Conservation and fisheries enforcement
Why fishing rules exist, who enforces them, how to report illegal fishing to the right authority, and documented accounts of where rules are reported to be broken — across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
FishingHQ is not an enforcement body and does not take reports. It explains the rules and points to the authorities that do. Find who to report to
- Understand the rules
Bag limits, minimum sizes, release periods and gear bans: what each is for, and how recreational rules differ from commercial ones. Sea bass is the worked example.
- Report a concern
Who to tell about illegal fishing, nets, poaching or pollution in each part of the UK, what to note, and how to report without putting yourself at risk.
- Documented investigations
What official records show about particular concerns, claim by claim, with what is still unknown.
- Fisheries enforcement
Which bodies enforce which rules, what can happen between a report and a court, and what published figures show.
Latest investigation
Torness: reports of illegal sea bass fishing at the power station outfall. What four official surveys recorded between 2006 and 2023, what they do and do not show, the rules then and now, and what remains unanswered.
Conservation and fish welfare
Rules set the minimum. How a fish is handled decides whether one that goes back survives.
Transparency and official records
Everything in this section rests on documents anyone can open: legislation, official surveys, published enforcement figures and the authorities' own pages. Each page lists its sources and the date they were read. Where a document could not be obtained, the page says so and does not rely on it.
Where official records leave a question open, an investigation lists it, with the body that could answer it. FishingHQ has not yet made any formal request for information; if it does, the page concerned will say so, with the date and the answer.