thoughtless fisherpersons killing little fishies

[finga64]

Whilst fishing down the pin way last week we (the cook and I) were drifting past a yacht and the people aboard caught a little bream (about 100mm long). The poor little fella swollowed the hook and instead of just cutting the hook off they proceeded to put the little fella into some clamps and tried to do surgury on him. I was only about 10m away so I told them to just cut the hook off and release but got abused for the effort. Needless to say the poor little fella floated away when released. >:( :'(

What would other Ausfishers do in my position??

If I had my camera I would have taken a series of pictures and sent them to the Fisheries. But I didn't.

[thumps]

some people just cant be told Mate

what do they care if one tiny fish gets killed, they probably think its was the fishes fault for swallowing the hook in the first place

some people can be soooooo stoopid

[juicyfruit]

Shocking as this may seem, I would have done the same as you as I hate any thing suffering or being killed without the purpose of being a feed......BUT then thought nothing of the floating causality other then "it’s just a common annoying bream that has the wrong size rating on him".

That doesn’t excuse the cruelty/handling/uneducated ways, of the person you mentioned, or others, over any type of fish.

Yes I believe that the size rating on this common found and annoying fish should be lowered (at least here in North Queensland)

*Sits back and awaits the less then favourable come backs*

Juicy

[thumps]

:o :-X

[brett_rokesky]

I got into a barney with a scumbag on his BIG boat down the bay a year or so ago...
He was pulling in undersize whiteing and bream taking them of the hook and kicking them like footies of the back with his w@nker mates.

I pulled up along side and asked him to stop and all i got for my troubles was a mouth full.

Lucky the old man was in the boat because i was almost on his.

[Wazza77]

Yeah what can you do when someone does this, i have seen it done too may times.

Some people need to think if they do this too often (or at all) what we the fishing be like in the future.

I know that catching little fish can be annoying for us adults, but if i have the kids with me they just love to catch a fish weather it be 100mm long or 500mm long. It keeps them them interested too.

I think if these people keep doing this (trying to get there hooks back and killing the smaller ones), the stocks will never build up to catch a decent fish. And how much does it really cost to put a new hook on the line??? Not that bloody much, UNLESS they don't know how to do it..... HA HA HA.

[Louis]

G'day Finga,


You did the wise thing.

It is an unfortunate situation you describe but it certainly isn't worth getting into a confrontation over.

You did all that you reasonably could have done.





Louis

[Jeremy]

best thing you can do in these situations is take a photo or a short film on you camera or whatever you have handy. Tell them that what they are doing is wrong and if they have an attitude, tell them about the photos you took with their rego numbers etc and send them to fisheries, RSPCA etc. That might get a response.

Jeremy

[Jeremy]

Sorry, just re-read your post and see you already knew that!

[roz]

Probably not much you can do with idiots like that. No common sense.

roz

[Panda]

Contrary to popular belief, little fishies very rarely ever grow up into big fishies.

One mature breeding adult will produce many millions of offspring in a lifetime and it only take 2 ( one for mummy and one for daddy) to replace the parent fish in the course of their lifetime. If only one percent of potential offspring survived to maturity, the worlds oceans would be packed solid with fish in a few years. Juveniles of most species have an extremely high attrition rate.

I believe in years to come we will probably see a move to LOWER legal sizes and the imposition of maximum size limits to preserve the brood stock. At least for recreational fishers who can be selective.

You would never hear of a farmer slaughtering his breeding stock and keeping only the calves, --- especially if he knew the calves had only a one in multiple thousands chance of surviving to maturity.

Before anyone starts flaming me, let it be said that I am not advocating anyone break the law and take undersize fish. The law is the law and must be respected.

What I would like people to think about is the next time someone catches a whopper bream they think about all the potential fingerlings she might produce if released unharmed. We tend to praise people who remove the big breeders from the system but become highly alarmed and irate if we see someone kill a 10cm bream that probably has about a one in ten thousand chance of reaching full maturity.

[maztez]

Hey Panda I tend to agree with your line of thinking .This was muted in the NT years ago to preserve the Barra stocks .Cant recall if they followed through with it tho .It makes a lot of sense .
Cheers Terry

[Louis]

I never thought of it that way before.

