Leave the small fry over monster tide weekend

Friday 20 March 2015

There’s a monster 12-metre tide this weekend – but the fisheries department say they’ll be patrolling to make sure Islanders going low-water fishing are sticking to the rules.

The weekend is due to see one of the biggest tides of the year, and that means a huge opportunity for Islanders to get out to the shore and go looking for shellfish and lobsters.

But there are strict rules about what you can take from the shore and what you can’t – that includes size limits that you can check here – and the fisheries say that everyone should replace rocks just as they found them, and make sure that they leave themselves plenty of time to get back to dry land when the tide starts coming back in.

Besides the size limits, the fisheries officers have also put together a guide to low-water fishing, that you can view here.

A statement from the Environment department said: “It’s against the law to take fish and shellfish, including ormers and lobsters, below a certain size.

“People lifting rocks should replace them as research shows that failing to return stones to their original position can be damaging to the marine ecosystem, and it takes some time to recover.

“Officers, who’ll be out on patrol during the weekend, are also asking fishermen to ensure they have an accurate way to measure any fish and shellfish they keep so they comply with the regulations.”