Shore fishing for plaice
Shore fishing around Hollands vast coastline is one of the best
pastimes in the country. The sea water need to be deep and
clear as plaice is a hunter that uses its eyes. For
the same reason the wetter should be sunny and calm. Allow plenty of
room between you and other anglers for safe casting.
Plaice prefer deeper water and stay off the banks that
dry with low water. On this map on can see the good
fishing spots for plaice:
The fishing season starts from mid April, the best months
are May and June. The season ends in december.
Baits used for plaice
Tagworm and lugworm is the prefered bait , mussel and cockles
are also good . If you dig for lugworm, please
back fill all the holes as you dig. This minimises the scar
and allows the environment to quickly recover. Read everything
about the lugworm.
equipment needed for shore fishing
Shore anglers can use a normal rod, and reel,
and blow lugworms as a bait, mostly attached to
a three hook paternoster.
Commercial fishing
Gear type used in flatfish fisheries
Mostly used is beam trawl ,a trawler in which the
fishing gear is towed from outrigger booms and
heavy eqquiped with chains. The mouth of the net
is kept open by a beam which is mounted at each end
on guides or skids which travel along the seabed.
Not only plaice but also sole is catched this way.
The big disadvantage is the disgard (bycatch), not usable
bentic animals make up for the biggest part of
evert catch.
too many boats chasing too few fish
A persistent and rapid decline in the Spawing Stock biomass
(SBB) in the plaice stock since 1989 resulted in a
historic record low in 1994.
In 1995 the SBB is below the line of safety for
the population of plaice, this line is called the SBL
or Safe Biological Limits
The most important reason for this is overfishing.
It is a severe and complex problem not only affecting plaice,
but another important species like cod too. Nowadays
these species are at risk of complete collapse.
Measurements preventing the plaice decline
1 The quota: The european commission allowed a total
amount of fish catches (TAC) an divided these amount
between the plaice fishing nations, the Netherlands
and Great Britain had the biggest part, as the figure
shows:
In 2008 the TAC will be 26000tons so another great
reducting of the TAC. The future of the plaice will be
uncertain , most biologists think it will become a rare fish.
2 In direct fishery for plaice the nets are above
100mm mesh, in mixed fishery (for sole) the nets are
above 80mm mesh. Plaice smaller then 28cm is called
overseized.
3 The plaicebox: in this area of the Nirthsea uts not
allowed to catch fish.
4 The 12 miles zone: No fishingboat is allowed to enter
the 12 miles sea measured from the shore
5 oil and gas platforms: its not allowed to fish in the
production platforms.
6 Real time closure: Some parts of the north sea are
temporary closed to protect the young plaice.
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Plaice
Plaice is a flatfish living in the Northsea. It has with
red-orange spots on the body. The underside is white.
These fish can be found near mussel beds, on sand or
grit bottoms. Like all flatfish, their bodies are
compressed, and both eyes are on the same side of the head.
From small to large
eggs
A female lays from 200.000 eggs up to a half milion eggs.
The eggs float at first and slowly sink as they mature.
The eggs hatch after about three weeks.
larval stage
The larves are pelagic (free swimming in the open ocean)
feeding on plancton and have eyes on either side of the head.
Young plaice
Young plaice live on the bootom and start to feed
on small worms and shrimp.
As they grow, and they eat small crustaceans, crabs,
mussels, scallops and shrimp.
adult stage
Adult plaice mostly eat
molluscs or hunt at daytime for prey.
Males grow slower then females and dont get
as old. In theory a female plaice cab get 30 years
old and 1 meter long, a very rare event nowadays.
Heincke's law
This difficult law for flatfish distribution has nowadays
little value , due to the decline in plaice.
Heincke's law : the size and age of the plaice in a definite
part of the North Sea are inversely proportional to the density
of their occurrence, but directly proportional to the distance of
the locality from the coast and to its depth
(biggest fish found in deepest water).
Plaice in the aquarium
Young plaice are a fascinating sight in a
cold seawater aquarium, as they are translucent.
There less sensitiv for changes in temperature
and the amount of salt (saltinity).
In the young stage they hunt for all the small
inhabitants in the auarium, shrimps first, worms,
sand goby ,small fish: everything dissapears in
the flatfishbelly. Its possible to learn them to eat
pallet food, use the pellet food that sinks slowly
to the bottom.Adult plaice is a fast swimmer
and needs a huge auarium. As they grow slowly bigger
no fish is save anymore , just lobster and
crab and a big plaice remain. A good time to bring
my beautiful plaice back to sea.
Plaice takes a lot of space in the northsea-aquarium,
as it needs sand to dig in.
Protected by their camouflage skin texture
flatfisch are allmost unnoticed in the aquarium, until
they start swimming. Flatfish can actively change their skin
texture. if a plaice is placed on a chessboard it's
skin gets a black and white dots appearance.
Plaice diseases
Another contribution in the decline of plaice (and sole)
is due to the increase of 3 dermal diseases. The most likely
explication is the combined effect of different sort of
North sea pollution.
The ulcer is an stanced out area in the plaice, with little tendency of healing
The epidermal pappiloom is a white raised mass on the skin, it has a tendency to
become cancre.
Lymfocystis or lymphocystis is a chronic disease of the lymfeglands caused by
a virus.
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