Perhaps you have a point.

It does seem to make sense.



Louis

[12Ply]

I won't hesitate to speak up if I see people mistreating/keeping undersize fish, Im also equally as vocal in suggesting that the big one they just caught might look better in a picture and swimming off to breed than being taken home and overcooked. ;)

[jimfisher]

>:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

i would of thrown a massive snapper sinker at him, then radio-in to the fisheries.

Barstards

to be eaten up by another fish is one thing, but to have his throat ripped out for a hook (no exuse).

[1810B]

Excellent post Pand. Should bring some thought to larger snapper caught. Especially caught and released. What survival rate? I am old enough to have seen the decline.

[megafish71]

Hey Panda I tend to agree with your line of thinking .This was muted in the NT years ago to preserve the Barra stocks .Cant recall if they followed through with it tho .It makes a lot of sense .
Cheers Terry

The NT has no max size limits on any fish, unlike Qld fisheries they base thier regs on actual science. A study over seveal years up there proved that barra over 130cm in size can and do eat more fingerlings each year than they could produce. That is why no max size limits on barra. Perhaps qld fisheries could look at that while their considering changing things with the mud crab fishery.

Ron

[familyman]

In NSW many maximum size limits already exist on popular fish such as dusky flathead and australian bass,should be more of it.Letting anglers take brood fish is a leftover theory form when this country had 80,000 anglers not 8 million(at last census).
cheers jon

[megafish71]

Excellent post Pand. Should bring some thought to larger snapper caught. Especially caught and released. What survival rate? #I am old enough to have seen the decline.

I agree, more criptic mortality rate studies should be carried out on more species of fish. But I think that the results might have some of these catch and release boys biting there lips.

Ron

[PG]

There is a common fact remaining that nobody has yet mentioned, many of the smaller fish are male and during their lives change sex to become female 'the big breeders'.
You must have a mix for the species to continue to flourish, and to get accurate sizes on males of each species and female of the same, I can see us taking an encyclopedia of legal size limits along in the boat to make sure the species (if we have identified correctly) is in fact inside the limits for THAT species because remember many species will have different growth rates and various species breed at different times of the year to others.
Does this seem to be a little convoluted to anyone? I for one see the sense in upper and lower size limits but I wouldn't like to have to make the decision on fisheries regs for size limits. Too many critics, it's human nature.
My two cents worth says it's the bag limits we have to regulate closer because that's what's doing the real damage.
Back to the main purpose of the thread, I agree the behaviour of that fisho was pretty pathetic and stupid, we can only hope he/she was a minority.
Paul.

[PinHead]

Now I am wondering at what size a fish no longer breeds...if we go along those lines we will have mutiple size limitations.

As for those people in BIG boats they are all a bunch of bastards.

[PG]

I meant to add too.......(with the best of intentions)
megafish, I'm a bit suspicious of the info you were given about barra eating more fingerlings than they can produce. Considering a reasonable size female Barra can produce over a million eggs if she breeds only once in a season, for her to eat as many fingerlings would be a phenominal amount of weight in fingerlings. 1 million fingerlings equates to a little over 19,000 fingerlings per week. Let's say each fingerling is aropund 50mm weighing a conservative 10g, that's over 190Kg of fish fingerlings EACH !
Barramundi have a very good food conversion ratio so if one Barra was to eat 190Kg of fingerlings per year...man I wanna catch that Barra ! ! !
...although I'd probably get smoked :-/
Not trying to discredit you, I did some sums in my head and it seemed too much to me,
Paul.

[thumps]

if i look at it this way......one breeder is equivilent to one fisherman in Aus

take 8 million out per day...hmmm.........thats alot of fish

:(

[Always_offshore]

we all bitch about people taking undersize fish etc .maybe the marine industry should look at educating people in the correct way to catch and release,maybe it should be part of getting your licence.-------------just my 2 cents worth.

[micknmerle]

Panda is on the right track, and so r those who set our bag limits on large snapper or large dusky flathead, it makes a lot of sense. Maybe a little more education for amuatuers would help more of us understand.

