The charter that almost ruined fishing

[banshee]

People's lack of knowledge is painfully obvious,the person in question was booked in on a jigging charter where not only is catch and release practised it is considered bad form and frowned upon to kill the fish.There has been an enormous amount of research on the survival rate of seriolla jigged out of deep water carried out by WA anglers in conjunction with their fisheries and the findings are in favour of fish surviving the ordeal quite well,in fact some fish have been recaptured more than once.
Nautilus,it is often said that hind sight is 20/20,you should have stuck with your original plan and found someone prepared to take you jigging.

[RayDeR]

Nautilus

I would have loved to been on that charter. Yeah you obviously don't know too much about tourist areas if you think a hotel or restaurant won't cook a fresh caught fish for you. (if you arrived with a couple of special staeaksa goodrestaurant would cook that for you too at a fee. That is their business.

Your attitude to this operation reminds me of people who got in my cab and knew more about driving in the city than I did. I probably drove further in a night than they did on a whole holiday. I even had a Swedish guy tel me I should have a Volvo. They had taxis that had done 300,000 kilometres. I shut him up by pointing to the 630,000km on my Falcon dial.

Nautilus, John West has the fish you reject. Or some other fisherman has.

Ray De R

[Reel Nauti]

Nautilus, if you were so keen to do the C& R, why did you book a deep sea charter? Have you any experience in fishing at these depths? And if not, what qualifies you to bag the charter?

Get a life.

Dave

[SunnyCoastMark]

Guys, guys,guys - You ALL seem to be missing the point here.

Now I am by no means a greenie - so the first one who calls me one will have to answer to my right foot!.............BUT............................. ......... We are not doing ourselves any favours when we condone the WASTEFUL harvesting of fish.

The greenies already have plenty of ammunition - we DO NOT need to give them any more!

Do you want vast areas of our oceans/reefs under lock and key (fishing wise)?!

NO, of course not - so WAKE UP and realise this is no longer the age where we can catch eskys full of fish and brag about it to all and sundry - because it will come back and bite us.

Be aware that "greenies" do troll this website and take note of every report detailing wasteful catches and photo's showing hundreds of caught fish.

C'mon guys - GET A CLUE!! Have some vision for the future. Be smart in your reports and your comments. Be seen to be mindful of this great pastime we all enjoy. It's not rocket science.

I want to enjoy fishing until I die - I want my kids to enjoy fishing and their kids and so on. I don't want to have large areas closed to fishing.

As for the charter operators - they will be among the first to feel the sting - you watch. The powers that be will limit their catches etc.

They need to wake up as well - or they will not be around.


Ok - off my soap box now.

Mark

[billfisher]

The 90% less larger fish figure is extremely doubful. I think it comes from the Myers and Worm paper of 2003. This has come under heavy criticism for careless intepretation of fisheries statistics and incorrect assumptions, as has Boris Worm's recent paper which predicted all the world's fish stocks will collapse in 50 years. Professor Ray Hilborn, a peer review scientist with the University of Washington described it as "the most absurd prediction ever to appear in a journal regarding fisheries. It will be completely accepted by the ecological community, these people have no scepticism".

[Reel Nauti]

I think the charter skipper was very much awake and switched on. Mono lines, fists full of lead.......sure slows down the catch rate, as even stated by Nautilus.

Dave

[FNQCairns]

The 90% less larger fish figure is extremely doubful. I think it comes from the Myers and Worm paper of 2003. This has come under heavy criticism for careless intepretation of fisheries statistics and incorrect assumptions, as has Boris Worm's recent paper which predicted all the world's fish stocks will collapse in 50 years. Professor Ray Hilborn, a peer review scientist with the University of Washington described it as "the most absurd prediction ever to appear in a journal regarding fisheries. It will be completely accepted by the ecological community, these people have no scepticism".

Yes! I had a reply all typed out over the 90% less claim last night and why it was proved as a total falicy (never let reality get in the way of a money/power making), I was in conservation for a while and this claim and the resultant publicity it aroused cause all sorts of panic in governmental circles, never a common sense voice will be hard when a claim aligns with the personal beliefs of one of the suits up high in the pecking order but I chose to delete it when finished instead of post to save the bother, these myths that published by those of low quality always hook the gullible and as a result is what ATM driving fisheries regulation and the preservationist ideology regarding the very need for marine parks here in OZ.

cheers fnq

[Dirtysanchez]

I have 2 areas of input on this topic.. I have been out on several charters and caught bugger all for various reasons, so I would have been overjoyed to be on the receiving end of a bag full of fish

I also am becoming more and more concerned that people are posting threads like this, as a virtual bait, so that they can sit back and collate the responses to further their cause and to further paint fishermen as insensitive, none caring rape and pillage the seas type persona.

I'd be a bit careful at what I respond to frankly

[Blue_Escape]

I think the charter skipper was very much awake and switched on. Mono lines, fists full of lead.......sure slows down the catch rate, as even stated by Nautilus.

Dave

Spot on, if the charter operators really wanted to wipe-out fish stocks they'd be using high $'s gear with braid and nuclear chooks ....probably catch 5 times the fish .

