Cormorant Shooting

[djrwood]

I have been asked to come and shoot some cormorants on a friends fishing lakes as they are eating all his fish, however believe that you need a license to shoot them.

 

Can anyone explain the rules for shooting these birds please?

 

Thanks

 

Dan

[BSA-airgunner]

some info here

 

http://www.cormorantbusters.co.uk/

[jfgpm]

Good hunting. Down here in Germany they are a plague. When the lakes are closed they gather at the small rivers and eat most of the fishes in there.

Really sad and the best example for wrong wild life managment

[Traztaz]

At least here in Germany the ******* now have a season in most ares.

[marlin vs]

Here in Ireland they are protected,and are an absolute plague.

[Hornet 6]

Good luck on getting a pass to shoot them, it is not as easy as filling in a simple form.

Even if you are successful it will be a limited licence, maybe 2 a month and only for the winter months.

You will need to file your returns, even if none are shot, and getting it one year (or month) is no guarantee you will get it again.

My club had a ticket, took us 5 years to get one, after jumping through all the hoops, like using other means of scaring.

Only managed to get a licence for 2 of the last 12 years, now we are told shoot to scare.

You are probably going to be restricted to shotgun only, which on any water over an acre is a waste of time.

These days we seems not to have so much of a problem, not sure why

 

Neil.

[billytheghillie]

up here on river tweed we get a licence from feb. to april to shoot them and gooseanders. this licence comes from the scottish government. on the whole river (90 miles long) the quota is 9 cormas and 30 goosies yes that is the total amount for a season. its a good job us ghillies cannot count

 

the salmon anglers that fish this river generate about £20 million for the local economy, but i doubt if the twitchers contribute anything. so i ask myself what is the species that is in more decline, cormas or salmon ?

[Vermincinerator]

On a fishery that my mate and i have permission to shoot, they have a licence to take 4 a year, thats not a lot for 147 acres and 9 lakes.

 

Ian.

[jfgpm]

Scaring them by shooting etc. is in my opinion stupid because other waterfowlings are also intimidated. That is ****.

 

Also restricting the numbers of birds (if there are many) makes no sense. The wrong people are making fun of the hunters and fishmen with it.

[danddo]

On a fishery that my mate and i have permission to shoot, they have a licence to take 4 a year, thats not a lot for 147 acres and 9 lakes.

 

Ian.

 

Bet it takes a while to get the 4 you want

[Hornet 6]

Scaring them by shooting etc. is in my opinion stupid because other waterfowlings are also intimidated. That is ****.

 

 

 

Right sentiments, wrong place mate, we are talking about fisheries here, places anglers go to catch fish, not feed birds.

If every last feathered thing disappeared from my lakes the anglers would be over the moon, and even better we would have no twitchers trespassing to see the bloody things.

 

Neil.

[sixhills 69]

Hi I also shoot for a friend with a licence to take 4 per year this year they have come late Setember/October time I believe you have to be named on the licence so you can shoot. i use a 17hmr and have had no problems, last year i had 2 this year we have been hit by Heron's which have plauged the fisherie.

 

Good Luck

[Alycidon]

I had a friend with a trout fishery, attention from Cormorants was so bad that he packed it up. In 4 years he was allowed to shoot 8. Frequently he would count 20 on his lake.

 

A

[Blackpowder]

up here on river tweed we get a licence from feb. to april to shoot them and gooseanders. this licence comes from the scottish government. on the whole river (90 miles long) the quota is 9 cormas and 30 goosies yes that is the total amount for a season. its a good job us ghillies cannot count

 

the salmon anglers that fish this river generate about £20 million for the local economy, but i doubt if the twitchers contribute anything. so i ask myself what is the species that is in more decline, cormas or salmon ?

You must be making a good job of scaring them. Over the past two years I am seeing increasing numbers of these vermin on the Whiteadder, in fact anytime you stop atr Allanton Brig it is being well fished by one or other of these species. You could add a couple of zeros to these quotas and there would still be far to many. Our shooting club used to have a couple of days at the cormorants every February, of course the insidious , "Wildlife and Countryside Act" put an end to all that. Just look at Loch Leven at Kinross, once the most famous trout fishery in Scotland supporting almost 40 angling boats now reduced to a mere handful. Only one reason avian predators.

 

Blackpowder

Edited December 4, 2010 by Blackpowder

[BirdFlu?]

Lots of interesting points on these "lovely birds" but do any of you have any good suggestions for getting rid of them from lakes etc. legal or illegal, I don't say I am going to try any of the suggestions but perhaps we can all get a bit of enjoyment from reading them.

 

I can't use Dynamite because it would damage the Fish.

 

My Wife & I are the owners of a 23 acre lake & five years ago we spent about £7.000.00 puting a small amount of stock into the lake, we didn't spend a huge amount on stock because we thought that there was a Cormorant problem in our area but £7,000.00 is a lot of money to us.

 

Up until last year we only ever saw 1 Cormorant at a time on the water, last year that increaed to 2 to 3 at a time, this year when the lake thaws we expect to get hammered.

 

I know your probably all thinking shotguns, the problem we have is in a lake this size the Cormorants usually stay near the middle of the lake where they are safe, the other problems we have are a Bridleway one side a Public Footpath another side & a Highway on the third side so a shotgun won't reach & we dare not use a bullet.

 

Having read your posts it seems it is a complete waste of time getting a Shotgun, a Cabinate, & a License, then if I am very lucky getting a permit to shoot them, by that time there will be no fish left & restocking & being allowed to shoot 2 per year would be worse than useless.

 

I have a good suggestion to get the ball rolling but please don't use it because it would probably be illegal!!!

 

Get a Telegraph pole & somehow float it in the lake in the upright position with about 2 foot above the water, in the top of the pole drill a hole to take a shotgun cartridge (blank of course) under the cartridge some sort of remote controlled trigger mechanism that can be controlled from the bank or a hide. I am fairly sure that the Cormorant would land on the pole & you could then frighten the nice bird, I would be surprised if it came back.

 

My Wife is fed up with me running along the bank having a hissy fit evertime I see a Cormorant, she says I turn into a Tasmanian Devil.

 

I think we can have some fun with this but a few serious suggestions would be good as well.

 

How far can we get with telling the Environment Agency that the have to do something?

[bi9johnny]

i applied for the license some years back for a local fishing club but you had to be a philadelphia lawyer to fill it in

[Hornet 6]

Small boat with a scarecrow, keep moving it and changing the clothes on the scarecrow.

Next rope bangers and a decent programable gas gun, keep moving both, and change the timing on

the gas gun every few days.

The post idea works, but you need to anchor it or it will just go downwind until it grounds.

From what you describe of the layout, a rifle shooting, away from the bank with a road and between the other two.

That does of course assume there is a back stop suitable on the 4th bank, and that you never miss, mind you they are easy to hit

when perched on top of the post.

The best thing is probably to combine the boat and scarecrows, plenty of them on boats/rafts and the bank, and a shotgun used to scare them.

A lake just across the road to the ones I look after has (had) a big stock of small fish, they used a few multi hook set lines, just below the surface and baited with small fish, lots of drowned Cormorants resulted, it worked very well, these days they just run a couple of lines but seldom get a visit from the culprits these days, they learn very quickly.

Not something I can do as we have big perch and pike which we would like to keep.

 

Neil.