Illegal fishing again

[Rainbowrunner]

I was down at north pine river today chasing bass, sometimes keep the odd one or two,
Passed a guy fishing who had just caught a fish so wandered over to have a look. I was surprised when in his bucket was about 10 bass plus another one in a keeper net and the one he had just caught. They were all good fish over the 35cm mark. I proceeded to tell him that the limit is two and he must throw the rest back. He say " I know I know I just keeping till get bigger one" I said whats the use if they are all dead and throw them back or Ill kick the whole bucket in. He looks at me and tips the bucket in, I then told him that I will call fisheries, have his rego, took a photo of him and then walked back to take a pic of his car. (Cant work out how to get them off phone yet, but can I post them anyway?). I came back and sat down opposite him and politely told him that I am a nice non violent person (altho I am quite large and can be intimidating) but I have friends who fish here and if seen doing this they possibly could get violent
He said, I been in trouble with fishery before and I know I know.
So why keep doing this? I say and walked off.
He was blatantly doing this in front of people when he had been caught before
Makes me wonder if its the same one caught a few weeks ago or one of the people that were caught 2 days in a row last year in the same spot.

called fisheries and reported him anyway, and I was told they had increased patrols in this area lately.

cheers

[Si]

this is bs. fisheries need to stop these mofos

[fishfeeder]

Mate good on you for standing up to the clown, most people would just look the other way.
Fisheries need to make examples of idiots like this !!

Cheers
Brett

[lucee81]

I was down at north pine river today chasing bass, sometimes keep the odd one or two,
Passed a guy fishing who had just caught a fish so wandered over to have a look. I was surprised when in his bucket was about 10 bass plus another one in a keeper net and the one he had just caught. They were all good fish over the 35cm mark. I proceeded to tell him that the limit is two and he must throw the rest back. He say " I know I know I just keeping till get bigger one" I said whats the use if they are all dead and throw them back or Ill kick the whole bucket in. He looks at me and tips the bucket in, I then told him that I will call fisheries, have his rego, took a photo of him and then walked back to take a pic of his car. (Cant work out how to get them off phone yet, but can I post them anyway?). I came back and sat down opposite him and politely told him that I am a nice non violent person (altho I am quite large and can be intimidating) but I have friends who fish here and if seen doing this they possibly could get violent
He said, I been in trouble with fishery before and I know I know.
So why keep doing this? I say and walked off.
He was blatantly doing this in front of people when he had been caught before
Makes me wonder if its the same one caught a few weeks ago or one of the people that were caught 2 days in a row last year in the same spot.

called fisheries and reported him anyway, and I was told they had increased patrols in this area lately.

cheers

Not sure if you have a smart phone but what about emailing them to yourself from your phone?
there is also the old bluetooth option.

[theangryangler]

was at a "friends" restuarant a few months ago when a bloke from the dbay area drove up in a white AU falcon ute offering muddies for 15 bucks a piece, pretended to be interested and went out to his ute for a sus and discovered 30 buckets under the tonneu cover full of Jennies and undersize bucks!!!! He told me he had been selling to all the local chinese joints every week for the past 6months!!!! i estimates 200++crabs! called fisheries and gave his rego personal description and his name "john" to them and they stated that they would investigate him for this, He showed up again same ute same cover same buckets so i called the police who told me to call fisheries who gave me the response "the investigation is ongoing?!!! no wonder why i cant catch a single legal crab!!!! same restuarant a few year back and a white triton ute came in asking if we want to buy reef fish 10/KG had the back fullof them!!! cod trout and many other species bloke told me he had 300 kilos to sell!!! even had the name of his business on the side of the ute. once again reported but never saw a news story regarding this or the other bloke. Maybe a bit more funding from the pollies and they could do more......... Mongrel ppl these fishin folk that pillage for profit!!!!

[Luc]

Increased patrols in the area!!
What from once a year to twice a year.

