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Sea bass is an increasingly popular dish on many restaurant menus and whilst it's legal to catch fully grown bass, younger fish are protected to maintain future stocks.

Unenforceable legislation

For the first few years of their life, younger bass live close to shore so the Government has set up protected nurseries in harbours like Chichester, Portsmouth and Poole where it's illegal to catch them from a boat.

However, the people who are supposed to protect the juvenile bass say the legislation is almost impossible to enforce.  Fisheries Officer Pete Hill says:

"We can hardly touch the surface of it really. It's such a big area, you can't be out in the boat every day, 24 hours a day."

Action needed

The illegal fishing upsets the law abiding anglers.

John Leballeur: something must be done

John Leballeur from the Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society has been monitoring the fall in the numbers of bass and wants to see some action taken:

"They (the protected nurseries) were set up solely for the benefit of everybody but more in particular the species.

"By people abusing those very areas for greed is totally out of order."

Night fishing

Some surveys suggest that there's been a 50% decline in the numbers of young fish, and one reason for this could be that they're also under attack at night from fishermen using nets.

Inside Out secretly filmed five small boats fishing at night in the protected nursery at Langstone Harbour near Portsmouth.

The fishermen admitted they were fishing for bass and even complained that they hadn't caught many because stocks were so low in the harbour.

The government says it's going to review the legislation to see if more protective measures are needed so hopefully this kind of illegal fishing could soon be a thing of the past.