 3 | 36 | 45 |
| Bream (Black) | 2 | None | 30 |
| Brill | 4 | None | 40 |
| Coalfish / Saithe | 3 | 35 | 60 |
| Cod | 4 | 35 | 50 |
| Common Skate | 5 | ||
| Conger | 4 | None | 90 |
| Dab | 3 | None | 25 |
| European Eel | 4 | None | 55 |
| Flounder | 2 | None | 30 |
| Grey Mullet | 4 | None | 45 |
| Gurnard (Grey) | 2 | 20 | 24 |
| Gurnard (Red) | 4 | None | 20 |
| Gurnard (Tub) | 3 | None | 20 |
| Haddock | 3 | 30 | 40 |
| Hake | 4 | 27 | 65 |
| Halibut | 5 | ||
| Herring | 4 | 20 | 25 |
| Horse Mackerel | 4 | 15 | 25 |
| John Dory | 3 | None | 35 |
| Lemon Sole | 3 | None | 25 |
| Lesser Spotted Dogfish | 3 | None | 60 |
| Ling | 4 | 63 | 95 |
| Mackerel | 2 | 30 | 30 |
| Megrim | 3 | 20 | 30 |
| Monkfish | 4 | None | 85 |
| Mullet (Grey) | 4 | None | 45 |
| Mullet (Red) | 4 | None | 24 |
| Plaice | 4 | 27 | 31 |
| Pollack | 3 | 30 | 55 |
| Poor Cod | 2 | None | 23 |
| Porbeagle Shark | 5 | ||
| Pout | 2 | None | 20 |
| Rays (All) | 5 | ||
| Smoothound | 4 | 51 | 85 |
| Sole | 4 | 24 | 30 |
| Spurdog | 5 | ||
| Tope | 5 | ||
| Turbot | 4 | None | 35 |
| Tusk | 4 | None | 50 |
| Whiting | 2 | 27 | 30 |
| Witch | 3 | None | 28 |
| Wolffish | 4 | None | 60 |
| KEY | |||
| 1 | Abundant Stocks | ||
| 2 | Plentiful | ||
| 3 | Holding their own | ||
| 4 | Stocks in trouble | ||
| 5 | Endangered | ||
| Sources :: SFSA, SWSFSA, cefas.org, defra.gov.uk, fao.org, fishbase.org, wikipedia.org, members and contributors to SSACN. | |||
Powered by FireStats