[blaze]

we talk about ripping a hook out off a fishes mouth, while we sit next to the mongrel ringing the rspca, we then hang up the phone and precede to put a thumping great hook through the back of our live bait. Bloody rightuos lot airnt we?
I think we need to think things through a bit sometimes and have a glance in the mirror
cheers
blaze

[megafish71]

I meant to add too.......(with the best of intentions)
megafish, I'm a bit suspicious of the info you were given about barra eating more fingerlings than they can produce. Considering a reasonable size female Barra can produce over a million eggs if she breeds only once in a season, for her to eat as many fingerlings would be a phenominal amount of weight in fingerlings. 1 million fingerlings equates to a little over 19,000 fingerlings per week. Let's say each fingerling is aropund 50mm weighing a conservative 10g, that's over 190Kg of fish fingerlings EACH !
Barramundi have a very good food conversion ratio so if one Barra was to eat 190Kg of fingerlings per year...man I wanna catch that Barra ! ! !
...although I'd probably get smoked #:-/
Not trying to discredit you, I did some sums in my head and it seemed too much to me,
Paul.

The study I mention was done several years ago by NT Fisheries and I was privy to alot of info from them back then as my wife worked for NT fisheries for several years. I think the part you have missed is how many of those million or so eggs make it to be a fingerling. And from there how many survive to a size that a barra would consume. Remember there are many preditors in these water ways and barra are always under threat of being eaten by something. Your math is good but you have left out all the variables. If the natural recruitment rate was as good as the way your math explains it, than Qld would have the best wild barra stocks, but have nothing compared to the NT or WA. Something worth considering anyway.


Ron

[finga64]

As somebody has already said.
Education is needed no matter what the regulations say. In NSW to get a license you just pay the money. Nothing else is said or given (a pamphlet is available if you want). It's just to revenue in. The only education is TV ads saying you need a license.
No matter what is done there will always be the minority doing the damage.
My own father grew up in the days of cutting the tails of rays and throwing them back. I grew up with that attitude until the day I witnessed a large pod of rays riding the waves at Evans like dolphins (I was 12). Now I've taught him different.

All we can hope for is that the majority of people do the right thing, either by law or morality, and that the minority of people that is doing the damage eventually change their ways by other people guiding them (either by law or morality).

Why not have the legal and moral requirements up at everyplace you buy bait??
The people doing the bad stuff would generally be occassional fisherpersons and would generally buy their bait.

How many people know how to get fish with blown guts back down to the depths?? Most just throw back and hope for the best. That's a huge waste as well and probably does more damage then the senseless killing of 100mm bream.

But some people just haven't a clue and will never have a clue. Dumb, ignorant b-stards.

P.S. I once witnessed a LARGE boat (at least 12m) full of people from the same place that practices whale culling for research pull up buckets of little fish and never witnessed one getting thrown back. A boat went over and gave them the good oil and after that they kept on going the same. Another boat did give them a snapper sinker. Laugh...it was good. They moved on then, probably to do the same somewhere else.

Better get off the soapbox and stop on the coffee ;)

[thumps]

All we can hope for is that the majority of people do the right thing, either by law or morality, and that the minority of people that is doing the damage eventually change their ways by other people guiding them (either by law or morality).

Why not have the legal and moral requirements up at everyplace you buy bait??




you can only advise people on the LAW aspect.....you cant enforce a MORAL

a MORAL is something that you believe..and only becomes a reality when someone else believes it too

in that place where they eat whales....it is MORALLY the right thing to do......but not MORALLY right to do here....and see what effect that has !!!!!

the biggest problem we as rec fishers face..is the MORAL issue....like cutting tails off skates....i never have...or even considered it....but people still do it today...cause they believe its MORALLY correct.

its also like throwing small fish back after kicking them...or ripping hooks out of their mouths
some people just dont have the same MORALS

whats acceptable to some...will never be accepted by others..because they dont have the same MORALS

[Gazza]

Finga ,
Maybe this guy was "normally" a lure fisho ,and just had a bad habit always getting his tackle back :-X ;D

Noticed you mentioned cutting off "at" the hook.....
used to do that myself ,then read somewhere to leave about 8~10cms of line as well.... to stop the hook moving around too much ,and hopefully dissolve but come out the mouth :-? ...dunno ,but made sense.

