Reply With QuoteYou had some rain up that way recently? May have been a fish kill in the creek happens from time to time after abit of rain.
hi guys went to my local beach this arvo to throw the castnet for some bait to take out this fri nite
while i was throwing at the end of stumers ck coolum beach a guy comes up asking what im trying to catch
i told him i was after whiting or mullet
he points up the beach to hundreds of undersize dead whiting all along the beach for about a kilometre
i was gobsmacked picked some up for bait but was disturbed by the amount of waste of juvenile whiting
i think possibly nets but i really dont know but i hope they find out what or who caused this waste
concerned
ray
You had some rain up that way recently? May have been a fish kill in the creek happens from time to time after abit of rain.
Marks on the body can sometimes identify if netting is to blame - particularly broken or torn gills, crushed body, large areas of scales missing etc.
Ben
Lived at Lennox Head a few years ago and walked along seven mile beach often. Whenever the trawlers were working off the beach overnight there were thousands of dead fish of many species all up the beach.
thanx archer for offering a biological alternative to the usual 'blame the fisherman game'. as to 1000s of dead fish from trawling mmmmmmmm, when i trawl im followed by packs of dolphins /shark/tuna/gulls/gannets and what the fish dont eat the birds do so i find it hard to believe that these fish are the result of trawling.
oh and gill net mesh size is legislated to prevent the capture of immature fish.......ie they just swim thru.
Originally Posted by waldo35
That sounds right to me, everything that a Trawler over kills gets eaten at the back of the boat. Its still waste & destruction, all the same.
Yeah Ive seen just how many small / undersize fish get killed from these legislated nets, its still a lot. Not to mention that the predators following still have very easy pickings just hanging behind the nets where the smallest fish are concentrated.
Many of us here, myself included, have witnessed first hand the thousands of small whiting (mainly) floating on the surface in the wake of the trawlers. Theory is one thing, practice is another.
Yes, fish kills do happen for other reasons, but don't deny that it COULD have been due to trawlers.
Jeremy
"The underlying spirit of angling is that the skill of the angler is pitted against the instinct and strength of the fish and the latter is entitled to an even chance for it's life."
(Quotation from the rules of the Tuna Club Avalon, Santa Catalina, U.S.A.)
Apathy is the enemy
On the ABC news this morning this event was reported to be commercial by-catch. A lady, not sure who she was, but she appeared to represent the commercial sector, commented that this kill was the fault of the government regulation, because they were not allowed to commercially utilise the by-catch.
What does that say, let us take and sell all the undersized fish we trawl and everything will be OK!!!
I don't know enough about commercial methods to really comment but I was under the impression that trawl nets were supposed to be designed to let underfsize fish escape. Obviously I'm wrong.
Frank
Just found the following
Quote ABC
Fish washed up on beaches is trawler bycatch
Queensland's Environmental Protection Agency says thousands of fish that have washed up on Sunshine Coast beaches today are trawler bycatch.
Coolum was most affected.
The Independent Trawlers Association says current laws are contributing to bycatch kills.
President Vicki Burnett says a 2001 trawl plan needs to be reviewed.
"If government was less restrictive in what ... could be retained you wouldn't be pushing so much bycatch over the side ... before the ... trawl plan came in a lot of this stuff we could retain and bring in [as] a marketable product, so it's not only the fishermen that have been restricted but the consumer that is missing out as well," she said.
shows how much you know.
Jeremy
"The underlying spirit of angling is that the skill of the angler is pitted against the instinct and strength of the fish and the latter is entitled to an even chance for it's life."
(Quotation from the rules of the Tuna Club Avalon, Santa Catalina, U.S.A.)
Apathy is the enemy
If trawl nets are of a mesh size that catch prawns of 75mm in length I can not see how a fish of 100 to 200mm can escape. At beaver rock in the Mary river there is a flock of about 20 to 40 pelicans that wait for all the bycatch from the stripe rope nets. I realise that birds are still going to eat fish somewere, but this is a concentrated effort in a small areaof the river and a lot of the under size fish here are Threadhin, Grunter bream, Barra, Silver bream, and also the lesser varitys that other fish need for food. Is it any wonder that is getting harder to catchgood quality fishof a reasonable size when a lot of these fish are eaten before they even get to spawning size. These ropes are normaly tied to trees on either bank and anchored anything up to 200mt out into the river.When the bigger tides run, prawn bags are attatched to these ropes and the prawns and fish are washed in with the current, it is very effectiv as at times the prawn catches can be 100kg or better on a single tide on one rope. ,and in this strech of the river, about 2ks long there can be up to 10 ropes being set at one time, and there other ropes further upstream. Now I dont mind the fishermen catching the prawns, but the bycatch over a year must be enormous, and these ropes never leave the river unless they rot and are then replaced. Bob.
Jeremy
It's a dam shame to see that level of fish die such a wasteful and needless death.
Can anything be done by the big trawlers to make sure that this doesn't happen?
Louis
frank she didnt say anything about commercializing undersize product thats just ur spin on it . as to wether trawlers have mechanisms in place to deal with the by catch issue they do. enormous amouts of work have been put into by catch reducdtion include devices in nets, tutle excluders, the use of hopper systems to return unwanted bycatch to the water alive. this is a real issue for the industry and real work is being done constantly to adress this issue. unfortunately we only report our good work within industry circles.
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