Its been a few years since I talked to any of the live trout fishers but the guys I spoke to from Mackay and Innisfail were talking much smaller numbers. Each Dory has one fisher and 20-40 fish per boat seemed a general average catch when the weather was OK. A few of the boats could not carry more than 800 or so fish. Maybe they take a lot more now with bigger and better holding systems but even then 5000kg of live fish would need a lot of spaceOriginally Posted by Scott nthQld
A Proud Member of
"The Rebel Alliance"
I understand that spearing may be some what of a fashion down south and your weather seems to be rediculously good nearly all the time but up here we dont get the oppertunity to flog the reef correct me some1 if I'm wrong but I dont think we've had more than 6 good days weather in total this year so spearo's up here dont get to flog out any spots and yep I like to take my bag limit when I get the chance 7 trout for me my misus n my daughter to eat dont go too far.
I guess that both commercial and fisheries have a vested interested in contiuing to provide a sustainable fishery. It kinds of annoys me a bit when people up the pro's saying they are raping the fishery. We have a reasonably well managed fishery, more heavily regulated than most in the world. These days there are less and less pro's due to goverment buybacks. So I really dont have an issue with commercial fishing that is done using sustainable tecniques.Without the actual stats it is hard to answer. I will say that anecdotal observations for around my area would show that most pro's are slowly getting out of the business. The trout boys use to frequent here yearly but I haven't seen them for about 5 years now. Same for the mackerel boys - this time of year you'd see heaps of mother ships each with at least 4 doreys out at Rib & Bramble reefs but that number has dwindled significantly over the years.
I think when we have a bad day out we all look to blame someone. I was up at Bamaga last week and talking to the guides no one was getting fish that week. Do we now say that the tip is over-fished or just accept that sometimes it's harder than other times to get them
The pros go in and take fish, they dont take all the fish. If it ends up with an area that is not fishing well for a week or 2 then too bad. The resource is there to be shared.
Put it this way, the pros have quotas, the recs dont.. Is that fair?
Whaaaaaa?
Where I live we have the biggest concentration of live trout fishermen on the east Coast. I can walk dwn to the local coop and look in the live tanks most days f the week and they are chock full over coral - thats about 500 to 1000 trout in a tank.
I also know the guys who run the place and they are very heavily regulated - they must record when and where they catch each fish in a log book which is checked every time they come into port.
These guys are only chasing 38cm - to 45cm fish which are optimal for the overseas market. Bar Cheek and Leopard trut are regarded as class 1 fish whilst the bigger strawb and blue spot are regarded as class 2 fish which pay less money. Dead trout are not even worth the labur to fillet them.
These guys cannot fish in anything more than 15 metres of water leaving plenty of area for recs to fish he deeper areas for the bigger trut.
Diver I also spear and you would know that in the shallower water - 10 -15m you get lots of 'bombie' trout which are the small plate sized trout. Not much fun to shot and definetly not sport fish- these are the fish the pros take.
Whilst I agree to an extent that they do harvest a lot of fish off the reef the actual number of live trout fishing boats is in massive decline and most guys who own the operations see no future in the industry.
If you look at the big picture it is actually these guys which keep the greenies from locking up the reefs for everyone and if you think the govt gives a hoot about rec fishers you are very naive. If we lose these guys we are pretty much stuffed.
Creek netters do a lot worst mate.
Just my two cents
Whaaaaaa?
You dont agree?
7 trout per person, that's a quota. It might be called a 'bag limit' but it's still a quota.
I'm pretty sure Andy means quotas as in a yearly or seasonal quota.
For example a rec fisho has a bag limit of 7, but could you impose a yearly quota of 350, 400 or whatever number of fish per year?.
That's what a quota is,,,,,,,,good in theory, but how could it work?
I don't think it could for the rec fisho.
A pro would have a yearly quota of kilo's wouldn't they?
Exactly. So if a sustainable take is 400fish a year for example, and 100 recs are pulling there bag of 7 fish year, thats 700 fish which is not sustainable. SO what do we do, restrict pro quota to 200, and rec to 200, or rec to 300 and pro to 100? What is fair?
