I live a few hundred meters from one of Sydney harbours best land based jew fish and king fish spot. I can say with out a doubt that the new australians that fish it are extreemly courtious and clean up on both the fish and after them selves, they love a chat and they gladly share there secrets. The night crews of aussies and the like that drink beer and use store bought bait etc cause most of the issues.

The other day i visited 3 wharfs while walking the dog. At the first wharf i met a nice vietnamese man. He was catching yackas with his wife for dinner. They had 30 or so kicking in the bucket. Some people may not agree with eating yackas but this man was stoked with his catch. Catching yackas for bait to feed dollies on the fads is acceptable but catching them to feed a family is a viewed as being unacceptable. Any way we chatted for a while and watched a fairy penguin working bait when a school of frigates swam by as they always do at this time of the year. Swimming close to the rocks and occasionly breaking formation to smash some bait fish. He called them slimies but was perplexed to why they wouldnt take his mince meat . I told him what they were and why they would eat his bait and that catching one is borderline impossible.

The next wharf i met the crew as i call them. 1 older cambodian fellow and his newphew and a friend. One had been catching squid through the night and another had taken a stop off at the market for cuttlefish at $10 per kg or so. They had lost 4 kingies already and watched them loose a bloody good one while i was there (school of 90 plus cm kings lives there year round). They are great blokes and bloody good fishos. They bring alot of gear but are very clean. The only way you know they have been there is the squid ink marks on the wharf and the dried blood from bleeding a fish. They dont leave scales or anything (partly as not to let the whole world know re the jewies they catch).

3rd wharf i got to was a small marina where people dont fish very often. 3 aussies (retirees i guess you could call them though the looked like they hadnt worked a day in there life) . True aussie scum. Nasty looking folks. They had a bucket full of baby snapper between 5cm to 15cm. Not wanting to get shived i made no comment and left them be. PLace was a mess with maccas bags and beer bottles and bait bags and bread bags.

In my experience Aussies are the bad ones when it comes to land based fishing.