Mud Island Attempt, Foiled by TRAWLERS!!!

[magik]

Hey all

Left for mud island yesterday afternoon, weather was good Live bait was scarse but managed a couple of livies. Took a mate and the wife. Everything looked to shaping out nicely until i got to the mouth of the brissy river! Where i saw 2 Trawlers working the Western side about 1 km out from the island. The same area most of these reports are coming from!!! These guys are checking these sites for sure. We're leading them right to the fish and if we're not careful they'll clean up >:(

So i decided to fish the rock wall instead but forgot the anchor (long story) So we drifted in and around the rock wall for about 20 mins but kept getting pestered by those container ships and boy do those things put out a wake, (Counted another 4 trawlers going out to Mud, i got a flogging last night by these tossers! >:() so much so that one landed us nicely on a sand bar on the northern side or the river, right next to the bloody channel marker, i couldn't believe it. So i spent the next 1/2 hour waist deep in water getting soaked by wakes from other boats trying to get off the bloody thing on an outgoing tide, what a nightmare. Came in after that only to pass another 3 more poxy trawlers heading out into our beloved bay! So it might be a little quiet at mud over the next couple of days with all those nets out. The cheeky bugger had nets out all the way there too so anything in that channel and near mud is pretty much gone as of last nights invasion!!! :(

They'll be netting lake Sampsonvale next...!

Paul

[grunta_75]

Yea, they sure as hell rape'n'pillage wherever they go. Can remember growing up as a young fella up here at Redcliffe - never came home without a feed - ever. IF the MAcks weren't chewing of we came up short outside, then it'd be back over to the red-bouy or into beachmere or newport channel to pickup a quality feed of whiting. Those days are all but gone - I really need to work hard to get my kids getting a few fish (of any sort) into the boat now to keep their interest up - a few trips ago whist drifting over the flats at beachmere we counted 13 of the mongrels out there...

g.

[Steven78]

We cannot be too hard on them as they have to earn a living but yes something needs to be done about the by catch they get. It needs to be managed better as well.

[ShaneJ]

I need to earn a living too, but you wont see me tearing up the ocean bottom :-X

[hot_stuff]

Are they aloud to do that in the Bay?

[Scalem]

I have to admit that in days gone by, even 20 years ago, I fished for as many as I could put in the esky, without a thought about bag limits or how many was more than I needed to put a feed on the table. Now, once I have one or two legal fish I let the rest go. But recently, one of those legal fish was such a monster, a few "mates" put on the "why didn't you release it" sarcasm because they considered it to be of breeding age.

Makes you wonder why even bother preserving fish numbers in areas you know are vulnerable to being over fished by amateaures and pros alike. Its a sad day when the amateur fisho starts to wonder if our one or two catches returned to the water will make any impact on preserving numbers when you see pros working an area so heavily. I hope we don't adopt the attitude "If you can't beat them, join them." Who cares?

Scalem

[krazed1]

it seems to me as they have no boundries. too many times over the past few years some spots around the bay have become hot only to be raped by trawlers for weeks after. some real action seriously needs to be taken so that people can still catch a decent fish in the bay. i say give em a boundry like no trawling within 5km's of land so that our bay islands stay protected and maintain healthy fish numbers for us recreational fisherman.

cheers, krazed

[Cheech]

13 people needing to earn a living = hundreds of rec fisho's missing out on fish that were there the week before. Do you think that is a fair trade?

I know because I was there the week before and caught the fish of a lifetime. Then just after the trawlers went through, the place was barron. They took away that opportunity of someone else catching their fish of a lifetime. Well,,, at least until a few new bigguns stray this way.

As for the catch and release,,,,, I am on the eating team. If people choose to release fish, then fine, but everyone deserves the right to go fishing without other people trying to make them look like they are doing anything wrong. If there is waste, then that is another issue, but if people go out and catch fish and then consume that fish, I am at a loss to understand how that could possibly be wrong.

I would think that on a good day at Mud, the combined total of kept fish would be no more than 100, maybe 200 depending on the season, and that is only weekends. Would be significantly less during the week. The trawlers and ring netters take tons of fish around the Island. I just cannot see our few fish making much difference. That fish you release will probably end up in a net next week.

Cheech

[Missing_FNQ]

When I was working in Weipa (mines), I was shown a picture of a trawler with a net full of reef fish floating on top of the water after just coming to the surface. What made it all the more unbeliveable was that 4 of the deckies were WALKING on top of it checking it out.

