commercial netting in the tweed....?

[yellahunter]

guys,
whilst out fishing last night we ran into a commercial netter in the tweed river,
he had 3/4 of the river netted off and was hauling in the catch, we got caught up in the net and there were all sorts of fish in there,
i asked him what he was doing with a net, he yelled back "IM MAKING A LIVING"
we mentioned fishwatch but thought maybe he had a right to be there,


we were rigging up when we noticed a trickle of small dead bream and guts floating past. We didnt notice the netter as he had no lights at all, it wasnt until we were in the middle of the net and about 15m away that we saw him,

is this legal...?
when he took off he had no lights at all so hes a danger on the river if nothing else,

any ideas..?

[caster226]

comment deleted

[yellahunter]

yeah on that topic,

i actually phoned the qld branch a few weeks back,
extremely disappointed with the result,

I saw two guys fishing with 9 lines in keeping more than 2 bass each.
I phoned the fishwatch and was put through to three different people as no one could tell me if more than 2 set lines in qld is illegal.
Anyway i logged the call with the first lady, who had no idea,
then was transferred to someone else who had a bit more idea but still hopeless. again i had to reiterate the story,
i knew damn well nothing was going to be done by the way they were speaking,

anyways saw the same people same spot doing the same thing last week,
i dont have a lot of faith in the system unfortunately,

last night we phoned directories and asked for the fishwatch number for nsw.
the number we were given said it was a mon - fri office.
we gave up at that point.

[goat boy]

ring DPI NSW, the Tweed has it's own branch (get the direct number from the DPI website). I reported some illegal fishing activity on the Tweed to them awhile back and they were pretty interested about it, I think they even came and checked the area out after only a short while (too late though).
Unless you can get a boat/car rego (they'll ask) or they are quick enough to catch 'em there's not much they can do I guess. Like most areas, the funding is probably minimal so likewise the presence.
I'm on the Tweed alot as my work is right on the river and see all kinds of interesting stuff. Only seen the DPI boat twice in the last 14 months or so and never been pulled over by them or seen them pulling over anyone else. Seen the water police once during a school holiday period last year where they were nabbing jetskiers speeding through a 6 knot zone.

[fishingnottaken]

No lights seems suspect, what part of the tweed was he in? did you see the rego on his boat? was it commercial?

[honda900]

Did you get his rego number?

Regards
HOnda.

[crab man]

Hi mate there are about 4 or 5 commerical netters in the tweed that do it full time, Would of been one of them . On that note they need nav lights > port stb and an all white light that stands 1M higher then the side lights
Cheers Craig

[dunmears]

The Tweed is absolutley flogged to death by commercial netters that's why you will never catch anything but small bream. As stated earlier there are at least five different outfits netting the river constantly. I was under the impression ( and I stand to be corrected) that it was recreational fishing only from Barney's Point bridge to the mouth of the Tweed and from Boyd's Bay bridge to the mouth of the Tweed but I recently saw netters netting near the golf club which is well inside the rec. area.

[goat boy]

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/info/closures/commercial/eg/bullet_list_1_az_dcr5/tweed-river
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_reg/fmr2002339/s8a.html
Tweed Heads Fisheries (DPI) office 07 5523 6900