Publication Abstract

Not all sole die young!

(Article first published in Fishing News, 20 August 1999)

Scientists continue to advise that many stocks are fished too heavily and that the large majority of commercial fish are caught each year or two of first entering the fishery. Most fish caught are relatively small and few survive to spawn more than once.

As an example, Figure 1 shows the numbers of sole at each at caught by the international fleets in the western Channel in 1998. Of these, 69% were two to five years old – and very few female sole spawn before they are four years old. The cure is to kill fewer fish and later in life.

Figure 1. From data used by ICES in the VIIe sole assessment

But not all fish succumb so easily! On 19 March this year, a female sole of 41 cm was among a sample taken by a MAFF fishery officer froma landing by the ALGRIE in Newlyn.

When the otoliths (ear stones) from this fish were later examined at the CEFAS Laboratory in Lowestoft, she was found to be 40 years old, being spawned in 1959.

CEFAS technicians detemined the ages of nearly 8000 soles in 1998: 2400 from the North Sea; 4100 from the Channel and 1500 from west of Britain. Just over 5% of these fish were more than 15 years old, though htere were four sole over 30 years old in the 1998 samples. Just how a sole manages to evade capture for 30 years longer than most of its brothers and sisters is a mystery.