There was 5 ton of fish in that net from one shot (full freezer capacity) and after asking some questions of the boat owners son (who I was friends with), he said that they had passed by some bigger echoes.

What makes it harder to believe that at that time (1994) they were the only boat licensed to net fish in open water in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Dunno bout that one.

If there are so many trawlers down here getting meagre catchs, why doesnt the government relocate them or force them to hand in their license???. Might be a bit harsh but for the sake of tourism here in Queensland (which incidentally is a greater earner for QLD than fishing exports) it is worth considering.

And please.......all comments from the pro brigade will not work on me..........having friends in the industry (both netters and wholesalers) I have heard and seen the crap that goes on.

Cheers
Mick

[PinHead]

Alas...nothing will change on the matter of trawlers, unless someone tells the general public that they cannot buy fresh seafood any more. Go to Morgans on any weekend and see how many people pass throught that one shop. Comm. fishing is like any other business...based on supply and demand..as long as people want to buy seafood they will provide it where possible...and I doubt any Govt. will make any changes regarding this.

[Wyoming]

As for the catch and release,,,,, I am on the eating team.

Cheech - thank God for sanity and not being afraid to admit that you actually like eating them as well as catching them. Doesn't make you a bad person.

[Benno]

I agree Wyoming.. Nothing beats a good feed of fresh fish that you yourself have just caught, makes all it that much sweeter. I will always keep a couple for the table..
As for the trawler situation, I don't think much is going to change unfortunately. There should be changes made but don't hold your breath....

[roz]

13 people needing to earn a living = hundreds of rec fisho's missing out on fish that were there the week before. Do you think that is a fair trade?
Cheech

Absolutely, the input to the local economy via people visiting/fishing the area because of a healthy and abundent fish population far out weighs the alternative.

I've seen this first hand.

Pro fishing/netting, was banned in one of the coastal lakes, near to where my father lives on the NSW South coast.

In just a few seasons the fish population dramatically increased. The result was a very large increase in the number of people making that area their holiday destination.

The result for the local economy was extremely good.

It was unfortunate for a few people at the time, but after a while employment opportunities emerged because of the increase in visitors.

Cheers Roz.

[GBC]

Any ground I have ever tried at mud has always been spoil ground or at least undulating - not the type of ground a trawler can fish. Doesn't add up for me.

[Jiggit]

recreational fishing licence adopted and that managed correectly will see the end of the trawlers. i really dont know why we dont have it up here yet...

[Cheech]

Roz, I think you misinterpreted my comments because you said yes, but then went and argued my NO. I was not saying the few trawlers were worth all the rec fisho's grounds being wiped out.

[flynny15]

gday ausfishers

iam from melbourne and a few years back we had the same problem in port phillip bay, the netters and scallop dredging destroyed the bay. so the fisheries and goverment introduced fishing liscnece it, cost $20 for a year.
that 20$ went to good use, the goverment brought out all the the netters and scallop dredgers well most of them anyway, now if you read any report in melbourne they snapper are back in huge numbers.
I fished the bay 3 years ago, only caught a few size fish and many pinkies, 2 years ago we caught a few more quality snapper and millions of pinkies, last year was a huge year, boat where getting 10s and 20s to 4kg. as for this year so far of what i have heard this year is even better, my mates dad went out last weekend caught 15 to 4kg in 3hrs. The local tackle stores are booming with busniess everyone wants to get out there its unbeliveanble, you dont even need a sounder, all this because we dont have many netters lefts and scallop dredging is banned.

Now why doesnt the queensland goverment introduce this scheme, what a kick in the face it is to release a nice fish only for a netter to come past and net it, its a bit like whats the point, its a bloody shame you guys have this happening on your door step.

[chillers]

Gday fellas, who do you write to or contact to make this all known or to even raise a complaint as such.

chillers

[Poseidon]

For as Pinhead said it is a supply and demand problem...... In the general section there are comments made about the fish shops and the shock about fillets being imported and resold over the preferred local species.

So on one hand we have concerns about the importation of foreign produce and the other hand concerns about the supply of local product.

With the insatiable appetite that Australians have for seafood you could understand the dilemma that our decision-makers are faced with ??

For the record I would prefer to see the buy out of all commercial fishing licenses in Qld, with funding being granted to businesses involved in land based fish farming, aquaculture and the like. Joe citizen can then purchase farmed fish for the evening meal or get out and catch their own, for fish stocks should have sufficiently recovered in a few years.

