La pêche de loisir dans le golfe du Morbihan

Leisure fishing, open to everyone and without a license, is a leisure activity in which many people are interested. Conversely to other harvesting activities such as fresh water fishing and hunting, it has practically not been studied until now (Appéré et Bonnieux, 2002). This study, dedicated to practice of leisure fishing at sea in the Gulf of Morbihan, set itself several objectives:
- collect and assemble the available knowledge on regulations and practice of maritime leisure fishing
- assess the amount of harvesting of certain recreational types of fishing and the economic impact generated by this activity,
- highlight the problems of existing or potential cohabitations among the various users of the space and resources in the Gulf.
- develop an analysis of these interactions to serve as a basis for work with a view to providing an aid to starting a discussion toward their regulation or, indeed, their settling in the context of the Marine Farming and Maritime Fishing section of the Sea Enhancement Programme.
After defining leisure fishing at sea and its institutional environment, we were especially interested in two modes of leisure fishing in the Gulf of Morbihan: shellfish gathering and boat fishing. These are the subject of an assessment at the level of their halieutic and economic impacts. The analysis of the interactions required implementing a specific analytical methodology and caused the interactions that users judge as truly significant to stand out. Among the impacts caused by other practices, the most emphatic seemed to come from "pretending to be fishing for pleasure", which was denounced by locals and leisure fishermen.