Sorry thought we were talking about netting not the most sustainable and selected form of fishing (spear fishing) if the commercial operators wanted to spear all their fish in the bay for sale at market I would have no problem!

_________________
Fully qualified/insured electrician Electrical Safety Certificates given every job Contact Dom 0409135701

Thommo3337 have you ever been out fishing with a commercial fisher? Or are you making comments about what you think happens rather than what really happens regarding commercial fishing and netting. Commercial fisherman have more respect for the fishery than you may realise after all it is there lively hood. Quite a few if not most commercial fisho's who've been fishing there whole life would find it terribly difficult to up and change careers. You act all high and mighty but do some research and you may learn a little. the good percentage of Commercial fishers aren't idiots and you might find they have a very keen eye. They generally know what they will catch before they shoot there nets and have different nets for different catch ie a whiting net has a different size mesh to a flathead net. They don't just turn up blind to a spot like a recreational fisherman anchoring there boat next to someone elses thinking lets fish here. Commercial fishing has been going on for years and its not what is ruining the fishery. Of course limiting and reducing the number of fishing lisences is a positive for any fishery but how would you feel if it was recreational lisences being reduced!! We all need to be more responsible rather than blaming others. My idea is a tagging system like a small cattle tag that can only be used once. ie if you wanna catch whiting you buy x amount of whiting tags if you wanna catch lobster then lobster tags etc... with tags being refundable there may even be a chance of gaining an idea of just what rec fishers are taking each year. oh of course rec fishers are going to think its a terrible idea haha

rant over

_________________
Prom Country Power!

I understand they have a lot respect for the fisheries like the majority of recreational fishers but their are always going to be greedy people out there and the way it is for commercial at the moment if their is a few of them the damage they could be doing is huge! I am not saying they all do the wrong thing I am saying if someone is doing the morally wrong thing their is no penalty in place and some management needs to be done to oversee that the good practises that you guys have stated the majority do aren't breached and if it is penalties are put in place. I understand that netting has been done for years bit as stated before their are a lot more rec anglers catching as we'll and a balance needs be achieved. I know it would be daunting changing what u know ( I am a domestic electrician and can't do domestic anymore after knee surgery) but these guys I am sure have a great work ethic and like me could find jobs in similar areas Skippers etc. I am not saying it should be band just better regulated (although I personally would like it to be)

_________________
Fully qualified/insured electrician Electrical Safety Certificates given every job Contact Dom 0409135701

According to Geoff Wilson there a not many "old timers" left in the Pro industry, it has lost its sense of community and respect amongst them that it once had. Cowboys coming down from the Melbourne and alike fish and area very hard then piss off back up the HWY. Doesn't sound like current Pro's care for the fishery as the once did!
I don't know any of them (the Pro's) or the history other then what I have read and heard. I know what I have seen diving & it cannot be good for an area to get netting EVERYDAY. A Change to more sustainable way of fishing I what I'd like to see, not just kicking the Pro's out . It is all a shared resource. Western Port is the leading example...

_________________
Due to rising costs and dumb questions;
Answers will now be $1.00
Answers with thought $2.00
Correct answers $4.00
Dumb looks are still free

You asked me how I sought my fish! I mainly spearfish, and do a little bit on line fishing.

There are penalties if they of the wrong thing!

Tried to search for some info yesterday with no luck. Was looking for the estimated catch from Rec fishermen in the bay. I was told late last year by a fisheries officer that Rec fishers take 3 times the fish from the bay that the commercial fishers do. That I found incredible. The DPI has on it's site plenty of info regarding commecial fishing but little on the Rec side.

Commecial fishery take, from what I read, is estimated mostly by what is sold through the markets. How would one estimate the Recreational take as nobody can check even 50% of what comes ashore? What if half of the 268,000 rec licences took 1kg of snapper per year then that is 134,000kg. The commercial take for 2011 was 120,000kg. Pretty sure most fisho's would take more than 1kg of snapper per year. Snapper also only have a 50% survival rate when released after foul hooking so how many 1000's of snapper are dead due to that?

Any given day at places like Queenscliff rec fishermen are always out hitting the same spots day after day after day. I have never seen a commercial boat in some of these spots but when I dive them it too is barren. All I am suggesting is that those is glass houses need not throw stones and there are a good number of yobbo's who bark at others when really most of us are ill informed.

Food for thought?

if the commercial ON THE BOOKS take was 120000kgs for 2011 then i guaranty you they took 200000kgs, cash money is huge in the fishing industry. A friend of a friend is a bay netter, the last few years ago they have started using a net that rolls over harder bottom. From what im told its deadly!

