Fish Carcass Dumping

[Sailfisher]

I am just a little bit ticked off. Uncaring fishermen at times used to dump fish carcasses on the beach between the boat ramp and the swimming enclosure at Turkey Beach. This meant we were seeing more stone fish and vermon in this area. As well as that when the tide went out, the carcasses were left in the sun to rot. Before Christmas our local council erected signs requesting this not be done and to date I have not seen any more down there. Now the grubs have found another site. On a beach across the road from houses in Bowton Street. I am sorry, but I am unable to attach any photos of the carcasses as my pop up to do this does not seem to be working. Again , when the tide went out, these carcasses were left in the sun to rot and a resident had to go over and gather them up and bury them. Not a pleasant job as you can imagine. The photos were taken on 27th January 2007.We pride ourselves on the cleaniness of our town and find this practice to be quite unacceptable. We have a transfer station on the edge of town where these can be placed or why not jump in the boat and dump them midstream.Children play and swim in the area where these carcasses were dumped. If you are the person or persons who did this, would you be happy if someone dumped them in your front yard. Next time, show a little courtesy and dump them thoughtfully. Most fishermen do the right thing, but it only takes one to tarnish the good reputation of most caring fishermen who do the right thing.If anyone would like to pm me, I will send them the photos if them can attach them for me.

[Marlin_Mike]

I always clean and fillet mine out where i fish, never do it at a ramp.

Mike

[5cougarsthanx]

Mike,
Be careful cleaning your catch at sea.If you go to the fisheries website and read the rules i think you will find you are breaking the law and are liable for a fine if pulled up on the water.I used to do the same until i was made aware of the rule now i freeze my frames and take them out on the next trip and dispurse as part of my burley trail
Cheers
Cougarman

[Sailfisher]

We usually freeze ours and use them for crab pot bait

[Squiggle]

We use all ours for crab traps. We only scale and gut them away from home.

[roz]

Mike,
Be careful cleaning your catch at sea.If you go to the fisheries website and read the rules i think you will find you are breaking the law and are liable for a fine if pulled up on the water.I used to do the same until i was made aware of the rule now i freeze my frames and take them out on the next trip and dispurse as part of my burley trail
Cheers
Cougarman

Hi cougarman,

I thought I was well up to speed with the QLD fishing laws, sounds like I have missed that bit. I thought you were able to clean your catch if the fillets of some species were over a certain length.

I'll go back and read it again.


Sailfish man,

We have the same problems at 1770. You should see the size of the stone fish around the marina and boat ramp.

With the money the council up there is raking in now, you think they could provide a fish cleaning facility for the visitors.

Presently you are allowed to clean/fillet your catch on the sand spit across from the council caravan park, which means the frames go into the main chanel which is deep water.

Wonder where that leaves fisheries officers? Does the law state you have to come straight back to the boat ramp after a trip out.

r.

[Stuie]

Roz,
By the rules you are not actually allowed to fillet the fish on the sandbar you mentioned - unless you swim the fillets back to the mainland or have fillets over 40cm with the skin still on. Once a fish is filleted it can not be taken back onto a boat unless the fillet is larger than 40cm and the skin is still on. This only applies to coral reef fin fish of course. So fisheries could inspect your boat between the sandbar and the boat ramp and find you with fillted fish on your boat and charge you for an offence! Stupid I know but true. I think there has probably been an increase in fish frame dumping close to boat ramps since this stupid rule has been put in place. They make the rule but don't put in place an facilities to allow fisherpeople to dispose of there frames at the boat ramp responsibly. Like 5cougars we take our frames back out to sea if possible. Not even sure if this might be breaking the rules also as we have filleted fish on our boat until they are dumped. If we aren't going back out to sea we bag our frames and take to the local tip as is allowed at 1770. Not all tips allow this either. I'm sure they are just trying to make it as hard as possible for people to go fishing.

[roz]

Thanks for that Stu, would pay me to read the rules and regs a bit more thoroughly.

I try to do the right thing, I've burried them in my garden up there, used as many as I can in the crab pots, in some cases I've taken them out into the bush, now that could wrong also.

Unless the weather on the following day is good, we can't always get out to sea.

They make damn good fertilizer for the garden, trouble is, in most spots I need a jack hammer to get them deep enough.

r.

