Ifremer, the French national fisheries science institute¹, has modelled the Northern bass fishery between 2026 and 2031 and advised that, due to expected lower recruitment², following the official ICES FMSY advice³ is expected to shrink the bass stock to unsafe levels⁴.

Bass Angling Conservation has summarised the report in English and provided a brief discussion of Ifremer’s findings. You can read it here and download it.

If you would like to read the original Ifremer report (in French), please click here

1. the French equivalent of the UK body Cefas
   ↩︎
2. juvenile bass maturing and joining the mature spawning stock
   ↩︎
3. aimed at maximising the tonnage of bass killed over time
   ↩︎
4. under the best recruitment scenario, below Btrigger, the level below which management measures are needed. Under the worst recruitment scenario, below Blim, the level below which recruitment is impaired and the stock may not recover, even if all fishing mortality were to be stopped. ↩︎