From the Angling Trust Sea Update:
Fish Legal is looking into a possible campaign or legal case against commercial overfishing for bass in the Western Approaches. We are very concerned by the on-going effects of pelagic and pair trawling which targets large groups of bass from different areas coming together in order to feed before spawning – preventing separate populations from returning to their areas of origin. As a result it is suspected that the damage caused to these spawning fish has a much greater environmental impact than a small reduction of bass numbers within one location. Whilst UK trawlers are not able to use pair trawling methods due to a previous ban by the UK government, the EC Commission rejected attempts to impose such a ban in UK waters to other EU member state vessels.