[Sailfisher]

I haven't put any in the garden yet, but my next door neighbour does and this home grown vegetables are the best. Last year, buried all our prawn shells. Roz how long does it take for the frames to break down in the garden

[roz]

I haven't put any in the garden yet, but my next door neighbour does and this home grown vegetables are the best. Last year, buried all our prawn shells. Roz how long does it take for the frames to break down in the garden

Sailfisher,

I'm not going to dig them up every 4 weeks to find out :) . You can if you like. We used to conduct trials in the lab I worked in, but not with stuff like that, just food ingredients lol

IMO if you intend to use them in the veg patch, dig them in quite deeply and sprinkle some lime over the top. I would also bury them around the more slow growing plants, the bones can take quite a while to break down, getting spiked could result in a trip to the Doctor for a tetanus shot. Use a bit of commonsense. Prawn shells would break down much faster than fish bones. Besides prawn shell/heads makes the BEST burley.

The gut, skin, and other soft tissue wouldn't take long to become worm poo.

r.

[Sailfisher]

Thanks Roz.

[onerabbit]

Fish carcasses make great fertilizer,

Many years ago, a dumb pommy mate decided to stock our farm dam with fantailed goldfish of all things.
About 6 years later the dam went dry ( I still reckon it was partially the carps fault ). So there I was, removing barrow loads of dead & dying carp, & I decided to bury them in a special spot that I liked to grow....umm....tomatoes.
At the end of that next season I was pulling up the stumps & was surprized to find the roots of my plants had gone down to the fish carcasses, & gone for it. Many root systems still had skeletons attached to the root ball, roots had gone through skulls & were wound around the spines, they loved them. Needless to say, I had a VERY good crop of tomatoes that year.

Muzz

[manchild]

Tomatoes also like the product called charlies carp .::)
George

[Volvo]

Hokeydokes :) here's a thread i'll add me two bobs worth to..
Firstly me thinks its a dumbarse idea not to be able to fillet fish out at sea cause at least one can feed part of his catch back to where it came from..
Secondly YES!!!! the frames are tops dug into your vegypatch and especially for Tommies..
Brings on heeaps of worms to the patch as well as goodness:)..
JUST be VERY!! carefull how soon you go poking around in the area you added the frames to because it can have quite a tickle up for the nosebone and maybe put one at odds with their neighbours if the Patch sits too close to the fenceline:)..
The bones take one hell of a time to brake down as do most bones but then again this is an advantage unless you go poking your fingers with a sharpie like Roz mentions(Ouch n ouch again!!)..
Unless one has quite a large sized vegy patch and one fishes often you can run out of room to bury them quick smart so pays to know someone who crabs often:)!!..
Cheers

[Sailfisher]

Volvo, I completely agree with you about not being able to fillet fish out at sea. It would go a long way to solving this problem if it was again legal. The fish dumped were reef fish and plenty of them.

[Col_s]

Some brainless fishermen dropped a heap of shovel nose shark and catfish frames at the ramp at Spinnaker Sound yesterday arvo. >:(
Some of the catfish frames were actually on the ramp, would be really nice standing on one of them when putting your boat on, we cleared what we could.
Who would catch and fillet that crap anyway ?::)
Sorry Kev ;D

Col

[Red_Nut]

I can't understand keeping the cattys, but a shovelly is very sweet when cooked well. We keep all our shovellys around the 3ft mark, great as fish'n'chips.

Back in Murwillumbah NSW we used to keep the eel tailed cattys and eat those, and some of the eels too, but that was back about 20yrs ago now. What an experience - 2 little kids (8 & 9 yo)dragging a 2M eel up a steep river bank after catching it on a 200lb handline, using ox heart for bait. I still remember Mum and Dad's face when we brought that one home!!!

Cheers.

Ed.

[Sea-Dog]

Anyone got one of those garden mulchers?

I wonder how fish frames would go through one of those.

It should make the bones somewhat less of a risk in the garden.

[Sailfisher]

I have a mulcher, have thought about it, but it is the bones that really worry me as i walk bare footed in the garden. After wearing shoes to work everday for 40 years, just love to feel the earth under my feet. The neighbour I was referring to buries whiting frames and they disappear really quickly, but we are not into whiting fishing. It is usually reef fish or mackerel.