I brought this subject up with NSW fisheries 6 or 8 years ago and was told that New Zealand supply a lot of bream that are smaller than that which is allowed to be caught in NSW.Originally Posted by SeaHunt
As i understand it the retailer have cleaned up there game in queensland but has there been any infringement notices issued because of this generous offer Steve (ausfish) maybe a bit of an update
cheers
blaze
I brought this subject up with NSW fisheries 6 or 8 years ago and was told that New Zealand supply a lot of bream that are smaller than that which is allowed to be caught in NSW.Originally Posted by SeaHunt
Yu guys have given me a bit of info here.
When I enquired 6 months ago about the whiting and flatheat on offer at one of the most popular Gold Coast outlets I was told that the size limits don't apply to pro fishermen because they get all sorts of fish in the nets and they are dead by the time they hit the deck...
After all this are you telling me that the rec angler sizes that apply to us also applies to the pro fishermen in Bream Whiting Flathead and Snapper!!!
If thats the case I've got the proverbial shits with my local shop.
Please confirm before I strangle them!
Confirmed !!!!!
Double confirmed
- its both their obligation and their job to know the law.
Some of you may have heard me say - the poor shop buys a bulk load may get some small ones. All I meant by that is that it takes time and opportunity to check the whole batch. And I bet some have got stuck with small ones at the bottom (like when I last bought strawberries).
But there in NO excuse for not knowing the law - if you are in the fish business.
Interstate fish? Well for Bream we have the smallest size regs in Australia - so if its illegal here its illegal anywhere.
Gary
There is an article on this topic in Qld Fishing Monthly - due out this week.
I have not read the final version myself ...
Gary
Great job mate for blowing the whistle on such a morally incensing practice.
Hi Steve
Well its now a month later - this all started on 24 May.
Have there been any "claims".
If there has been none then what does that say about us?
Gary
that we succeeded?
Touche !
... well I hope so Jockey I hope so
Gary
No claims made. After this received so much attention from the media and TV I would have been amazed if any commercial operation would be stupid enough to have undersize fish or crabs.
That said, I did read a report in the Courier Mail that the DPI did a check of 216 outlets. Strangley enough after all teh publicity this issue has had they found 31 undersized fish. It did not mention if they checked crabs.
Even more suprising was that the article said that fisheries issued 10 cautions and would three breach reports. It would appear that no one is to be charged for having the undersize fish.
It would have been nice to see fisheries doing their job before this issue was raised here and $1000.00 had to be put up to get them into gear. Would of been interesting to see how many undersized fish would have been found then.
Was interesting to see the spin they put on the article in the paper, it claimed they checked about 28,000 fish and 31 were undersized. This they then followed with stating that there is a compliance rate of 99.9 percent.
The word "about" would mean to me that they didn't check anywhere near that amount, maybe they did a visual on "about" that many. I would doubt it if they could produce records for the measurements recorded on 28,000 fish.
Maybe they only measured say 32 fish and 31 were undersize, this would then give them a 99.9 percent non compliance rate. Just depends on whos side you are writing the story for and the figures can be adjusted however you like.
Anyway, hopefuly the DPI will do the job that we as tax payers pay them to do and we do not have to rely on someone putting up $1000.00 for charity to stir up the media and in return get the commercial sector to comply.
the "on display" bit still astounds me - its "backroom" business that has always been the biggest problem in fisheries but well done steve & co
Thanks for all your work Steve
There is still doubt in my mind – especially because Fisheries officers are not measuring a fork tail ( eg Bream) with the tail in its natural state - rather they are pulling the tail forks together.
To my reading of the Regulations this is 100% crystal clear wrong. And it gives us a smaller catch size by 1-2 cm.
So I suppose it was much easier to report 99.9% - especially if you use a faulty measurement method!
I am pursuing the matter ...
Gary
99.9% compliance rate because they only faound a few undersize fish. This doesn't mean that 99.9% of stores comply, it just means that 999 out of every 1000 fish are oversize. In reality it could be closer to 0% compliance if every store had some undersize fish.
Let's stop the sale of undersize fish to the general public first. This is much easier to deal with. If someone is dodgy enough to go to the backroom to buy goods then they're going to be a lot harder to catch, and it's not our place to try to get involved from that end.