History

[nigelr]

Last reply Matt, late June this year same beach hauling of mulloway occured at the confluence of the Bellinger, although on a smaller scale.
I've lived at North Beach for 28 years, guess you lived here before my time as I don't recognise your name.
Cheers.

[MitchCalcutt]

Hi every one,
Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts on this subject, I’m sure there are many who are biting their tongues on this topic.
Firstly I’d like to reply to Matt, your story is common to around Australia’s shores and I’m glad your having a chance to air the knowledge you have on the topic, great stuff Matt.

Secondly Too Brett AKA bugman, I understand where you are coming from, we simply just don’t know. BUT what we do know is over the millions of years that evolution has controlled things, the comings and goings of fish numbers would have happened over a period of hundreds of years. Most likely events would have occurred in a local environment where perhaps a particular species would have been in abundance, and out grown its food supply. We humans have succeeded in lowering the total marine food chain in only a matter of a few decades. YES it is for the survival of the of the human race and the industry that supply’s it.
BUT, we so-called intelligent humans are renowned for farming our food for hundreds of years, why is it so hard to farm fish? We were smart enough not to kill all the cows which supply to us yummy steaks, and look at how profitable that industry is.

All I’m saying is there has to be a better way,

Kind Regards

Mitch Calcutt

[billfisher]

Any sustantial fishing effort will result in a reduction in the fish population. The good news is that you only need 30 - 40% of the original stock to replenish the population - due to their extreme fecundancy. In theory they can be harvested at this level indefinitely. Under fishing pressure the population dynamics change in that recruits have better survivabilty through reduced predation and reduces competion for food. Ie they grow faster. Most fish are fast growing and recover from overfishing in less than 5 years when effort is wound back.

Note that Australia has the lightest fishing pressure in the world (1/30th world average). We have reduced our commercial fleets by 75% in recent years. Our scientists regard our fish stocks as stable.

On a personal note I catch more than I did 20 years ago because I am a better fisherman now. I live in Sydney too where the pressures are much greater on fish stocks than less populated areas.

PS: It's worth remembering the rec take is similar to the commercial take for a lot of 'bread and butter' species.

[Barrykrocker]

good discussion.

My 2c:

commercial guys should stay out of estuaries all together and I liked the idea espoused earlier in this thread about rotating green zones for the entire coast.

I'm sick of hearing horror stories about commmercial guys. I know of a nth sydney catch recently of several hundred good jew (10kg+) by some out of town pros in a couple of nights.

i feel such catches are nothing more than an amoral a dash for cash committed by people who have failed to come in line with modern concerns for the environment.
It jsut saddens me when great rivers like the Hawkesbury often fail to produce a catch.

I would advise all rec fishers who truly care about the fisheries and our environment to refrain form buying frozn prawns or squid or pilchards. We know that often these baits are netted from our estuaries such as the hawkesbury(squid and prawns) and the river can't cope.

Catch you own bait or stick to lures I say

[seabug]

While there is condemnation of Pro-netters fishing estuaries and creeks there has been no mention of the effects of the thousands of cast nets used daily to catch bait by amatuer fisho's.

Surely this has an enormous effect on the population of fish as these areas are the nursery of the fish breeding cycle.

In what other places are cast-nets permitted?

Regards
seabug

[MitchCalcutt]

While there is condemnation of Pro-netters fishing estuaries and creeks there has been no mention of the effects of the thousands of cast nets used daily to catch bait by amatuer fisho's.

Surely this has an enormous effect on the population of fish as these areas are the nursery of the fish breeding cycle.

In what other places are cast-nets permitted?

Regards
seabug

Hi Seabug, I couldn't agree more, Its not pros that get to me its the nets that are used to catch the fish. Everything dies including the sea grass that is a nursery to countless numbers of critters that are the food chain.
Mitch

[ryansrods]

i just want

to add my 20 cents worth regarding the mulloway i live in yamba nsw and am somwhat of a jew fanatic my talking to alot of the old fishers around the area the main problem we face with ctching a jew through winter is the mullet meshers they take huge amounts of mullet and blackfish leaving no bait for the jew to hunt so its not actually the jew that are being netted but the bait when this happens alot of jew are caught on offshore reefs probably cause this is where the bait is an old fella johny garvin recons the jew nfishin in this area is about as good as it was when he was a kid he reacons the problems are people are tryn to be too fancy and techniquall with there gear and techniques somtimes simplicity is the key and his results reflect this

[Red Bull]

ryansrods, it appears you have a distinct aversion to using any sort of punctuation, or capital letters to start a sentence, etc? Or was that supposed to be one long sentence?

But seriously, I agree with your point about the bait disappearing due to pro netters, leading to less likelihood of jew being in a given area at a given time. I wonder if the mullet netters on Sth Straddie are partly responsible for the fact that very few jewies seem to get caught along that beach?

Cheers,
RB

[nigelr]

Mulloway are a permitted by-catch of beach haul netters targetting mullet.
And a far more viable catch commecially...........
During the mullet run, there are often schools of mulloway in attendance.
Better to take a tonne of mulloway @ $8/kg than a tonne of mullet @$0.50/kg.
Under the present rules and regulations, who could blame the pros.........after all they are in it to make a living, one would assume.
Cheers!