Linos do more damage though in my opinon. You only have to look at the charter boats catch, for the last 3 months my mate has done 3 trips a day. Ok he doesnt always bag out but more often than not he does. 5-8 people a trip,20+people a day,bag out 3 trips 60+ fish a day. He was bagging out on most charters last week. Thats just 1 boat. Bag limits on snapper need to be reduced by half, and when they are breeding NOV DEC reduced even more.

The professionals pay big bucks for the right to catch fish on our bays, if regulated properly i cant see why they should be kicked out.

Blacky, info is a bit hard to find online. There is heaps locked up in reports. Heres a couple to keep you reading for a while

http://www.siv.com.au/files/Fisheries_Status_Report_2008.pdf

There have been lots of rec fishing surveys in the bay especially for snapper.

Here is one that was done Australia wide

http://www.daff.gov.au/fisheries/recreational/recfishsurvey

It describes all the methods used.



Theres a few methods, and there are people that specialise in that work. No one would ever claim that they get it exactly right, but its better than a guess.

WOW, I knew that recs catch more snapper than pros, but I didn't know they caught more KGW! PAge 105 of the first report.

A brief browse of the second report I noticed an interesting figure. Spearing and underwater hand collecting accounts for 1% of the total rec fishing events Australia wide. Now how the crap can people say we as spearo's are responsible for smashing the shit out of certain species. Seems a little unfair.

Hope the Puss doesn't read this, hahaha!

And OMG! I would have never imagined there were so many whiting in the bay to be had, total. If only I could borrow the flux capacitor and visit PPB in 1900, with and open cell 5mm and a quiver of 1-1.3m guns! Would take Vibert to build Pranga's 24/7.

Don't need prangers to spear whitting ya big poof

I'm with Thommo on this. Pro Netters take a shit load and our bays would no doubt be a lot healthier if they weren't around. But people need jobs and people need to eat fresh fish. There is no easy answer. There is a political push in Geelong at the moment to ban pro fisherman netting Corio Bay. This will gain momentum and wouldn't surprise me if it eventually got up and they stopped it. Problem is if it is banned in Corio Bay the fishing pressure by the pro's on western side of PPB and all of PPB for that matter would most likely increase significantly. I grew up diving around western PPB and have seen discarded juvenile fish from pro fisherman many times over the years. I have also heard stories of pro's off Indented Heads pulling 70 bins of kgw in one night, that's a fuck load of fish. I was talking to a fish monger in Geelong the other day and he said the pro's down this way take way too many small fish and way too many shit eating fish eg. dusky morwong. He travels to the Melbourne fish markets every morning for his fish.

Just seems fucked we have Marine Parks that mainly protect a shit load of reef fish that nobody targets yet pro's can drag nets through Corio and PPB as they please.



ps. yes koops I know MP's give crays and abs around the state & the squid off Lonnie somewhere to hide from Brett also.

_________________
bluedevilspear@hotmail.com

You are fucked in the head! You are getting so swept up in the populous bullshit rhetoric you are trying to make your own shit up. You sound like the sort of prick that would throw stones at the pros, and it does happen!
Read the report, and don't only believe what you want. Duskies? You are farking having me on. If they were in trouble, how the fark would Bobbie have got the record a few years ago! Bobbie! He couldn't spear a turd in the werribee ponds!
As for the 70 bins, read the report.
You've seen the boats off stLeonard's day in day out...
Wake up!

My main concern when I started this topic was that they should have a quota and a management plan for sustainable fishing. Not 10 commercial fisherman hitting the same area night after night. Everything these days is regulated I don't are why this shouldn't be. If the commercial fisherman do have the best interest at hart then they would have no problem with this it's more so that when one of them does do the wrong thing they can be punished by the law not just frowned upon by their peers!

_________________
Fully qualified/insured electrician Electrical Safety Certificates given every job Contact Dom 0409135701

When did I say Duskies were over fished? Just said that a fish monger said that pro's down this way take way to many juvenile fish and shit eating fish. He's the one seeing their catches not me.

I'm not reading some bullshit report by some marine scientist who is under worked and over paid.

We take to much from the ocean as a whole. Pro's as well as recreational. Like the Mullet said reduce bag limits for rec fisherman for a start. I don't have all the answers. People need jobs and people need to eat fresh fish. Surely there is a better way for pro fisherman in Corio and PPB to operate other than having no size limits or bag limits imposed on them whatsoever??????????????????



This is a low blow. But agreed, he probably couldn't.

_________________
bluedevilspear@hotmail.com

No, you just know everything don't you!

No size limits? WTF check page 148 of the document below if you can even read!
Their catch is restricted by numbers of licences, gear restrictions, closed areas....


http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/LTObject_Store/LTObjSt4.nsf/DDE300B846EED9C7CA257616000A3571/2B5AD20D55C09D9FCA2577610034E3E7/$FILE/98-23sr022.pdf

To put the ppb commercial fishery into perspective, check out this bad boy. The Eco-Harvester!