If commercial fishing continues the way it is and if the last 50 years are anything to go by, fishing will be renamed " Throwing Lures".

Just my 2 bobs worth.

Regards Cameron.

[roz]

Hi Cheech,

I was only responding to your question "do you think that is a fair trade?"
notreally the whole comment...sorry.

I am not a fan of the trawling industry, I spent a few weeks on one once, so I've seen what happens. I know my comments were directed at pro netters. But I feel the end results are similar.

Regards roz

[gunna]

recreational fishing licence adopted and that managed correectly will see the end of the trawlers. i really dont know why we dont have it up here yet...

Just be very very careful of how this is done. In NSW they had "community meetings" where the public were briefed, followed by written submissions to the fisheries on which areas should or shouldn't become rec only.

You would be amazed at how effectively the pro movement marshalled their forces to have the areas excluded where they wanted to continue fishing - Hawkesbury and Sydney harbour. Rec fishos simply couldn't compete with the publicity and support that the pros were able to garner. They have a very professional organisation backing them. They even had Alan Jones pushing their case on the radio - presumably for a few dollars. Meanwhile, the rec fisherman, through both apathy and moreso lack of understanding/co-ordination/information, allowed the pros to totally dominate submissions to Govt and hence they won their case.

Don't think for a minute the same thing won't happen in Qld with the introduction of fishing licences. The pros will not give up these areas lightly. The Governments of all States have already shown that the rec fisho dollar is not important - obvious by them ignoring proven facts like the dollars that rec fisherman put into marlin fishing versus the need for long liners to continue decimating the species. The long liners continue to get Govt support.

You will get a licence at some stage - whether or not that will include the buy-out of ALL pro licences will depend on how well the rec fishos fight that battle - and they are up against a very formidable opponent. Our trouble is that because a couple hundred of us discuss our concerns on a web site, we tend to think that the hundreds of thousands of non PC fishos also understand the facts and the need to stand up for the issue. Thats simply not the case. At least the next time round the Fishing party will have learned a few lessons and hopefully will be able to pull together enough support to ensure all Qld fishos understand the importance of speaking up over the issue.

[Poseidon]

Very good points Gunna, whilst being vocal is one thing, putting pen to paper or lobbying a minister seems to be whole different story sometimes.

As an instance, people may remember that the Qld Govt put forward a plan to remove the Old Hornibrook Bridge. There was airtime given on many local talkback programs for a week or so, how could they tear it down ?, what can we do ? etc, etc. was the cry from many in the community. Well the best thing that could have occurred was to spend 5 mins and lodge your opposition to the proposal on the Governments E Petition Web-Site.

Well this petition has now closed and the total number of signatories to the opposition of the bridge removal was 703, that’s right 703. You would have thought that with all the airtime given to the subject the figure should have been more like 7003. Whilst the fate of the bridge still remains undecided it just goes to show that some people will generally sit on their hands rather than get in and make a difference even with simple forms of opposition let alone attend meetings etc.

After all, the direction that the government chooses to take will always be dictated by strong feelings in the community and whether these feelings will get in the way of any re-election. A good example was the backdown of the government over dolphin feeding in Tin Can Bay.

There is power in numbers.

Regards Cameron.

[Az]

For as Pinhead said it is a supply and demand problem...... In the general section there are comments made about the fish shops and the shock about fillets being imported and resold over the preferred local species.

So on one hand we have concerns about the importation of foreign produce and the other hand concerns about the supply of local product.



My concerns with the importation of foreign produce was IE BARRAMUNDI etc, was because these fish are already farmed here, not taken comercially from the waters we fish, this should be the future of the seafood market, with more farming of species to supply our market which is succesfully being done with prawns, barramundi and I did hear rumours they were looking into squire/snapper of late

[roz]

Yep, Yep,

So true Gunna. A few places have seen big benefits, but a lot more needs to happen. Sadly I am one of thousands that did bugger all, hoping somebody else would go into bat for the rec fisho.

As I am lucky enough to have a QLD address to, I won't be swanning around if they do the same up there. What do you think the chances are?

I will continue to pay for the right to fish NSW waters, but I live in hope.


Roz

[gunna]

Roz - in retrospect I don't think we could have done much to stop it simply because the rec fisho doesn't have the grapevine that the pros have. My mate went to a meeting and gave the fishing club a run down after it. He had picked up submissions for the club members and most of us put them in. But we thought we were playing on an even field. But no - the pros took hundreds and hundreds of submissions and had relatives, relatives friends, friends, friends of friends, friends of friends friends etc etc fill them in. They out-voted us overwhelmingly. The rec fishos had nothing in place to combat that - and to a huge extent, still don't.

