Why NOT collect all data of all fish caught while its right there in front of you, How much can it cost to put a few extra lines on there research pages ??? Wouldn't it also mean you have there data aswell for the future !!!
But that's right NO ONE CATCHES anything else but Snapper and Pearlie's. Typical blind research to keep over paid knobs in jobs !!!
I am off home for a nice cold beer and roast a nice snapper for dinner !!!
Cheers
size and number of fish and where they r caught is recorded, this is rec fishermens catches being recorded and look where the research results are taking us,green zones, smaller bags and smaller fish. if theres a problem then we must be solving it? if not were being screwed by bob brown? either way i leave mine in the ice and show em nothing
Snapper is overrated, the same as pearlies and barra gets very boring and mundane after awhile
I wont lose sleep over it
and tailor and leatherjackets rate where ??Originally Posted by bondy99
whats in ya top 10?
Guys
I think many people are confused about the Green Zones. As far as I am aware they were established and are run by DERM (i.e. Parks and Wildlife), not Fisheries. They were supposedly implemented to 'protect examples of different habitats' and not to control fishing pressure. Now I don't really believe that. They were not developed or put in place by the guys at Fisheries so don't blame them. It seems to me that they were put in place by the greenies at DERM in an attempt at regulating fisheries management by undermining the Fisheries Department.
Personally I don't mind letting the fisheries researchers measure my catch. So many anglers winge about there being no, incorrect, biased or unrealistic data on which decisions are based. Yet these same people also refuse to supply the information they say is lacking which also seems a little hypocritical to me. From what I've read these surveys are voluntary so if you don't want to participate that is fine, don't. However do not go whining to everyone that the information is biased when by not participating you are in a way only biasing the results. There seems to be conspiracy that the Fisheries department is trying to ban people from catching fish or want to limit them to taking only one or two. It doesn't make sense to me because what does the department gain? If anything it would probably lead to a reduction in the number of people it employs and can you really see these guys recommending themselves out of a job.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. I will hop off my soap-box
Ok fellas at this moment I have other things happening which are more important than rating fish,or a slanginh. human life is more important than bloody fish.
I just had the ambulance take an 82 year old fella to hospital, he was on the dunny, fI heard a bang and shouted to him if hwe was ok, aparently he was not, he fainted and cracked his skull in three places and lost heaps of blood.
So if you don't mind I'm having a break. Good luck to you all. You only live once so enjoy whatever it is that you like the most.
Regarding catch records: Some time ago I was involved in prawn research in The Gulf. The Weipa commercial Banana Prawn catch reduced progressively over several years. Someone published a paper on a classic collapse of the fishery where the area fished was reduced year by year like Canadian Cod. However: at the same time the commercial catch was collapsing to less than 40 tonnes the fishery independent surveys showed good recruitment to the fishery each year.
As a result of some conversations at industry meetings rumour suggested there really were prawns at Weipa that were being missed due to the decreasing fishing effort. Next season a large number of boats fished Weipa and caught $400 tonnes of prawns.
I don't know how anyone could do a meaningful survey of the stock size of Snapper without spending a million dollars (the real cost of meaningful surveys as spent by the commercial fisherman in the Gulf Prawn Fishery). If you want that you would need to have licences to pay for it.
How about we settle for a process that simply looks a the size of fish being landed and have a simple decision rule that if there are no big fish being caught we should have bag and size limits to allow more fish to escape. This would mean they might live long enough to spawn a few times before they die or get caught.
Regards BobPen
No worries mate, that's your point of view and you are entitled to it. I will continue to live in my paranoid, impossible, stupid world until the researchers are prepared to take down all the details in order to get accurate info. The guy I am referring to had a good box of fish, quality fish but as they were not snaps or pearlys, they didnt give a rats arse. I find this suss to be honest, fair enough they might be after specific info, but ain't it challenging to the mind to see that the species that have been subjected to closures in the past are the only numbers they are after??? The data collected contains no descriminative variables, my mate was not even included in the research because he hadn't targeted the species they were after.... WTF?? Quantative research demands all variables are taken into account, and that just aint happening. And if the fact that I think this government will do whatever it takes to keep tree hugging lefts happy makes me paranoid..... well mate, call me Paranoid Shane!! As for me, I dont have to show them my fish, they cant make me show them my fish, so I haven't, I don't and I won't.