Things will only get worse with fisheries now a small (and getting smaller) player within DEEDI

[chop]

was at a "friends" restuarant a few months ago when a bloke from the dbay area drove up in a white AU falcon ute offering muddies for 15 bucks a piece, pretended to be interested and went out to his ute for a sus and discovered 30 buckets under the tonneu cover full of Jennies and undersize bucks!!!! He told me he had been selling to all the local chinese joints every week for the past 6months!!!! i estimates 200++crabs! called fisheries and gave his rego personal description and his name "john" to them and they stated that they would investigate him for this, He showed up again same ute same cover same buckets so i called the police who told me to call fisheries who gave me the response "the investigation is ongoing?!!! no wonder why i cant catch a single legal crab!!!! same restuarant a few year back and a white triton ute came in asking if we want to buy reef fish 10/KG had the back fullof them!!! cod trout and many other species bloke told me he had 300 kilos to sell!!! even had the name of his business on the side of the ute. once again reported but never saw a news story regarding this or the other bloke. Maybe a bit more funding from the pollies and they could do more......... Mongrel ppl these fishin folk that pillage for profit!!!!

You should give/sell the story to Today Tonight or A current Affair.
I dare you seriously to do so.
Why wouldn't they want to expose this sort of story as long as you have the proof and they can draw the line through the dots.

[gpz1991]

If more people followed your lead, these wankers may be less inclined to flaunt the fishing regulations and not mess it up for the rest of us

Way to go Rainbowrunner

[chop]

If the fisheries are too slow or can't really deal with the problem and the police can't do anything about it and perhaps in a lot of situations both could probably really be doing something about it then you get the media involved as they love the story and exposing the situation and all the inefficiencies with anyone that they can expose.

[Mike Delisser]

You should give/sell the story to Today Tonight or A current Affair.
I dare you seriously to do so.
Why wouldn't they want to expose this sort of story as long as you have the proof and they can draw the line through the dots.

Unless fisheries are trying to catch the whole mob inc the guys catching the crabs.

[chop]

To me the bloke that the op has talked about doesn't know. He knows how to say some words and might know that he got into trouble but doesn't understand why. He can't understand why because he catches all these fish and so there are plenty of fish and everyone can catch fish so why can't he keep catching fish. He doesn't fully understand the English language. Or he could just be an idiot like so many blokes that grew up in this society and were raised to do so by their parents who grew up in this society that all speak English as their first language but are just stupid, nasty, selfish people. We can't do anything much about them either.

[chop]

Unless fisheries are trying to catch the whole mob inc the guys catching the crabs.

you forgot the media in your reply.

[Rainbowrunner]

was down there this morning saw the same guy again,on his way out, asked him how many fish you have today? He says 4, one is yellow, he showed me 2 bass a tarpon and a yellowbelly, I said very good. I know you understand.

[Peter4]

Pete, send fisheries a bill for your time doing their job! Might wake someone up...

[ShaneC]

Or.... how about letting the fishos do their job?? By making an 'ongoing investigation' a public forum, the perpertrators may well know they are under the spotlight. The fishos are not idiots, yes they are under gunned, but their ongoing investigations are generally just that... by all means report illegal activity, but at least give them the chance to catch them in the act before you give them prior warning. Just my 2 cents

[Louis]

Maybe it is time for the government to authorise the average Police Officer under the Fisheries Act etc. again so that when Fisheries can't attend the Police can. What does everyone think?


Louis

[ShaneC]

Police can attend any illegal activity, doesnt matter about the jurisdiction. But other things take priority....

[gpz1991]

Heavier fines for repeat offenders means more income, more income means more staff, more staff means more patrols, means more captures, etc................

[odes20]

These stories are shocking. Yes their needs to be some forum where these people are exposed, however then we would end up in trouble for breaking privacy laws and such.
Cant have a lot of faith in the regulators who keep increasing legistlation for ever more petty issues and dont effectively police the blatantly outrageous indescretions.

[Mick2480]

I took my wife and two kids fishing around the head land at Evans Head on the weekend. We landed about 5 jewies all about 35-40cm. I had to tell the kids that "no they aren’t big enough” but they had fun landing them. Luckily we got a few bream and took them back to the boat ramp to clean them. While we were there we noticed sitting in the water next to the cleaning table is 4 jewie fames that would be lucky to be 40cm and a small bream frame lucky to be 20cm.

