Qld Keen Angler program. 2014 results

[Lucky_Phill]

Keen Angler Program update: March 2015


The reel screamers arrive!

Thank you for your participation in the Keen Angler Program.

The lead up to Christmas saw great weather and both Spanish and spotties on the chew! Good numbers of frames were donated by members from Bundaberg, Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast. Thank you to those who held onto frames or took them to a drop off point over the holidays - your extra effort is appreciated.

We had a great year for donations in 2014, with members of the program donating 4,269 fish frames from 468 catches.


When you catch any of our target species (even if it’s only one fish), make sure you keep the frame.
Donating frames is easy!

1. Fillet your catch
2. Place the frame (with head, guts and gonads) into one of the sample bags
3. Fill in the waterproof label using pencil
4. Drop your bagged and labelled samples into one of our helpful drop-off locations (see last page for list) or call me to arrange a collection (flexible collection times available, including weekends.

Anyone interested in becoming a Keen Angler, please contact Robert Prosser at:-

Contact: Robert Prosser
Phone: 07 3255 4205
Email: robert.prosser@daf.qld.gov.au


Further reading here:-

[SHOOTER1]

Suggest we all click on the link re spanish mackeral on the pdf interesting reading. Re closures on aggreation sites etc. Note rec take potentially will exceed commercial be prepared for restrictions. Also looks like a pending investment warning on the commercial fishery.

[Lucky_Phill]

An interesting read.

No doubt there are many commercial and also some recreational fishers that target Spanish Mackerel during the spawning times, to better increase their effort / catch ratio. I can see that as a problem.

Some of the data collected is drawn from a Uni student that I had the pleasure of talking to. The data was collected as " anecdotal evidence " in relation to catch rates over a long period of time from specific areas. Her work also drew information from historical newspaper clippings.

The same data from newspapers was recently used to provide " evidence " for Snapper research.

I am not going to suggest the catch rate is unimportant when summarising stock assessments, but really !!! How can anyone draw conclusions from newspaper clippings of recreational histroical catches and apply that to a stock assessment data input ?????????? I will enlighten those again with my take.

In recent years we have had bag, size and seasonal limitations on most fish stocks, so there can be no comparison drawn with historical catch rates, when there were no limitations.

I understand the importance of protecting aggregating / spawning fish stocks and the need to manage these well. Hence we have seasonal closures in SEQ of the CRFF for 2 periods per year. We have also had size minimums increased on most fish in the past few years.

I believe we have played out our last card in fishery management by using the old size and bag limit programs. Time to get serious about enhancing the fish stocks and getting that " oh so important " Bio Mass rising. How do we do this ?

By providing more habitat for the fishery...... Artifical Reefs. This system of fishery management has a proven track record in overseas countries and I am afraid we are light years behind them................ :(

The Keen Angler Program has been going for a long time and has recorded a great amount of data that needs to be used for the benefit of the fishery.

Green Zones, size limits, bag limits are all well and good, but we are not providing the basics in fishery management. WE still destroy their breeding grounds, nurseries, mangroves, estuaries are netted, run off is still killing the reef and water quality is piss poor.

If any Government is serious about the fishery, it will embrace an holistic approach to the management regime' and NOT target specific areas.


LP

[Feral]

A Lot of saltwater fish "seasons" are based around breeding cycles. It is only when the numbers get low that they introduce controls.

Unfortunately what happens is perceptions of lower catches or numbers leads to research, research leads to closures, Fisho's see that the info they have provided has "penalised" them, and they stop providing info.

Certainly a lot of fisho's felt they had been dudded when green zones were introduced for that reason.

[SHOOTER1]

Seems to be alot of assumptions in the Mac report. From experience in weipa when the shark drift netters moved in they could keep the mackeral as allowed bycatch. Surprise surprise more money in net caught mack then shark. Drift netters then targeted agregation sites like Pera Heads. Only took a short time for the fishery to collapse. There used to be about 10 line boats working the western coast of the cape (systainable fishery with a quality product) lucky to be 2 now.