Commercial over fishing concerns

[FOCBAG]

Have any of you lived in a city all your life and fished the local bay so often that you notice the devastating effect of over commercial fishing.
There are thousands of people that live in Geelong Victoria that have noticed the changes in the Ecology of Corio Bay due to over commercial fishing. A great number of people that normally fish this area have generations of local knowledge and have had enough. There are 42 licensed commercial fishermen in port philip bay and they can all fish a small area like corio bay if they wish.They use haul sein methods mainly at night under the cover of darkness, with nets that are 460m long and there haul lines can be up to 2km long. They have no quotas and can fish all year.They eradicate entire generations of fish.
The over fishing pressure has been noticed more so in the last few years when western port bay was closed to commercial netting and now they come here. The waters are shallow. the fishing generally good and its easy for them with plenty of hiding spots from the public.
A few months ago a few people with good local knowledge emailed their concerns to the local councillor. who decided to have a public forum. 400 people turned up. After the forum a few got together and decided to form an action group. We called it; Friends Of Corio Bay Action Group.Our campaign is ban all commercial netting in corio bay inner and outer harbour. We now have 500 members and a petition ciculating, which is going great.
What we would like to know is where else in this great country of ours is indescriminate netting in a bay to this extreme allowed? Some states do not allow netting in bays, inlets and estuaries. We feel Corio Bay, for its size is the most netted more often and by more commercial fishermen Than any other bay in Australia.
Tell us your stories. How and Why did your state authorities ban netting in bays?

[johncar]

I wish you and your group the best of luck. We as rec fishers and marine life have unfortunately all suffered this commercial pressure right around the coast. They will work an area until there is little left and move on, that seems to be the general mentality. You can be enjoying catching a few fish to take home in your favorite spot and then the next few times you visit there is nothing and then you find out the pros have worked the area and yes usually in the cover of darkness.
More and more humans on this earth every day putting more and more pressure on what fish remain hence why we see these massive trawlers lurking around. Our Governments won't act without significant pressure from us and I look forward to the day when the whole idea of wholesale raping the oceans of it's limited wild life as no longer supported or tolerated.
Fish and prawns can be farmed successfully so there is no need to harvest wild fish at all and I hope with government support in the long term our commercial guys will swing over to that as has been done in other parts of the planet and as with our land food sources.
Sorry I don't know exactly where we are at in Moreton Bay and it's systems as far as what commercial fishing is permitted at present but IMO it is in very poor shape compared to what it once was teaming with massive varieties of fish to what seems like an underwater desert now. I have watched the decline over 50 years. There have been some limitations put in place though which has helped no doubt but it is under constant pressure from the Pros to relax the current restrictions and the powers that be will buckle if we sit on our hands.

[samson]

You may not think it like most but those thousands of people that you know are probably more responsable than the netters, you only have to look at the population and the comparison of rec to commercial catch rates with fisheries too relize that recs are taking more tonnage than pro's in pretty much most species except mullet. I'm not justifying netters actions it's just plain truth, it's getting hard to catch fish in most places now because recs are carpet bombing nearly every rockwell,bridge,beach,riverbank and those that have given up there are doing the same offshore as seen on the gold coast the waters are getting systematically wiped out only migratory fish are worth targeting at the best of times.

[deckie]

Patonga mullet. Type "Mullet Men Of Broken Bay" into youtube. They like to pretend the slaughter is something historical to stay out of harms way with the greenies and fisho's. Get rid of it.
The only thing obvious though is unnecessary devastation of breeding stock that makes new jewie tucker.
They still net the shit out of the Hawkesbury and Pittwater at night. How they've been allowed to keep doing this is beyond me...there's a bullshit argument that the best prawn bait is hawkesbury prawns...just ban hawkesbury prawns to be used as bait and job is practically done.