Nautilus
don't kid yourself about charters not being responsible, if only for 'practical' reasons. Yes he has to catch some fish to keep customers happy but if he cleans out an area it means next time he has to travel further > more diesel = more $$'s. He has a family to and wants his kids to grow up to be fishermen as well!

As Banshee mentioned previously the C&R of Samson (seriola) is highly researched by "greenies" in co-rdination with charters/fishos in WA and extremely well practised. February is getting a bit late in the season anyway...you should have gone in December. If you had been more careful about the charter you chose the outcome would certainly have been different! I have been out with arguably the best charter over there and the trouble they go to to keep fish alive is outstanding - again keeping these fish alive is in their best interest.

Also, gear supplied is Stellas & Saltigas with 80lb braid and 300g jigs (i.e. the best you can get)....but if you think this type of fishing is easy?!? then you need a serious wake up call

Also, most people, including big blokes like myself, could not wind all the way up in one go. It was that heavy.

although I must admit you will have no doubt when you do hook up!

Blue

[Steve B]

Nautilus, if you were so keen to do the C& R, why did you book a deep sea charter? Have you any experience in fishing at these depths? And if not, what qualifies you to bag the charter?

Get a life.

Dave

Dave,

Mabey some reading lessons wouldnt go astry!!! Or are you just trying to get on the band wagon of everyone else giving this bloke a hard time for not getting what he thought he was paying for??

give him a break fellas!!

He booked the charter and was told it was a jigging trip for AJ's !! Thats his primary compaint.

He obvoiusly doesnt understand how barotrauma affects fish in deep water fishing and it upset him to see waste of undersized fish, doesnt everyone???? I dont like seeing undersize fish die. (as unavoidable as it was)

As for keeping fish, he did it like a 'MAN' when asked to by the deckie. At the end of the day I would bet my bottom dollar those bags of fish were tossed in the nearest bin by the majority of the tourists. I have seen it done on charters before.
I have seen big barra tossed in whellie bins because people have been too lazy to fillet them or they didnt have enough room in their esky for the 5 meter + barra they killed because they were allowed too.

I am not a greenie, nor a ocean raper!! but guys, this fella didn't get what he expected. He cares for the fish stocks of the future and you lot bag him for it, and make him sound like an idiot (with a few exceptions).

[Steve B]

I have 2 areas of input on this topic.. I have been out on several charters and caught bugger all for various reasons, so I would have been overjoyed to be on the receiving end of a bag full of fish

I also am becoming more and more concerned that people are posting threads like this, as a virtual bait, so that they can sit back and collate the responses to further their cause and to further paint fishermen as insensitive, none caring rape and pillage the seas type persona.

I'd be a bit careful at what I respond to frankly

couldnt agree more Dirtysanchez, they have their ammo from a few here.

[Reel Nauti]

Steve B

I think it is YOU who needs the reading lesson mate. (and one in spelling - if you're going to take people to task you need to clean your glass house first). Nautilus clearly states in his opening post that he wanted a "deep sea" charter, and therefore C & R is extremely difficult for even the most experienced.

You then proceed to prattel on in a response to Dirtysanchez after having told the world that you have witnessed "big barra tossed in wheelie bins". You are right though when you imply that those opposed to us could "have their ammo from a few here".

You're one of them!

Dave

[nautilus]

Reel Nauti, I did want to go jigging. They called me up a couple of weeks before and cancelled that on me. They told me that all the samson fish had gone. Having already booked accomodation and paid for airfares, I took what was on offer. Deep sea fishing. I fish regularly for flathead in 60m of water and the small ones I don't want to eat seem to go back fine. I was not aware that 40m more would make all the difference.

Also, as some others have pointed out, my complaint is the waste of the fish that were not going to be eaten. I would have thought that the charterer could have asked people if they wanted to keep fish or send them back. Maybe they live, maybe they don't, there are no guarantees, but I can guarantee you they don't survive in an eski.

Yes, I am very much a "Greenie" I don't like wasting a valuable resource. I would like to preserve fish stocks for the future. I imagine that if I asked you if you like wasting resources or if you would like to preserve fish stocks for your kids, you would say yes. I love fishing and I want to continue fishing.

I also would like to add that some of the posts sounds a lot like "Reds under the bed" and the "Communists are coming". Lets not get too carried away. I don't think greenies are secretly gatherine ammunition. My gut feeling is that there are a lot of people on this site who love fishing and want to keep fishing but recognise that we can't do it the way we always have because we will run out of fish.

[Simmo2]

So if you had magically stepped off the boat and gone to another place, therefore knowing not what your fellow hotel dwellers were to (supposedly) do with their fish... would you still have considered your trip a rape of the ocean floor?
The charter operators too have bag limits to abide by, I don't see a 'major' issue here apart from your opinion???
If 30 rec fishers had to pass by your place, for your approval, would you be pissed off then? Same amount of fish no doubt????

[nautilus]

Simmo,

Wasting fish is what concerns me. I think it would be excellent if it did not happen.

I don't know what the bag limits are for charter boats in WA. If they are anything like recreational bag limits in NSW then I think they are far too generous.

I don't understand the last bit of your post.