Sure mate ,release-weight for deepwater ;) ,but i reckon over 20~30mtrs. they are probably stuffed anyway.

that leads to [smiley=happy.gif] ,should the sizelimit of DEEPwater fishing be relaxed 8-) i.e. 34cm snapper ,but e.g. 2 only :-X ....(still 5 max.)or feed the sharks?

Anyways mate, let's pass around the tissues "for the little fella" ,I trust he? went to a good home , like a Muddie or a 69cm. Duskie ;D

[finga64]

Thumps is right on the mark with his post about morals.

Just change the word moral to recommendation or obligation.

Not enforceable by law but lets people know what is a acceptable.

Recommendations are displayed all the time. Just look at a smoke packet or the speed recommendation signs everywhere going around corners.

[Jay_S]

What about all the small fish that get killed in trawler nets :-? :-? :-?








Jay 8-)

[cooky]

Thumps is right on the mark with his post about morals.

Just change the word moral to recommendation or obligation.

Not enforceable by law but lets people know what is a acceptable.

Recommendations are displayed all the time. Just look at a smoke packet or the speed recommendation signs everywhere going around corners.


This is one of the weirdest threads I've read. The issue at hand just has too many arguments both for and against to come to any sort of conclusion. Some are discussing morals. and particularly lets people know what is a acceptable.. Who defines what is acceptable? If it is the Greens or animal rights group acceptable is a completely different story, it it's pro fisherpeople - different again; It it's the aboriginals - different again - the japanese, etc, etc...... on and on we go. You're pushing your beliefs on others. You believe pulling a hook out of the little fishies mouth is cruel and terrible. Who cares if I do or don't, the point is "these people might not". I don't know how old they were and I've seen plenty of kids being cruel when I was growing up (often part of growing up). I just think that fishing is a cruel hobby, sport in many ways and if it's the sport / hobby you enjoy that there will always be grey lines (clouded areas of acceptability). It's like a pig hunting enthusiast saying "I don't agree with those pig hunters using dogs to hunt - it hurts the piggies. When I use my compound bow, I usually kill them first or second shot". It's just too open for argument of what constitutes reasonable - to who?

Many lure fisherfolk may believe using a cast net and fishing with live or dead bait is cruel - they may think you are unreasonable or cruel for using live bait. I personally don't think this is a cruel or damaging method of fishing - it's just fishing. I encouraged my wife to watch the Riveria Billfish Challenge on Sat (screened on TV) as I thought it was fantastic - her initial reaction is that is was disgusting and cruel and "why would people do that to those beautiful big fish?". I explained they didn't keep them and she couldnt' understand what the interest was (what is the use then?). I then realised that some people woudl see the fish struggling and panic jumping to then be tagged by a pole and released as seemingly cruel and not MORAL.

What I guess I'm getting at is that there are really obvious forms of abuse / mistreatment, etc and I don't think your example is clearly that. You could argue the pros and cons for hours. That fisherperson might have released 50 in a period of two hours and been replacing 20 hooks - he might have been on his last hook and thought "I'll show you". Fishing can also be an incredibly frustrating hobby and I'm sure most people will have passed on their frustration to a fish.

Is clubbing a fish over the head (often like madmen ;)) to stun or kill cruel? is slicing their throat? is throwing a fish in a kill tank or in an esky (without killing first) cruel? (they flip around like mad often shaking up beers annoyingly in the process).

should we start putting plastic bags over fishies heads while resting them on a pillow and gas them to death?

When you fish you kill or seemingly hurt fishies and marine creatures, therefore you may become a little de-sensitised and your perceptions of what constitutes unreasonably or cruel behaviour can change.

[thumps]

mor•al
Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
1. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
2. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
3. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
4. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
5. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.


a MORAL is something that YOU BELIEVE..and only becomes a REALITY when someone else believes it too


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moral

[bidkev]

You can dissappear up yer own arse arguing the point about this. As thumps has said, one man's morals ain't anothers, and as I say, one person's research is another person's laughing stock.

