Pro's accuse rec fishers of flooding the black market

[luigi]

The front page of today's (19/4/07) Townsville Bulletin & most of page 4 has to be the biggest beat-up of a story I have seen for quite a while. The
headlines & story indicates that, while the commercial trawler fleet has
been laid up for 8 or 9 days due to rough weather over the Easter period, recreational fishers have been flooding the black market with their catch.

For goodness sake, if it's too rough for the commercial fleet to go fishing,
then it's most certainly too rough for the recreational fishermen also.

A professional trawler skipper is quoted as saying "Your risking your life
to go out in that sort of wind." Statements like this & others scattered
throughout the article, eg. "the black market from recreational fishers has
exploded," Black market trade booms." indicates to me, a complete lack of creditability.

It makes me wonder if the commercials are using the same spin doctor as
GBRMPA who often make outlandish statements without any evidence to back
them up.

Cheers - Lou

[disorderly]

There cant be much else happening in Townsville at the moment.
Was there any evidence provided to support these statements?
It was blowing 20-30 knots over most of the easter period.It would be pretty difficult to get out to the reef and catch enough fish to "flood" the market with the conditions like that.
I think they may be exaggerating a little bit with this.

cheers Scott

[sid_fishes]

maybe its the pro,s way of getting back at the rec fishes for comments made

[wayneoro]

be nothing more then one of there staff having to come up with an article and sounds like a non fisherman plus oviously with very average iq . theres always stuff like that gees they have to give you something for ya buck stop whinging

[chainsaw]

Luigi,
You know the old saying "Dont let the truth get in the way of a good story"
Rod

[Ausfish]

Lou, you should report it to Media Watch (ABC TV) and see what they do.

http://abc.com.au/mediawatch/

[luigi]

Lou, you should report it to Media Watch (ABC TV) and see what they do.

http://abc.com.au/mediawatch/

Thanks for the suggestion Steve, I have just put in a report to them. We can only hope they will do something with it.

I note this rot was also carried on TV last night - looks like they don't care about truth getting in the way of a good story either.

Cheers - Lou