Lymington & District Sea Fishing Club.
I’m writing to let you know about a new project we’ve just launched, Rays of Tope, and to ask for Lymington & District Sea Angling Club’s help as a valued Angling Trust member club.
About the project Rays of Tope is a new research collaboration recently awarded funding through Natural England's Species Recovery Programme. Led by the University of Plymouth, in partnership with the Angling Trust, The Shark Trust, Natural England, and the IFCAs (Southern, Sussex, Devon & Severn, Cornwall, and the Association of IFCAs), the project runs from July 2026 to March 2029. Its aim is to further our understanding of Tope (Galeorhinus galeus) and Undulate Ray (Raja undulata) in English waters, by improving science on their distribution, migration, and reproductive habitats, and using that evidence to inform national fisheries management, with a particular focus on identifying and protecting reproductive and nursery grounds.
Why we're contacting you Our first activity is to bring together existing datasets on Tope and Undulate Ray distribution and seasonality, combining sources such as British record fish claims, the Sea Angling Diary, Species Hunt records and ICES data, to build the first genuinely national picture of hotspots and seasonal timing for both species. Club records held across the Network are a really valuable piece of that picture, and this evidence will directly inform where and when we focus acoustic and satellite tagging effort over the following two field seasons, so access to your records would be extremely useful. As an example of how valuable the data can be, previously the Angling Trust has used Sea Angling Diary data to support anglers perception that undulate rays have declined following commercial TAC increases, ultimately leading to the MMO rejecting the TAC increase in 2024.
How you can help Historical club records of Tope and Undulate Ray catches, whether shore or boat based. All records are welcome, but the further back in time you're able to go, the better, as this helps us demonstrate how populations and distributions have changed over time. - Where possible, capture date, location, weight/length, and sex where recorded. - Any guidance on data completeness, format, or caveats we should bear in mind when using the records. - Contacts within your networks, other clubs, skippers, anglers, or individuals, who might hold useful records or historic knowledge, or who you think would be interested in getting involved. - Whether you or anyone in your network would like to be more directly involved in the project going forward. We'd credit contributing clubs as a data source in project outputs, handle any data shared in line with GDPR and our project's data-sharing protocol, and would be glad to share relevant findings back with you and your members as the project progresses. I'd welcome the chance to discuss this further by phone or email, and can send our full project summary if that's useful. Thank you for considering this, I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Wishes, Hannah Rudd Head of Marine Mobile: 07855963128 Website | Facebook | X | Instagram I usually work Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. You may occasionally receive an email from me outside these hours, there is no expectation for you to respond outside of your own working hours.
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