Cheers,
PS
PS.
Not knowing exactly who did the survey you are referring to makes it difficult to know exactly what the story was in his situation. However, the team in which I work carries out regular surveys at boat ramps to help estimate the length of fish being caught and retained by recreational fishers. The boat ramp surveys are only a small part of the total work carried out to collect biological data (length and age) for a range of species (see links posted previously if you are interested). Therefore, if you haven't caught any of the fish "on the list" (e.g. snapper, pearl perch, teraglin, yellowtail kinfish, cobia, amberjack, bream, whiting, flathead, tailor, Spanish mackerel, spotted mackerel, grey mackerel, barramundi) then your catch can't contribute length data for those particular species. Some have suggested that this is biasing or skewing the data collection. I am not sure how - it isn't skewing the length data for the monitored species (none were caught/measured), and it isn't biasing the length data for the other species that aren't monitored in this way.
Of course it is a different story if the surveys were aiming to collect data on the relative proportion of different species being caught. But they're not.
I hope that helps with that misunderstanding.
Jonathan.
Fair enough,
Thanks Jono
fair enough mate. I do agree with you in that they should at least go the extra mile and collect additional specie data. but the more specie data the more work they have to do. its one thing to collect the data, thats the easy part, but then you have to collate, analyse, interpret, do stat tests etc which creates more work and considering all the public interest in the three rrf at the moment i think they are streamlining the process and trying to get a report out. i personally dont think its a conspiracy but each to their own.
I have had some fairly extensive private correspondence with Matty Campbell about the RRFF review and my objections to the system that was used to determine RRFF and in particular Snapper numbers. While there remains several points that we disagree on in regards to this process, it is my opinion he is a genuine dude doing things as honestly he can with the tools he has available.
My biggest sticking point with all of this is that as far a Recreational catches are concerned we have very little data of the whole fishery. Therefore a number of "educated" guesses need to be made on how to extrapolate that to give a wider view of the fishery. This is where Matt and I will always bash heads. Things like assuming that Rec Snapper catches have gone up at a rate of 6% because the number of boats over a certain size has gone up at a rate of 6% does my head in. Another is Recreational Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE). IMO Fisheries are a little blinkered with this tool as for Pro and Charter Data this is a pretty useful guide. However as a number of others have pointed out, just because old mate heads out and doesn't catch a Snapper or Pearly or Trag, IMO does not give one ounce of evidence of the relative numbers of these fish down there.
As you may have read in previous posts I was a big supporter of the mandatory catch card options within the RRFF review process. That looks like now that it wont happen. I was also vocal about having a total catch card (not just RRFF) as as some have pointed out why not get ALL the data available at the same time.
Right now the size v length or numbers etc may not be needed for review on other species but what happens when a minority group in the stake holders starts crying foul about Tuskies or Parrot or Mahi Mahi etc. We then have to do a whole new "modelling" process where the Rec sector again is assumed to be the largest taker of the species but is again the poorest data provider?????
There is only one other option I can see in this and that is to lobby the QLD state government to use dole bludgers to sit at every single boat ramp on a work for the dole scheme for as many hours a day as it is deemed necessary and collect the length and numbers of EVERY fish that comes in every year. We know we have enough of the bastards to be able to do 4 hour shifts round the clock at every boat ramp from the border to Bundaberg and still only have them do 3 or 4 shifts a week. It may even motivate them to get into the industry. Make the inspections mandatory for all boaties. Problems solved.
Democracy: Simply a system that allows the 51% to steal from the other 49%.
Matt,
to bring you back to an earlier statement;
"Shane I would think that this would be due to the fact that snapper and pearlies are the two primary species caught and retained by rec fishers in the rocky reef fishery. This is especially the case at this time of year."