We try to teach our kids the right thing and then they see this happening.

Either they don’t know the size limits or just ignorance.

Mick

[MudRiverDan]

was at a "friends" restuarant a few months ago when a bloke from the dbay area drove up in a white AU falcon ute offering muddies for 15 bucks a piece, pretended to be interested and went out to his ute for a sus and discovered 30 buckets under the tonneu cover full of Jennies and undersize bucks!!!! He told me he had been selling to all the local chinese joints every week for the past 6months!!!! i estimates 200++crabs! called fisheries and gave his rego personal description and his name "john" to them and they stated that they would investigate him for this, He showed up again same ute same cover same buckets so i called the police who told me to call fisheries who gave me the response "the investigation is ongoing?!!! no wonder why i cant catch a single legal crab!!!! same restuarant a few year back and a white triton ute came in asking if we want to buy reef fish 10/KG had the back fullof them!!! cod trout and many other species bloke told me he had 300 kilos to sell!!! even had the name of his business on the side of the ute. once again reported but never saw a news story regarding this or the other bloke. Maybe a bit more funding from the pollies and they could do more......... Mongrel ppl these fishin folk that pillage for profit!!!!

There's yr crab pot pilferer, I always thought that those cutting open pots would not be doing it for a quick feed but people in it for the quick dollars $$.

I believe the reason a pot is slashed is not just a malicious action, but more to do with the speed at which they can remove the crab from the pot, pilfer a batch on pots in less than a minute then quickly motor off to the next spot.

The more they can hit in a short time, the quicker they can move on, I'm betting these crab pot pilferers have a very quick and efficient method down to a "T".

No doubt the crabs would fetch a good cash price and could easily be flogged off within hours of pulling them out of the water.

$3000.00 cash ain't bad for a few hours "work" and $50.00 petrol expense..

As for flogging off the reef fish I am of mixed feelings about that, they guy may have netted them legally and was just trying to make it worth his while, possibly they were rejected by the markets and that is an awful waste, like I said, mixed feelings.

At least he was not cutting them out of peoples nets.
My 2c

[Todddo]

Yes their needs to be some forum where these people are exposed, however then we would end up in trouble for breaking privacy laws and such.
Deformation only comes into play if what you say about a person is untrue. If you have proof that a person has done wrong, then you "can" advertise it. Once you do it though, more then likely the person will hunt you down though :P

[Jarrah Jack]

I fish with a small community of fishermen from a particular beach. One of the guys has been taking undersize snapper and is regarded as greedy. Its been an uneasy moral dilemma for me as I don't like dobbers one bit and a good mate is a fisho. I guess most of you will say to dob him in but I think the way out is to tell the fisho to be extra vigilant there without pointing him to one particular guy. Word will get around and if he doesn't take notice he'll eventually get done.

[snapperdan]

Maybe it is time for the government to authorise the average Police Officer under the Fisheries Act etc. again so that when Fisheries can't attend the Police can. What does everyone think?


Louis

Big yes from me.

Fisheries just dont have the man power to be doing this the whole time. Instead of running a breatho why dont 4 constables mosey on down to the local ramp for a few hours (especially if the weathers nice), say gday to all the good honest boaters and fishos and bust the scum with stolen motors, boats and illegal catches of fish. Its the sensible way to do it.

[Lucky_Phill]

I fish with a small community of fishermen from a particular beach. One of the guys has been taking undersize snapper and is regarded as greedy. Its been an uneasy moral dilemma for me as I don't like dobbers one bit and a good mate is a fisho. I guess most of you will say to dob him in but I think the way out is to tell the fisho to be extra vigilant there without pointing him to one particular guy. Word will get around and if he doesn't take notice he'll eventually get done.

Not to dob, but mention his actions to his kids, parents, brothers and sisters, boss and work mates. :-? :-X 8-)

OR, simply hand him the rule book with size limts highlighted.

It is very hard, as I too have a mate of 30 years that sells some of his catch and in not small quantities. >:(

LP

[Lucky_Phill]

Big yes from me.

