MARITIME RECREATIONAL FISHING

IFSUA believes that only fishing practiced as a hobby or sport and without  commercial interests should be considered recreational fishing. Any activity  that, using recreational fisheries means, is used to earn money, should not  be considered recreational fishing, but illegal fishing.

As they often share the same resources with commercial fisheries, it's important that recreational fisheries have complete and specific regulations. Managers, scientists and recreational fisheries stakeholders should jointly decide the most appropriate regulations for each zone.

EU should establish a basic common regulation for all countries.

Spearfishing

Spearfishing is the most selective fishery that exists. The fisher sees the  fish prior its catch so it can be decided whether or not to do it. But  selectivity is not necessarily synonymous of sustainability. Targeting only immature fish or vulnerable species, to give a couple of examples, could end  up being critical.

Only if the spearfisher adopts some basic principles channelled into reaching a responsible fishing, will end up practicing the most sustainable fishing existing modality that. Some of these principles, jointly with some minimum sizes recommended, are listed in this site. Spearfishers, clubs, associations and managers should work together in order to adopt them by the collective. Moreover, the same stakeholders, together with scientists, should design specific principles for each zone.


Maritime recreational fishing contests

Fishing contests offer two key opportunities from which should be taken  advantage of:

1. They gather quite a big amount of recreational fishers, usually those more active. So a great opportunity to generate behavioural trends, transfer information and educate is offered. Inform about current regulations, more sustainable practices, ecological voluntary projects or scientific knowledge transfer are some examples of actions that should be taken during fishing contests.

2. In many cases, the only recreational fisheries data available is owned by institutions that organize maritime fishing contests (federations, associations, clubs...). This data could be used by scientists, institutions and managers to assess the impact of the activity and other coastal ecosystems issues (stocks, invasive species...) Contests regulations should guarantee sustainability and should be resilient 
to the evolution of the ecosystems where they are made and to scientific knowledge evolution.