Seal Hunting
- Thread starter Ade8mm
- Start date
levigsp
Well-Known Member
Thats because the mackerel season is the same as salmon netting season.We went through a spell of finding seal corpses washed up on the beaches here, they had all been shot with heavy loads from shotguns, never got to the bottom of who was doing it or why but happened when the mackerel were in season , to be honest you would think there would have been enough mackerel for everyone to enjoy including the seals
If you catch a seal in a salmon bag net its nigh on impossible to remove it alive and if you did, it would be back in in no time.
So a decent load of buckshot sorts it out.
I used to carry an old astra single for that very purpose.
When you get them out of the net after shooting, they sink for a few days, only to reappear on a beach somewhere, hence my earlier statement about " perfect for tourists pet dogs"
I cut one up to use as longline and pot bait once. I think it was a bit past its best, though. To this day I can remember my newly-wedded wife (who gets seasick at the best of times) sitting in the bottom of the boat trying to bait up a hundred hooks with stinking seal meat as we bobbed about on a rolling swell. It was not the finest hour of our relationship.
Fishy pork ? No kidding they need local culling if we are to save salmon and seatrout stocks in some rivers, its an apex predator until these white sharks show more .
Try getting it through Parliament though............ !? You will have Mrs Smith from the midlands making a heck of a fuss etc. etc.
Problem is no natural predators and full legal protection , no government with the stones required to do something
Try getting it through Parliament though............ !? You will have Mrs Smith from the midlands making a heck of a fuss etc. etc.
Problem is no natural predators and full legal protection , no government with the stones required to do something
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
I understand the frustration with seals. But the fundamental issue with diminishing salmon and other fish stocks are not a few apex predators, but pollution and environmental damage caused by man.
We have polluted the rivers so numbers of fry and small parr down to the sea are much reduced. Human sewerage covers spawning beds.
Then when the get to the sea the population of placton, krill, small fish, sand eels etc etc have been wiped out. Trawlers, especially seas bed trawlers that plough up the seabed killing all the kelp forests don’t help. Populations of krill etc have collapsed and they are the basis of the food chain.
So all the small parr don’t have a chance to grow into big salmon. So only a proportion then return to the rivers.
A lot of blame quite rightly is focused on salmon farms - they are just one contributing factor.
If you look back in history, wild Salmon netting stations would catch hundreds of fish each month and did so so for centuries. Salmon was food for the poor.
If you look at salmon rivers in Alaska where there are still wild salmon runs there are huge volumes of salmon running each year. More than enough to support large populations of sea lions, beats, wolves, eagles etc and plenty for both commercial and sport fishermen.
The trouble with the sea is that the damage is below the waves and not visible. As for all the rewilding bollox, a far far more effective spend of money would be to buy out big sea bed trawlers and to all the sea bed and kelp forests to recover. Kelp abd other seaweeds and micro algae grow at a huge rate and suck up huge amounts of CO2. And they don’t need planting etc.
It just needs man to stop causing the damage.
One of the huge benefits of the offshore wind farms is no fishing in amongst them. This is creating very effective breeding grounds for fish.
I was talking with one of the river keeps on the Helmsdale last year. He was saying most of the local seals now don’t bother with river mouths - they travel out to wind farms to feed.
No.But, did it work well as bait?
That is the bit of most interest
Ade8mm
Well-Known Member
Dunno but if they "stood out better" against a white background I suspect they would have died out long before .
You must be some sort of "creationist" ?
Ade
Ade8mm
Well-Known Member
Double bugger then.
Reminds me of when I took Mrs Ade8mm on an offroad driving day with my "go anywhere" tricked-out LR Ninety, winch, diff-guards, , jackable sills, 32"mud-plugger tyres snorkel er.al
Mother's day with the lad who was about three at the time.
We spent a stressfull hour or so with stuck in a rather deep mud/hole/pond with water in the cab up to our knees. Only to suffer the the ignominy of being pull- out by a Suzuki.
