UNDERSIZED FISH 63 



Plenty of people, if you said you had turbots, would 

 not have them.' It is obvious that fishermen would 

 not land small plaice if large were plentiful. It was 

 not until the large fish became scarce that fishermen 

 began to take the small. 



If these facts are correctly stated, the remedial treat- 

 ment of the undersized-plaice problem must be taken 

 up from a new standpoint. We must apparently give 

 up the expectation that by merely stopping the destruc- 

 tion of small plaice we shall replenish the sea. The 

 fishing seems to be too severe for that. Every autumn 

 our trawlers fish the waters between the Dogger and 

 the eastern grounds, confident that they will take a 

 good catch of medium -sized plaice averaging 12 to 

 IS inches in length. These are fish which no fisher- 

 man in these days would despise. Though mixed 

 with a considerable proportion of still smaller fish, 

 no possible size-limit will prevent him from reaping 

 this annual harvest. These fish, as has now been 

 shown by the North Sea experiments, are undertaking 

 their first migration from the coastal grounds to the 

 deeper waters. However much we protect the still 

 smaller fish inshore, this wall of nets will be inter- 

 posed every autumn between the shore and the open 

 sea. The greater the benefits of protection inshore, 

 the denser will be the barrier confronting the fish out- 

 side, and the smaller the chances of escape. 



To this must be added a new disturbing element, 

 mentioned by Dr. Garstang in his evidence before the 

 House of Lords Committee in 1904. It is generally 

 agreed that the only possible form which protection 

 can take is that of a size-limit, below which it shall be 

 illegal to land or sell fish. In the case of steam- 

 trawlers this limit must be high enough to render it 

 unprofitable for the boats to fish on grounds where 

 the small plaice are most abundant, since the majority 

 of undersized fish are too much injured in the process 



