I can remember a time, and not that long ago, when dinghy fishing for bass off the Lancashire coast was something few people ever considered. Now it probably rates up there with some of the best in the country. So what has changed?. Could it be that northwest small boat anglers have wised up on the how's, where's and when's of the local bass fishing?. There is certainly some truth in that suggestion, as bass were being caught by Morecambe anglers around the Heysham area when I started sea fishing back in early 1970's. Or maybe global warming has extended their regular distribution northwards. With bass now regularly caught as far north as Scotland's Pentland Firth, something is certainly drawing more of them up into northern latitudes. A series of good spawning years in the late 1980's and mid 90's can't have done both their distribution and numerical potential much harm either. But if the truth be known, there have probably always been more bass about in the waters off Lancashire and south Cumbria than was generally realised, with those who did already know keeping their successes to themselves. The comprehensive answer however as to why so many bass, and why now, is more likely to involve a much more subtle and complex combination of factors than the few suggested above.

In 2002, some of the die-hard bass enthusiasts from Blackpool's Fylde Boat Angling Club (FBAC) began talking about ways of conserving what we currently have, and of looking to find out more about the population structure locally as well as the species distribution generally. Then in February 2003 at the clubs AGM, a bag limit proposal was put forward to restrict members to 3 bass per day, and with a minimum size limit of 45 cms instead of the national legal size limit of 36 cms. In addition to this, members would be urged to weigh, measure, and remove a couple of scales from all bass either retained or returned with a view to doing some sort of investigation into the local population structure and perhaps comparing this to national and other regional data. I was at that AGM, and while I voted for the proposals, like the people putting them forward who had undoubtedly rehearsed their argument in anticipation of a red hot debate, I was staggered when the whole package (including a 10 fish bag limit on cod) sailed through without questioning from the floor, and hardly a word of dissent. A very bold move which other clubs might wish to follow.

With my fishery sciences background, I was handed the "plumb job" of collating, recording and finally analysing the data. I've never met a scientist yet who will admit to having enough data, and this project is no different. Sadly, the volume of data used for the speculation here does not reflect the true measure of bass numbers caught by FBAC members, many of which were not recorded. But with age and length contributions from 112 fish, and weights also recorded for 77 of those fish, it is comprehensive enough to draw preliminary conclusions from, and to identify potential trends both from a national as well as a regional perspective. It would have been useful to have had more people contributing. Equally it would have been better with more fish from the age and size range extremities. The general scarcity of double figure fish is the reason for any shortfall at the upper end of the scale. But the lack of enthusiasm for gathering data at the opposite end, particularly from undersized fish (both 45 and 36 cms) is an opportunity which need not have been missed. Getting people to include weights was another problem, though monthly updates of the project on the clubs website went some way to turning that problem around.

One of the main project aims was to investigate the potential for producing a table from which people could get an age estimate from either body weight or length or visa versa simply by removing a couple of scales. From my days of working on the development of techniques for hatchery production of barbel, chub and dace, I know only too well that some fish will always fall outside predicted growth averages. The very smallest fish get bullied by the typical size range, and everything gets bullied by a handful of especially fast growers which we used to call "shooters". Not only would these fish bully the others for food, they would actually start eating the very smallest fish which meant they would pile on even more weight than ever. Perhaps this happens with bass during their very early life. It might explain some of the variation in weights within certain age groups. When you look through the table at age, weight and length, it is not hard to pick out a number of individuals that have done remarkably better than the rest of their year class. A good example of this are the 1989 fish from which we had individual weights as low as 4.65 lbs and as high as 9.25 lbs. Then there is a spread of weights in between with growth rates within any given year class scattered all over the place. This trend is confirmed in national data picked up on a number of Internet sites. So that particular hope for the project was scuppered at an early stage.

As well as vast fluctuations within any given year group, patterns are all over the place between year groups when comparing age against either length or weight, with younger fish often out growing older fish. The data records fish of 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 years old all with weights of 5.5 lbs, while we had an 11 year old fish at 8.75 lbs. There was also 10 year olds weighing in at a mere 2.7 and 2.75 lbs. Particular years appear more susceptible to bucking trends than others with our 10 year olds being a pretty puny bunch on average. This reinforces the fact that there is little or no correlation to be made between age and weight or age and length. But there is a very strong correlation to be made between length and weight. So much so that a table has been produced which should allow accurate estimations of weight from body length. This was produced using regression analysis from a statistical analysis package known as Minitab. Without going into too much boring detail, the R2 value produced by the calculation for the graph represents the measure of confidence to be read from the graph. The higher the R2 figure the better. In this case it was 91.2% which is incredibly high giving a huge degree of reliability to weight to length ratio estimates taken from it. So if you don't routinely carry weighing scales, or if you feel that weighing a fish that is to be released is too much of a trauma (either for it or for yourself), then a weight estimate from body length is one giant step forward. If you put a wet towel over the fish's head so it can't see it will usually stay still on the deck while a nose to tail fork measurement is taken. Then it can go back undamaged.

While no other hard and fast correlations immediately leap out from data table, there are quite a few interesting trends to be picked up. One point I would like to make here is that trends are not written in tablets of stone, and could indeed appear different with either more information, or with data sets from other parts of the country. A good example of this was the way numbers of 14+ year old fish initially raced away leaving all the other age groups in their wake. These are fish from the particularly strong 1989 recruitment year. This must have been an exceptionally good recruitment year to still be out pacing more recent years which have not had as long to loose numbers to predation, disease and exploitation. It would have been tempting after the first couple of months to announce that the 14+ fish were running away with the thing altogether. But as more data came in, other good spawning years began closing the gap. And let us not forget the point made earlier that anglers often can't be bothered to record the smaller fish. So there isn't much that can be said about fish spawned from just before the millennium up to the time of presentation. There may be some major surprises in store for the future, either good or bad. We shall have to wait and see on that one.

There are some heartening trends that should give bass enthusiasts a lot of hope for the foreseeable future. Bass are currently the success story of recent years, and off the evidence provided here could continue to be so for the next decade and more. Leaving out the 14+ year class, three years in the mid 1990's produced almost as many fish as all the other years combined. So if the 14+ fish from the late 80's are still putting in such a good showing, these mid 90's fish could be around for the next several years at least. There is however one rather alarming trend as well, this being the possibility of some individuals not reaching sexual maturity before achieving the 36 cm size at which they can be legally killed. Male bass are thought to mature at an age of between 4 and 7 years, and females at between 5 and 8 years old. One 6 year old had a length of 40 cms casting some doubt as to whether it would have been sexually mature when it was 36 cms long. Conversely, we had a fish of 7 years old for a length of 31 cms which definitely would have made it through to maturity. Had the legal limit been the same as the FBAC limit of 45 cms (which the UK government promised then backed away from under commercial pressure), from the data this project generated, all takeable fish would have been at least 8 years old and therefore sexually mature. So while the FBAC figure may well have been an arbitrary one, from a bass protection point of view, it looks to be of far greater value than the current legal size limit. A minimum limit of 40 cms would be a better compromise. Perhaps anglers through their representatives should be pressing to have a 40 cm legal limit adopted throughout the European Union.