By it's very nature our sport would be classed as "cruel" in most Western civilisations but despite this "moral statement" a vast industry revolves around the "cruel" sport. The same prats (and their are millions of them) who would think that way, would think nothing of buying reeboks that were made via slave labour or eating veal. I digress.........

The fact of the matter is that I'm sick to death of a crab population that consists in the main of jennies many of which are probably barren and of those who aren't, who's gonna fertilise 'em if all we have is access to in Qld, is the fertilisers?

I am also at a loss (without confirmed data) as to weigh up just how correct we are in having upper (breeding) sizes. As has been said, the big breeders probably eat more of the stock than they produce, and the natural mortality rate of fry via disease/predators is *faf* *far* more of an impact than we as fishos can ever be, Bugger me if it can't be argued that for every fish we remove we save a thousand from yet one more predator.

Personally, I keep nothing under 40cm (except as bait) as I can't be arsed with the filleting.

One thing I *do* know after years in the tropical fish trade is that fish *don't* feel pain. I've lost count of the number of times a fat arsed lazy oscar has fell asleep on a heater and burned itself through to the bone. This would not be the issue here though as whether they feel pain or not has no bearing on the mortality rate due to poor handling.

Another thing I do know is that the eyes of the world are on us and irrespective of how we feel about the handling of fish we have to do it in as humane a way as possible. I find it absolutely farcical that the very same person who complies with returning an undersize fish to the water does so after removing it from the hook whilst holding it in a pair of tongues! Those bloody implements should be banned altogether. The very same person who lovingly swims a knackered bream back into it's environment may well think nothing of ripping the gullet out of a toady, as the littered carcasses on our jetties bear witness to.

Oooooops! Bloody hell, that hurt..........just fell off me bloody soapbox! ;D

kev

[bidkev]

Oh, and before someone says that they've seen tongues on board my rig, yes, I do have 'em but they're used only for runaway muddies.

kev

[Gazza]

Oh, and before someone says that they've seen tongues on board my rig, yes, I do have 'em but they're used only for runaway muddies.
kev
Nahh ya pommy git *tic*

THONGS ,are used for runaway crabs ;)
Note: take the THONG off your foot 1st. ;D
but hey ,if ya that piddled ,use ya TONGUE!! ;D :D :D :D

[bidkev]

Oh, and before someone says that they've seen tongues on board my rig, yes, I do have 'em but they're used only for runaway muddies.
kev
Nahh ya pommy git *tic*

THONGS ,are used for runaway crabs #;)



Waddya do, use it as a sling shot or lasso?

I don't think the deckie would be amused if I said, "can I borrow your thong to catch crabs?" :o Transvestism she may be able to put up with, :o but to accuse her of having crabs? :o ::) ;D

[markpeta]

Why would you take photos and ring fishers ? :-/ Honestly would have told you where to go myself. As a smart young fisho Jay_S mentioned about the trawlers and netting thats going on around the place how much by catch is going to waste from this. People if your going to start a crusade you should be aiming you sights a little higher. As for cruelty issue how many of you use live bait and buy bait that has been drag around in trawler net for a couple of hours that has come to die from drowning or crushed to death.

Just something to think about before you start World War 3 over a under size bream death.

Mark

[vanurose]

I had no idea really how carung most other fishos are until I read the last several posts above. The ones I seem to come across do all thses wonderful things
Leave all their rubbish at the boat ramps(even though bins are provided)
Use castnets on our pier and leave all the small ones they do not want to die in the sun, as they are too lazy to pick them up and throw them back.
Continually keep underszed mackerel(everyone knows the legal sizes of, Doggie, Spanish and Spotted)
Throw fishing line into the water
Leave plastic bags everywhere and let them blow into the water.
I just wish all you ausfish fishos were up here in Cairns and say something to all of them and hopefully they will get the message.
I used to say something but my husband stopped me as he is worried one of these guys would do something to me. So now I bite my tongue and that is hard for me as I hate cruelty and wastage.
I admire fishos that speak up. [smiley=dankk2.gif] [smiley=dankk2.gif] [smiley=dankk2.gif] [smiley=dankk2.gif]