The assumption you make is that you know what the most predominately caught species of fish is by the rec angler, when in fact that may simply not be the case, by limiting the information you gather at the boat ramp you simply blind yourself to reality. Yes, you may be correct in assuming that people are targeting those fish at this time of year, however as we all well know, that does not necessarily translate into targeted fish. By capturing the data of all species that I had returned with your RRFF data would have captured the fact that I had more of another species of RRFF fish and not your target band.
So Cynic; Yes, armed with the ammunition that fisheries has and continues to provide, over the last 5-10 years through bad management and wasted money. There is a distinct lack of trust and rapport with rec anglers and waterways management as a direct result of what has occurred with both the RRFF and the implementation of the green zones (EPA), in both cases the information we provided has literally been used against us, with little truth and quite frankly not in the best interest of the fishery.
Fisheries reputation has suffered immeasurable damage with the whole RRFF debacle together with the EPA's implementation of the green zones; this is something that you guys are going to need to work extensively on to recover.
Onsite visit Offer;
I personally think that is a good idea as a first step in trying to rebuild some of the bridges that have been burned, however I think your target audience is too small, I would suggest you have an open day on a weekend , something along those lines where the public is invited to see what it is that you do. (and advertise it properly).
Regards
Honda.
Honda
I won't tread on Jono_SS's toes but as know the Assessment and Monitoring team monitor bream, whiting, flathead, spanish mackerel, spotted mackerel, grey mackerel, tailor, barra and the rocky reef fish, primarily (but not limited to) pearlies, snapper and teraglin. These are the main recreational targets in Queensland south of Mackay.
One of the reasons I can see that A&M have targeted snapper, pearlies and trag at boat ramps is that they are targeted most by rec anglers. Snapper and pearlies are far and away the most caught, by number, RRFF species by rec anglers. Boat ramp surveys in the past have shown that rec anglers leaving boat ramps target these species most. Charter fishing records show that snapper, trag and pearlies far outweigh the catch of all of the other rocky reef fish put together (99t for snapper, pearlies and trag compared to 34.8t for the remaining RRFF in 2009). Snapper and pearlies also represent about half of all RRFF caught by commercial line fishers in southern QLD.
Secondly, the logistics of gathering data at a boat ramp - you didn't have time to let the Fisheries guys measure your snapper, pearlies and trag, let alone the other species. Isn't it a bit hypocritical of you to say this:
"By capturing the data of all species that I had returned with your RRFF data would have captured the fact that I had more of another species of RRFF fish and not your target band."
and not even let the guys measure the snapper and pearlies you had? If the Fisheries guys are at the ramp, they don't want to hold you up all day, especially a fisher of your capabilities who catches alot of fish. Isn't it better to get excellent data for some species rather than get sketchy data under pressure from the fisher to get home and clean his/her catch, boat, equipment, etc?
Thirdly, A&M not only sample the rec catch but they also gather samples from the charter and commcerial sectors as well. All this from a team of about 10 individuals in southern Queensland. Biological samples are processed in the labs at the Ecosciences Precinct, where length information is recorded and otoliths extracted. These data are then checked and analysed. Otoliths are blocked, sectioned, mounted on a slide, then read by the team under strict protocols. This process takes time.
Again, I ask isn't it better to do a good job on those species that are the most heavily fished, rather than collect information on everything and do a so-so job?
As for your suggestion for an open day. Well how about you get a group of Ausfishers together and come through the Precinct? I have not had a single call or email regarding my earlier invitation. Not one. Again I ask you to give me a call or email (32554229 and matthew.campbell@deedi.qld.gov.au) and organise a time. We have absolutely nothing to hide. I have all sorts of information that will help you get a better grasp of what we do with the information collected by Assessment and Monitoring. I'm sure Jono_SS would also be happy to have a chat to you regarding A&M. Again, the invitation is open to everyone, especially to the people who are obviously cynical about the data collected.
Matt
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