She still delights in reminding me.
I now use a Suzuki Jimny ! -long story
Sorry to Hi-jack my own thread!
Oh yes that reminds me I had a "Hi-Lift" jack as well. Still have that . Great for pulling fence posts
Happy days. (Wish I still
had that truck, truth be known)
Maybe we should start an SD confessional thread if members aren't too precious?
Last edited:
reiver
Well-Known Member
They used to do that up nr sea houses years ago !
Of course its not the sole reason . However the turbines in my area are devoid of life practically no fish there . some say its sonic vibrations others say its damage to the sea bed . All i can say is turbine sites are not always a draw to fish , often the opposite.
Seals when in over population in an estuary are a massive issue and they have previously been culled for hundreds of years to protect fish stocks and keep nature in balance . Look we now have definitive proof of great white sharks in our waters , why ? They aint coming here to feed on mackerel but they are a serious Seal eater .
Just like on land with foxes , seals need control by man and they always have had that control until very recent times . As an ex-river keeper i can tell you the seals swam 20 odd miles up to my beat and they where not lost they came to one particular weir that fish could only pass with a decent flow coming down it . They aint stupid by any account and have a good memory and pass information on to the rest of the group .
Many folks will live in areas where there are simply too many seals , nobody wants them gone but the numbers are genuinely too high in many areas .
Spawning beds for Salmonids ( Redds) are usually in the headwaters of river systems.
The land around these spawning areas have mostly been planted with commercial softwood and this softwood leaches acid into the watercourses which in turn raises the ph of the water and kills the eggs of the fish.
Forestry companies know this.
The land around these spawning areas have mostly been planted with commercial softwood and this softwood leaches acid into the watercourses which in turn raises the ph of the water and kills the eggs of the fish.
Forestry companies know this.
been busy the last 20 years removing them and planting the birch etc that the river and the trout and parr need the insect life that accompanies them . But yeah planting the wrong kind of trees is a historic issue that has been undergoing fixes for many years now .
Ade8mm
Well-Known Member
Yep
"A lot of blame quite rightly is focused on salmon farms - they are just one contributing factor."
Indeed they are. Not only that but for every 10 tonnes of farmed salmon. 6 tonnes of other fish needs to be slayed to feed then
( provinance of this is easily available should the Apthorpe's of this wish World
to question this)
"A lot of blame quite rightly is focused on salmon farms - they are just one contributing factor."
Indeed they are. Not only that but for every 10 tonnes of farmed salmon. 6 tonnes of other fish needs to be slayed to feed then
( provinance of this is easily available should the Apthorpe's of this wish World
to question this)
Brittany boy
Well-Known Member
Yip when I worked in the fish farm we farmed Turbot but the other farms were salmon based, we fed tons of sand eels and other fish chopped up. The price of sand eel went sky high when their populations crashed as a result of fishing that effected puffins and gannets feeding their young. Everything needs to be done in balance with nature and we are the ultimate apex predator who keeps getting it wrong and blaming Mother Nature.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
how any one can blame predators for salmon is crazy, the lived for thousands of years together. another man made balls up. ban salmon farming, ban commercial fishing. kill seals for fur or meat but to protect salmon, cant see the justifcation holding water
sandeel for fertilizer was a massive mistakeYip when I worked in the fish farm we farmed Turbot but the other farms were salmon based, we fed tons of sand eels and other fish chopped up. The price of sand eel went sky high when their populations crashed as a result of fishing that effected puffins and gannets feeding their young. Everything needs to be done in balance with nature and we are the ultimate apex predator who keeps getting it wrong and blaming Mother Nature.
when predator and prey are out of balance you have an issue . In balance the seal will help the Salmon by weeding out more weak members than fit .
there is of course more than one issue but out of balance predator numbers are always a factor to consider , there is no single answer Merganser taking par in the head waters and cormerant numbers , otter even ( its certainly comming now ) . Then pollution , global warming , insecticides etc etc etc
No one solution
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