[Duyz72]

I can empathise with the pro's situation. If your means of a living is under threat you would naturally put up a strong fight. Not becuase it's Pro's versus Rec, but rather "this is how I feed my family and you want to take it away? Especially more frustrating so you can dangle a line on your weekends?"

But indeed, it is a fine balance between utilising a resource and abusing a resource. Unfortunately we have been abusing all of them for quite some time. It's not just enough to keep what we currently have, but to replenish above and beyond what we need for tomorrow.

It seems that all the decisions being made from countless studies is something like
"OK this is the least amount of fish required to live and reproduce for next year, so you can take all the rest!"
Rather than an expanding resource model such as
"OK you can take this % of any given sounding because we need the rest to not only replenish what you took, but to build up a significant resource here and also the next bay/city/state"

Buying up all the licences, well you would have to buy them all at the same time so the last man standing wouldn't expect a mint for his.
And yes we do need a local seafood economny. So of course who then gets the very few licences re-marketed? How much are they then worth, and how much can they take? And because of the reduced supply and therefore increased prices (to start with) will we buy the local stuff or the cheaper imported?

[banshee]

What has to be realized is that fisheries first obligation is to the well being of the commercial sector,as important as we think we are,the recreational fishing sector will forever be the poor brother while the harvest of wild fish stocks continues,the fisheries dept.was initialy formed to manage and police the resorce for the commercial fishing sector.I am also partial to sliping the boot into the commercial fishers,as most recs are,but have to say that in my time working on a trawler(Sunshine Coast) as a teenager I can't ever recall seeing any reef fish on the tray,absolute mile of weed,whiting,flathead,flounder,bream and bait fish,could be different in Moreton Bay I but I doubt it.

[roz]

One more point here, fish farming. I know nothing about it.

But is it the way to go in the future? Harvesting wild fish stocks seems to have depleted too many species. Look at what happened to the Southern Blue fin as an example.

roz

[Thunderbird]

Was having a conversation with a bloke at work about trawlers. We came up with getting a loan of a barge and fill it up with old car bodies put one here another there ect.
then go sit out there and watch ;D ;D ;D ;D

[krazed1]

lol cracka of an idea ;D 8-)

[Scalem]

Borrow a few rolls of razor wire from a mate who works at a correctional centre. That outa do it!! ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

[Fishin_Dan]

The trawlers are only part of the problem... Between them & Cheech out there catching all the good fish, there's nothing left for anyone else!!! ;)

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[GBC]

I'm with banshee, and again from my first post, if someone can show me how an otter trawler can fish reef, spoil ground (expo dump), and 10 foot furrows left behind by dredges i'll stand corrected, but I believe you'll find they are prawning outside the area targetted for squire/snapper. As for the smart remarks about causing damage to pro boats - any one I've worked on has enough armourment to defend a small country, and trawler skipper's have a reputation to keep so don't make enemies of them on the water unless you are happy to lose more than an argument. Pros have a place in society, fish farms readily breed new diseases which could easily wipe out more than the pros ever could and aren't the answer everyone wishes they were - yet, and 'buying' the industry out of existence will only end up in deregulated shamateurism because aussies love fresh fish, but not as much as the japs. Don't kid yourselves - we get the leftovers - and the industry won't be bought out for a $20.00 license. I agree it should be better regulated, but pulling yourself and wishing they'll all just disappear is fantasy and a waste of web space. There's a lot of smart people read this site - perhaps some constructive ideas would help the cause guys??

[banshee]

Roz I think aquaculture is definately the way to go,a couple of years ago I had a look around the Jacobs Well prawn farm,this one farm was no where near maximum production but still producing as much as half the trawler fleet per anum,his biggest problem was a lack of local market,because the local market was controled by co-op's(commercial fishermen) nearly all of his product was exported to Hawaii.I know a lot is said about aquaculture being bad for the environment but how much better are the alternatives? This bloke complied with all regulations and still produced what I thought was a great product,all his waste was pumped into holding pans that evaporated off and there was also what appeared to be a mote between him and the adjoining waterway.I was prety impressed with the whole set up.

[big_steve001]

yeh mate they are still there today. i only saw one of them on the southern side anchored out of the wind.