Fisheries just dont have the man power to be doing this the whole time. Instead of running a breatho why dont 4 constables mosey on down to the local ramp for a few hours (especially if the weathers nice), say gday to all the good honest boaters and fishos and bust the scum with stolen motors, boats and illegal catches of fish. Its the sensible way to do it.

Qld Water Police have Fisheries powers................

And they are contactable 24/7


LP

[choppa]

Maybe it is time for the government to authorise the average Police Officer under the Fisheries Act etc. again so that when Fisheries can't attend the Police can. What does everyone think?


Louis

i love your thoughts behind this suggestion Louis,,, but the "average Polic Officer" has more on his/her plate than worrying/learning about the Rights/Wrongs of the Fisheries Dept

As Phil pointed out above,,, Water Police ,,, different story

if you all want a laugh,,, look in the old files and see what happened to me after i broke my favorite fishing knife in some idiots tyre,,, S%$t,,, i still have that net (i think,,, job for tomorrow)

[captain rednut]

I saw the bloke with a white ute selling $15 muddies at burpengary on the side of the road two weeks ago along with a fisheries 4wd and tinnie in tow.
I thought it might have been in the paper if he was doing the wrong thing??? He might have had a licence??

[snapperdan]

i love your thoughts behind this suggestion Louis,,, but the "average Polic Officer" has more on his/her plate than worrying/learning about the Rights/Wrongs of the Fisheries Dept

As Phil pointed out above,,, Water Police ,,, different story

if you all want a laugh,,, look in the old files and see what happened to me after i broke my favorite fishing knife in some idiots tyre,,, S%$t,,, i still have that net (i think,,, job for tomorrow)


Yes they have the right however they dont do it. They are always lookin for a dope crop, shop lifter, nudie runner and checking up on there mate at the burger bar. I am referring to rural policing. Rec fishing is big business to country towns and the sooner country cops start lookin after what matters to folks the better. The nudie runner will come home, the dope crop isnt harvested till after easter, shop lifter sleeps between 1 am and 12 am and the burger bar will always be open in the morning. Spend a few hours at the ramp and you will meet the locals the scum and visitors and build raport with the community instead of tasering folks regarding a box of bikies.

[Damned67]

While we're on the topic of illegal fishing. I was out the mouth of Tingalpa creek the other day, having a fish and minding my own business. There was another guy out there in a boat anchored up. I wasn't too close to him, but he kept turning around to look at me. Gave me an odd feeling. Anyway, I started paying attention to him (from a distance) and noticed that his anchor rope looked really odd. Took me a few minutes to realise it wasn't an anchor rope, but a seine net. After an hour or so, he started pulling the net in. There were a lot of fish in that net, as it seemed to be spread across a draining channel. I couldn't tell from where I was whether they were mullet or whiting he was pulling out of it. Also, from my point of view, it seemed significantly longer than 16m. But I didn't measure it, so I can't comment (but I would have called it for closer to 30m). I also didn't see exactly how it was done. There appeared to be a huge float on one end, and that float didn't move with the tide. I didn't see him pull that into the boat so it could have been attached to a crab pot of his. I'm trying not to make strong accusations, because I can't verify any of it.
Rules state that, in regards to a seine net, "It must not be anchored, staked or fixed". Would having one end of the net in an anchored boat not breach that rule?
I'll add, for the fun of it, that at one point I was withing casting distance of the boat, and he had his boat painted in such a way that there was no way I could read his rego number.
I do apologise to the fisher (if he's reading this) for being suspicious, particularly as I can't verify if any of it was illegal.
So, assuming that one end of the net was free floating (despite it not moving), was his use of the net illegal?

[ShaneC]

yeah,,,, thats shit

[chris69]

was at a "friends" restuarant a few months ago when a bloke from the dbay area drove up in a white AU falcon ute offering muddies for 15 bucks a piece, pretended to be interested and went out to his ute for a sus and discovered 30 buckets under the tonneu cover full of Jennies and undersize bucks!!!! He told me he had been selling to all the local chinese joints every week for the past 6months!!!! i estimates 200++crabs! called fisheries and gave his rego personal description and his name "john" to them and they stated that they would investigate him for this, He showed up again same ute same cover same buckets so i called the police who told me to call fisheries who gave me the response "the investigation is ongoing?!!! no wonder why i cant catch a single legal crab!!!! same restuarant a few year back and a white triton ute came in asking if we want to buy reef fish 10/KG had the back fullof them!!! cod trout and many other species bloke told me he had 300 kilos to sell!!! even had the name of his business on the side of the ute. once again reported but never saw a news story regarding this or the other bloke. Maybe a bit more funding from the pollies and they could do more......... Mongrel ppl these fishin folk that pillage for profit!!!!

