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 from a 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 determined 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 there 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.