The commercial catch is measured, the rec catch is not.
There is suggestions by fisheries that some rec effort is not sustainable, yet everyone whines and complains when fisheries tries to implement some sort of catch monitoring.
When I first got into the politics of fishing, i detested the pro's. My attitude has changed a lot as I have become more educated on the topic.
Go and talk to a few pro's. They know more than most on the topic and are actually more interested in being able to fish in the future than most rec's.
I have and I've even supported them a few years running at the Port Douglas carnivale when they fund raised. No local fishing clubs did this yet they were there year after year. I was one of the workers there. My dad also spent a lot of time as a pro fisherman.
My original post even shows I have support for them. But I cannot agree that rec fishos effectivley do not have a quota. Remember it is an in possession limit. Combined with the weather patterns up this way, we don't catch too many each year.
was reading through a few studies from earlier this decade on the trout fishery today. Commercial quota is capped at 2004 levels - from memory 1400 tonnes or thereabouts per year. The rec catch per year was calculated at 350 tonnes per year.......
The arguement that they are still meeting quotas so the system must be working is flawed. (if the pros couldn't meet quota - that's a sign that its too late.......)
If the total effort required to catch the quota is increasing - then something is wrong - if the proportion of fish taken in filling the quota is getting higher each year (e.g. quota is 2% of available fish population one year, 3% the next and so on) - it won't take long until the same fixed quota is a much larger percentage of fish population and will get to a point of unsustainability.
I'm couldn't find anything that talked about fishing effort or calculation of proportion of catch - so I can't say that this is an issue or not - BUT - the arguement can't be made (that the current system is working and that there is no issue) if these factors are not considered.
Moffy
Lucky they were a double and fought each otherIf the Goldfish you are holding in your avatar is anything to go by, that must have been one hell of a Sardine
I am not saying for a second that everything is ok, it may not be. But we dont know. We also dont know that the rec effort is only 350t, because its estimated on very minimal amounts of data plugged into a computer model. IT may well be less, but it may also be a lot more.
I am more inclined to believe the commercial fisherman who does this everyday, rather than a rec fisho that hits the water once every 2 months. And I am more inclined to believe the figures presented by the pro, as his catch is measured.
It would be interesting to see if there is an increased effort for the pros to get their quota over the last 30 years or so. If licences have decreased, and effort has increased, then surely thats a good sign that the fishery is in trouble? As far as commercial catch v number of licences this data must be available, I wonder if we could ween it out of fisheries?
The difference is that there is a set limit for commercial fisherman as a whole. You personally have a bag limit, but there is no consideration give to the number of rec fishermen on the water.
If recs had a quota, you might have to apply for a rec licence. The number of rec licences would then dictate your bag. 100 rec permits might mean a bag of 10, but if 200 rec permits were issued then you bag drops to 5. 1000 rec permits means you only get to take one fish. Could end up being a lottery like the WA rec snapper fishery. Thats a quota. That limits the actual fishing effort of all recs as a whole.
Devocean I agree the netters do way more damage thats a whole other subject that sh#ts me to tears big time I've seen what they do n it really needs to be stopped they destroy the barra pop. As far as rec quota its 7 in possesion at any time and with the weather up here you cant take that too often like I said earlier we've had about 6 good days this year so far and the year in almost done as when our wet season starts she's all over for the reef for a few months atleast. And I spear for a feed not for a trophy if I see trout over the 5kg mark I leave them for risk of cig, the bomby trout are what we chase in around the 10-15m mark sometimes to 20m but I'm the only guy in my crew who can get that deep so they take all my trout. I know alot of people who have worked in the live trout dories and if the rate at wich they get ripped off from there boss and steal from green zone has anything to do with the sustainability of it then we're already in trouble cause they like to earn a wage each week not once a month. And yes mate if we lose them we prob are finished as the gov is full off water dodging faggots that will kick our oppions for a six n shut us out for sure so I gues I'm never going to be happy with the subject or out come but hey thats why I started this discussion cause it really shits me off. I also recon green zone should be rotated each 5 yrs or so, close off new areas and open up the current green zones.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
