Watching Channel 4’s new series, Big Fish Fight, has given the nation food for thought.

For the past few months, celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has travelled around the UK meeting fishermen, politicians and members of the public to “champion sustainable seafood and celebrate lesser-known delicacies of the deep”.

The practice of discarding fish at sea is one of the focuses of the four-part series – shown earlier this month.

According to the series, around half the fish caught by fishermen in the North Sea are unnecessarily thrown back, dead, into the sea.

The Big Fish Fight website explains that fishing for one species invariably means catching another. So if the fishermen don’t want them, or if they are not allowed to land them as they are over-quota fish, they are forced to throw them back.

Discards are not monitored, so it isn’t known how many fish are actually thrown away, but the EU estimates that in the North Sea there are discards of between 40 and 60 per cent of the total catch. Many are said to be fish that have ‘fallen out of fashion’.

To prevent this, the Big Fish Fight campaign has tried to tempt the public into trying alternative species.

Bradford fish fryer Brad Marshall is supporting the programme’s Mackerel Mission.

Brad, who recently took over The Royal Fisheries in Great Horton Road, has been tempting customers with mackerel butties – and the response so far has prompted him to put mackerel on the menu.

“Mackerel is an oily fish, it’s full of omega 3, and its good for a lot of health reasons. It’s a good healthy option for people, and it’s a sustainable fish,” says Brad.

He isn’t the only one hooked by the campaign. Brian Clarkson, secretary of the Bradford Sea Angling Club, has already registered his support and praises Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for bringing the issue of discards into the public eye.

“I think it is long overdue. This has been going on for five or six years,” says Brian.

He says that as far back as the 1980s, members of the Bradford angling club went to Scotland for a week’s fishing holiday and saw trawlers throwing fish overboard.

“The stocks they are throwing away aren’t giving other fish the chance to grow and be bigger,” says Brian.

At one time, 30lb cods were a commonplace catch. “Now we get 3lb cod. They are plentiful, but they don’t get the chance to grow,” says Brian. “It’s a matter of getting people to eat something different.”

He is also concerned that a lack of fish in future could jeopardise the sport of sea angling. “It will have an impact,” he says. “There won’t be enough fish to catch, and it goes down the line – the fishermen will not have a revenue and there will be no fish left to eat.”

Brian says the Channel 4 campaign has “hit the nail on the head”. He is writing to his MP and believes the way forward is for the Government to change the quota system.

The Big Fish Fight campaign is working towards a change in policy that would help fish, fishermen and consumers. The Common Fisheries Policy, which is the political framework for the quota system, is being reformed for 2012.

Scientists and environmental groups have suggested a number of ways the policy can work to protect fish stocks.

David Mitchell, marine environmental campaigns manager of the Angling Trust, praises the programme for raising awareness about the problem, but believes methods should be introduced to reduce fish mortality by increasing the minimum landing size and increasing the size of mesh in the nets, and also using different types of net to reduce the amount of fish caught.

“Discarding is a very visual part of what is wrong, but it is just the tip of the iceberg,” says David.