[vanurose]

Sorry my typing is faulty
caring not caring
these not thses [smiley=behead.gif]

[Jeremy]

I meant to add too.......(with the best of intentions)
megafish, I'm a bit suspicious of the info you were given about barra eating more fingerlings than they can produce. Considering a reasonable size female Barra can produce over a million eggs if she breeds only once in a season, for her to eat as many fingerlings would be a phenominal amount of weight in fingerlings. 1 million fingerlings equates to a little over 19,000 fingerlings per week. Let's say each fingerling is aropund 50mm weighing a conservative 10g, that's over 190Kg of fish fingerlings EACH !
Barramundi have a very good food conversion ratio so if one Barra was to eat 190Kg of fingerlings per year...man I wanna catch that Barra ! ! !
...although I'd probably get smoked #:-/
Not trying to discredit you, I did some sums in my head and it seemed too much to me,
Paul.

one thing you are forgetting with your calculations is that you are assuming that all the eggs released will grow into fingerlings. Many will not even be fertilized and more again will be eaten as eggs or before they reach fingerling size. Don't know the %ages but I bet it is pretty high.

Jeremy

[PG]

Good point about survival rates megafish and jeremy. My bad, if I had only done some statistics hey?
Cheers,
Paul.

[finga64]

Here, Here Vanurose, you go girl.
If nothing is said nothing changes.
How does anybody know what they are doing is wrong (morally or legally) if nobody tells them. I'm talking about conversing, not demanding. Not yelling or getting agro.
I'm not getting into the moral issue again, so don't go there.
People may not think about what they are doing until somebody tell them...right or wrong.. some people may change, some may not...
I also tell un-disabled people that park in the disable carparks what they are doing is wrong also...How many don't bother....How many couldn't care less until they have a disabled person in their car and can't find a park 'cause they're all full with lazy people who couldn't be bothered to walk another 50m...
or they catch a plastic bag around the leg and cook a motor
Both have happened to me over X-mas. Didn't cook the motor though, but a pool salt bag got caught around the leg all the same.

All the examples mentioned before in this thread are morally or legally wrong.

If you believe something is wrong do something about it... or shut up and forget about it..and don't come complaining to me afterwards

Nothing will change if nobody speaks out....
How does anybody learn if no-body wants to teach how...

As somebody here has under their user name...."APATHY IS THE ENEMY"

[vanurose]

Thanx Finga
Youve made my day [smiley=dankk2.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]
Cheers
Rose

[Roo]

This thread has certainly highlighted some of the hypocrasy we all live(fish) with (strong words but I couldn't think of any other wat to put it).

cruely to animals is not the intent of fishing, but however you do it there is some cruelty involved.

I've often wondered about the virtues of fishing when practised purley for sport. is it ok to catch fish for sport?

or should we only catch a feed.

I'm no nutbag fundamentalist, but I'd rather not unnecessarily injure fish if it was of no practical use (for a feed)to be catching them. Consequentiality I tend to fish with lures rather than bait as the small pickers are not as likley to end up on my line.
This also means I go home without a fish at all some times.

who knows.... i may end up wearing high heels around so i give the ants half a chance [smiley=hair2.gif] [smiley=whip.gif]

i guess you can go too far [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[themisses]

They better not be my high heels honey, get your own!!

Your misses.

[Scalem]

Hey Finga!

You sometimes can't reason with the unreasonable, and you can't teach respect for our fish resource to people who have no respect. But you should be congratulated for at least trying!

I released a small grassy on the weekend, he swallowed the hook right down into the start of his stomach, and I guess my strike at him to set the hook hurt him that bad, he was also a floater when released. The point I am making is that as hard as we try, sometimes the fish is history because of where the hook has become lodged. Similar if any gill damage has occurred. If the fish is only slightly damaged, I am sure with as many sharks are around at the moment, a slightly stressed/slow swimming fish would be an appetiser for the grey suit brigade. That's why it is important to give them the best chance. Good subject!

Scalem