Just tell your mate to take the lot, tell the scum to just put them in the cold room for him while he gets the money and lock him in the cold room and start a new cheifs speical or ring the fisheries or the police and tell them that has .........detained someone ..........for selling undersize product and have made a .......citizens arrest .........they will come strait away.

[gpz1991]

A word of warning! It is a fine line in the law to make an arrest unless you know your law. Far safer to distract the seller and call local cops, you do not want to be the one being sued/charged for wrongful arrests.

[fever]

I am definatly against illegal fishing, but som idiots stick there nose in other peoples business before thinking. Last year i was netting a gutter for gar walking up a shallow part about 5.30 am. I see this guy about a kilometer up the beach, about half way threw he walks down the beach strait into the front of the net scaring anything away and yelling it is a illegal net and he is calling the fisheries he has another bloke in tow standing on the bank. Well the net is a standard 50 footer that you buy at any bait shop and totally legal. I told him to call fisheries and i wasn't going any were I also told him if he did not get out of the road i was going to #%$@!, so he moved. We pull the net in with bugger all in it and he looks at it and says or it looked illegal in the water.

[ThePinkPanther]

Mate, a couple of years back, I posted a topic on Ausfish called "The Asian Effect".

It ran for quite a long time, had heaps of replies and as expected, some people got all hot and bothered over some of the replies!

I worked in, around and about Asia for some thirty years, I KNOW these people! If it is wet, moves and can be eaten "they" will catch it and eat it!

And hey, they are bloody good at the catching bit! Watch the Yellow Raincoats in action when the prawns are on in the Logan and near the Powerlines ........... they know a thing or two about chucking cast nets!

Unconfirmed fact is the Vietnamese now own OVER 50% of the fishing and prawn trawlers operating out of Brisbane ........ !

Boating and Fisheries acting against them? What a joke! Pull up to a bunch of these yabbering clowns in their tinnies butchering the prawns and you will be confronted with a boat hook, machete, pick handle and "we come get your wife, we kill you".

Think I'm kidding? Guys, I work with the Qld Police as a volunteer, fourteen years now, I kid you not!

Pop down to Thompsons Beach at Victora Point in Moreton Bay mid week (never on weekends) and watch these guys trawl for periwinkles, shellfish, crawly "things" and then ask where all our foreshore fishing has gone!

And dont believe that illegal fishing takes decades to have a detrimental effect! I lived in PNG for twenty five years! The main beach in Port Moresby - Ela Beach - in 1973 - had a close-in shallow reef that back then was alive with all types of fish, shells, coral and almost equalled the inner Barrier Reef for marine life! Magnificent!

Then along came Independance and "White Mans Laws" collapsed overnight. By 1990, this little reef was, dead, gone, finished, exhausted and stripped of everything a reef should have. All in just over ten years!

Go the the fish markets in Manila in the Phillipines and if you don't shed tears of blood at what is for sale there then you ain't a fisherman! Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of "baby" everythings! Primarily raping the reefs of every shell and piece of marie life that can be gotten, all for the tourist trade - us - who buy them in necklace and bracelet form. Don't even ask about fish sizes!

And you think these guys that Australia clamours to bring in are going to change their fishing habits? Yeh, ain't gunna happen!

Damn, now you've got me off topic and all hot 'n bovvered!

[warti]

What about all the people who targeted the boyne river barra during the closed season. Some where even congratulated on this forum and others for catching such beautiful big fish, but no one stood up and said hey...isnt that illegal. I know 99 percent of these fish were released but it doesnt change the fact that this still went on and the majority thought it was ok to do so.