France Bleu la Rochelle, the fishermen’s radio, welcomes Bruno Garcia from the Charente-Maritime fishing federation to answer questions from listeners; Question from Alexis de Marans who would like to know why there is no closure of zander during its reproduction period.
Bruno Garcia:
Eternal debate that of the specific closure of pike-perch. A recurring question that comes up every year just after the opening of the pike. The Federation is invested with two missions: the protection of the aquatic environment and the satisfaction of the fisherman. And very often the question arises as to whether we should choose to penalize fishermen in a context where water management is the source of many problems.
It’s a real dilemma
Today in Charente-Maritime, several species have already benefited from temporal protection measures since the fishing law of 1984. Pike, shad, trout, frogs, etc. during their breeding season. Who will dare to say that our pike and frog populations are doing well? As all fishermen know, our department was, until 1990, a mecca for pike and frog fishing. These species have begun to decline since the “lowlands” have been cultivated and since we can no longer stand a drop of water on the marsh, and especially not because of the sampling carried out by the fishermen.
It reproduces easily the zander
We are going to open and I think it is essential, a small parenthesis on the biology of the pike-perch. Zander is a very prolific species since each female is capable of producing 200,000 eggs per KG of its weight. It is also very opportunistic in relation to its spawning medium in the absence of gravel, it is its preferred medium, it is able to adapt to plant medium or even roots anchored in the bank and even a piece of submerged wood. It shows impressive aggressiveness in defending its eggs. Another strong point but paradoxically, this is actually where its weakness lies since at this precise moment it jumps blindly on anything that moves, from the lure to the minnow via the earthworm. Its reproduction takes place from April to June depending on the temperature conditions generally between 12 and 14 degrees and it is precisely there that it encounters difficulties. It is not uncommon during this period to see very significant tidal ranges (difference in water level) on the rivers. Very regularly, these daily drops in level can go up to one meter, drying up the breeding areas and reducing the efforts of the spawners to nothing.
And it is at this precise moment, if I understood correctly, that Alexis would like a period of closure of fishing
Yes, that’s right, so we can close pike until the end of April, zander until the end of June, we can also ban black bass until the end of July and of course ban all techniques such as lures which are likely to capture them and we will end up with a period of prohibition which will run from the last Sunday of January to the end of July. No, the solution is to reclaim the environment and rediscover rational water management. To go in the direction of purists who want a closure during the spawning period, article R-436-8 of the Environmental Code gives the Prefect the possibility of protecting certain species for a given period and this is what we have put in place in some sectors of the department by imposing mandatory release all year round or simply during the pike-perch reproduction period. We should be able to assess the impact of such measures fairly quickly. Despite everything, I remain convinced that the levy carried out by the fishermen does not have as disastrous an impact as people would like to say.