Originally Posted by
lefty_green
Not that much has changed, 20,30,40 yrs ago, if you put in the effort, you were rewarded, same today.
Ok steve i'll tell you what. We'll go fishing tomorrow - lets say we go to Mud Island to catch a snapper.
But when we get there we'll leave the 4.55m Quintrex Hornett sitting on it's Redco trailer, with its 90hp 4-stroke electric start, electric trim and tilt Yamaha unstarted. Instead we'll take my grandfathers 16ft wooden clinker row boat, made from wood. We'll leave the $1000 GPS and $1000 colour sounder in the car as well (but we'll have to take pop so he can show us the landmarks). We'll also leave the Loomis spin rods matched with the shimano stella's filled with the 4lb fireline. Same goes for the flourocarbon leader (whats that pop asks). We'll also leave the scented Squidgies at home, with their chemically sharpened, fine-guage hooks. Instead we'll take pop's tackle sack containing his home-made hand spools (turned on his lathe) filled with cat-gut fishing line (equivalent to about 80lb mono). But pop was fairly progressive so there might be a few Mustad hooks that he imported himself if we're lucky??
We better get there early because we'll have to go and dig some worms ourselves or cast net some hardy heads.
I wonder how many snapper we'd catch with that sort of gear?
Don't know, I've never used worms or hardyheads to catch snapper, I'm more of a squid and pilchard guy.
That sort of gear was used to catch cricket score cathes of bream and the like 50 years ago.
It is ridiculous to say that fish stocks are better than they were. You need to standardise the effort. I have done so in the above example. Fisheries managers call this effort creep. Although the number of fishers may not change (and I think we'll all have to agree that it has increased substantially) the methods they use to catch the fish have made that effort more efficient.
It is ridiculous to say that fish stocks are better than they were, that's why I didn't say it
Not that much has changed You really believe this?