Give Fish A Chance

SSACN’s Give Fish A Chance (GFAC) initiative reflects the fact that many anglers, whilst enjoying their sport and occasionally taking a fish for the table, are keen to do what they can to ensure the minimal impact to the environment and to the fish themselves.

A major component of the initiative is the GFAC Table which for each species gives the size a fish must reach before an angler may be reasonably sure it has had a chance to breed – by adopting these sizes as a ‘minimum landing size’ an angler is doing their bit to help ensure the continuity of that species.

Most anglers also like to have a idea of the weight of a good fish, especially if it appears to be a personal best or of specimen size.

Although there is no doubt that fish can have different weights for the same length dependent on several factors – whether they are gravid, post spawning, sick or healthy, have good access to food-stocks etc., weight estimation based on a fish’s length offers a credible alternative – unlike the spring balances typically in use by anglers, any in-accuracies there may be will be the same for everyone.

You’ll find a ‘calculator ‘ for some of the key ‘white fish’ species in the right hand column and for several shark species here, both will be added to as more data is gathered.

The calculators are based on 1000′s of observations made by a variety of scientific bodies over the past three decades or so, however, if anyone has any historic accurate records of weight / length for any species, they could be very useful in refining the models – just use the ‘Contact Us’ page.

GFAC also consists of a series of advisory notes and voluntary measures aimed at helping an angler to better understand the issues associated with catch and release as well as how to handle fish. To download any paper, just click on the icon in the left hand column of the following table.

	SSACN simplified catch and release - The survival rate of released fish can be greatly improved providing anglers follow a few simple guidelines
	Plastic Dart Tagging Guidelines - Whilst sharks may look big and tough creatures they are actually quite delicate, especially when out of the water so when tagging it is necessary to return them to the water with the minimum of fuss and distress to the fish. Please follow these few simple guidelines.
	Small Shark Handling - This code of best practice has been prepared to assist anglers catch and return small sharks in a way that best ensures they survive the process. It applies most particularly to Spurdog, Smoothhound, Bull Huss and Small Spotted Catshark (doggie or LSD)
	Tagging guide sizes - In the Scottish Shark Tagging Programme we are tagging and collecting data for the following species; tope, smoothhound, spurdog, bull huss, rays and common skate. The paper gives the SSTP minimum tagging sizes for those species.
	Common Skate - code of best practice - This code was written in conjunction with some of Scotland’s top “Catch and Release” recreational sea anglers to help you enjoy the awesome physical challenge of fishing for common skate.
	Common Skate Rig - This rig should be used by all skate fishermen in order to increase their chances of catching a fish and minimising stress to the fish. Images and pattern kindly supplied by Les McBride
	Tope - code of best practice - Whilst tope may look big and tough creatures they are actually quite delicate especially when out of the water. This code has been written so that you can enjoy tope angling but most importantly cause the minimum of damage to any tope you are lucky enough to encounter.

As with all our other pages we are open to receiving original works for topics we haven’t got covered, updates and/or corrections to any we have and requests for any you feel could be of help – all you have to do is email us at contact@ssacn.org.