mooloolaba longliners

[jaybee]

Top read smith, well done

phil, awaiting your reply, cause if it is being done close then something should be done about it
cheers
joe.

[kingfisher25]

my thoughts are stuff the pros and the long liners.
if you want fish go and catch it ya self.
with no pros i am sure the fishing would improve greatly.
its not like buying steak where we breed the cows then slaughter them. this has no effect on the environment.
unlike taking thousands of tonnes of fish from an ocean a day, and not doing anything to replensh the supply.
it doesnt take a scientist to work out if you take and take and take, then dont put anything back you end up with nothing.
%^&$ the pros you guys are not happy about the fishing now emagine what it will be like for our kids.
fishing is a great sport and i think lots of the public would like to see kids doing something active, rather than hanging around a shopping centre, doing graffiti.
but how do you get kids interested in fishing when you go fishing for a few hours and dont get a fish.

imagine what the fishing could be be like in 5 years if we eliminate pros and long liners. if these people put the money they invest in to there boats into setting up and breeding fish for resale im sure everyone would be a lot happier.

anyway thats my thoughts hope i have not upset to many people.

tyfox

[bugman]

Smithy,

One of the better posts I've seen on here in a while. Shows a great deal of research. No wonder you catch fish.

The only thing I can add to the debate is on the bait catching angle for pros.

95% of all pro fisherman in queensland have a license to catch bait. When the regs were changed quite some time back it was deemed by fisheries that all pro fisherman should be able to catch bait in order to catch other fish. Thus every pro fisherman was issued with a "bait" attachment to their license. I can't remember the exact dimensions of the net but I will follow up and let you know.

Almost all still have it - some use it some don't but they all are allowed.

I'll find the relevant paragraphs and get back to you.

Bugman

[jeffo]

can i ask a question. can a long line boat pump bilge water out at a tremendous rate 24/7? because one of the boats that i saw out getting livies has been pumping HUGE amounts of water out every time i have been past it (about 10 times in the last few days). so either this boat has some serious hull damage that they should be looking at....... OR....... there COULD be some reason why they are consantly circulating fresh water

[craigie]

Smithy,

'WHAT AN EPIC" but a bloody good read all the same

Shit you must be good on a keyboard

Might just print that one off as it was mighty informative.

Thanks for the insight into many things.

Cheers
Craig.S.

p.s. I see BP has filled from 20 odd % up to high 40's. Has the water risen well past the botom of the ramp (camping area ramp), "Treasure Island" underwater ??

[Zeeke]

Jeff, what u'll find is, alot of those trawlers are pumping water.. its ballast water which they use to adjust the bouyancy of the boat.. they keep it flowing non stop so the water doesnt go stagnant and the pumps and primers dont cease up with salt

Tim

[jeffo]

yeah i thought as much... but this particular boat is pumping HUGE amounts of water all day every day, i thought it might have been a bit more than balast water. ahh well.

[mono]

I dont know about the longliners up your way, but I can assure you for the past few years the longliners coming into Byron Bay at night and purse seining bait arent doing it because they are bored! Down at Evans Head the longliners dont hide the fact that the huge tank on the back deck is for holding live bait. During conversations I've had with some of the crews down there its esential they use livies to catch good fish. Last year during the comp at Evans we moored up beside a longliner and every 20 minutes or so we would have to endure the sound of his huge pumps keeping the livies healthy. To keep us happy, one day they actually gave us some livies out of their tank to take out fishing! Yes they are licenced to purse sein bait, so basically they arent breaking any laws. It is the government that maybe needs to have a good hard look at whats going on in our marine environment. If a similar thing was going on out west to or farmers do you think the general puplic would put up with detrimental practices such as snapper traps or trawl nets?
Cheers

[skipalong]

wouldnt mind knowing where like you say you can pull 5000 livies every trip in all those boats ?

[Noelm]

some interesting stuff here, also some very emotive and uninformed crap, but that is normal when pros V rec things start to unfold, but the thing I fine most interesting is way way back this whole thing started about how many live baits are killed for the longline industry, but then someone said they use frozen Californian Squid (which they do) and suddenely that is all OK, local livies is a no no, but frozen squid is OK, can't quite see the logic in that, live baits are only used when Tuna are the target, different hook as well, dead squid is used when Broadies are the target, sure sometimes Tuna are caught when Broadie fishing, but it is not all that common as you would think, go for a trip on a boat and see what really goes on, rather than surmise and grumble about it, Smithy has probably put up the most educated "summary" of the whole thing.

[Getout]

On my way in from out very wide a few weeks ago, I almost ran over what looked like a long-line (well picked up Noelm!) marked by a buoy and a skull and crossbones flag. The mothership was a way off in the distance a couple of miles. Pretty sure it was a longliner, not a spannercrabber.This was about 35 miles out of Noosa

[Noelm]

a longline "net"??? not too sure that makes a whole lot of sense, could have been the end of the line perhaps, or nothing to do with the other boat in the distance at all.

[bg1000]

Dare I mention that all the bait we buy as recreational fisherman (unless you catch your own) is caught by commercial fisherman. Be it pilchards, slimies, scad, mullet, prawns and so on. imagine how many pilchards are used offshore in SE Qld on a calm week end.

Just a thought.

[kokomo]

bait does not just come out of the freezer at a bait and tackle.

rec fishers often mis judge the amount of by-catch involved with them dropping a pilchard down to catch a snap etc..

1000's of dead fish = 100's of pilchards frozen for bait purchased by rec fisher x.

rec fisher then goes on to waste 100's of those pilchards in burley or bait that just does not get used.

[Chopper Taylor]

a mate of mine worked out of Malloolaba (and prior to that Ulladulla) and they used livies exclusively, they'd travel down to Byron and get the bait before heading out to to set their long lines.

he's currently on a freighter on his way to singapore to collect crude oil. when he gets back (two weeks) i will ask him about numbers, and by catch, and death rates and let you know the details.