wow Andy..get the Govt to flick me a million or two and I bet I could organise some research. They used my tax dollars to come up with assumptions so why can't i have some of it also to come up with my own assumtions.
I doubt you have comprehended that report..too many assumtptions, guesses and predictions for my liking. Give me irrefutable proof that there is a problem and I will support whatever measures are deemed necessary. I did not instigate this research..the Govt did therefore they are the ones that should have the definitive proof..not up to us to disprove..it is up to do the job properly.
And ya wonder why a lot of people won't join Ecofishers..way too many loose cannons and no cohesion.
What is the point of a few feeding data in? Just so they can extrapolate this and pull figures out their asses again. It has to be mandatory and it has to be enforced! It also has to be given more that a couple of years in the middle of a drought.Originally Posted by TheRealAndy
To top it all off we HAVE to demand performance indicators WELL before it is introduced.
Democracy: Simply a system that allows the 51% to steal from the other 49%.
andy i have contributed data through infofish as well as fisheries directly, but the problem is there isn't any real infrastructure about it that lends it useful to mass data collection. i.e fisheries aren't seeming to be spending any of our taxpayer money on trying to improve data collection through logbooks etc for the majority. rec anglers shouldn't have to seek them out to supply data, it should be the other way around
it's just a fact of life that unless presented with a user friendly and simple way to get involved with data collection, which is then well publicised and made available to the public, the majority won't even know it's out there let alone contribute to it.
as lovey80 has said what's the point of data collection unless it applies to the majority not just those willing to actively pursue it through infofish. taking a small bit of data from a select and distinct group of the population and attempting to extrapolate it to represent the whole population is begging for failure
Dont bring ecofishers into this. I am no longer involved with ecofishers, and nothing I say here represents their view. However, for the record, I know that ECOFishers is actually consulting with a scientist now to see if its possible to come up with some independant scientific data, unlike anyone here.
Ya dammed if you do, ya dammed if you dont.
Andy,
Just because fish are not being caught on a particular day does not mean they are not there. I have had the 585 absolutely LIT UP with huge shows of fish on my snapper marks with no takers. Four hours later after a tide change they are on the chew.
Day trip charter operators leave at the same time each day & work a relatively small number of spots. Their fishing plan is fairly inflexible & they are are not in the business of staying out until 2100 for the next bite period.
I have come home with nothing in the esky apart from ice in the past although the fish have been there if the Furuno is to be believed. I would guess (no science though) that I am not alone in being skunked.
The science looks to be dodgy & similar in quality to the infamous "grey nurse survey" where the young lady who provided the shark numbers got her info from dives on two shallow water locations whilst disregarding every other reef off Moreton.
ROLL TIDE, ROLL.................
Regards,
Peter
"The science looks to be dodgy & similar in quality to the infamous "grey nurse survey" where the young lady who provided the shark numbers got her info from dives on two shallow water locations whilst disregarding every other reef off Moreton."
Peter,
That is the same level of quality "science" used for Moreton Bay Marine Park Green zones legislation. It is a joke
I too have had the Furuno get me all excited, only to come home frustrated and eating chicken haha
Cheers,
Myles
What species of Fish is seriously under threat...????
That imbecilic fool Bob Brown was on the news stating that Snapper,Marlin and Tuna have been wiped out.
Ok so the year prior to this Jeff Oates from this site caught well over 100 Marlin BY HIMSELF and god knows how many smithy an the like caught as well.
This is just a few anglers for christs sake.
Bob Brown you are full of $hit and if marlin stocks (blues and stripes) are under threat we all know its the Longliners doing the damage.
The same goes for yellowfin Tuna.....The longliners did the damage and no one could really argue that fact.
Snapper is the topic here......who really believes they are a species under threat..??
Well I for one dont believe they are under threat at all.
Everything is 'Seasonal'..... some years its great and some years its not so great.
The season just gone was ordinary from all the reports but there were higher than average water temps with mackeral still being caught in winter and year round.
2 years back the amount of undersize squire we were cathcing here on the sunny coast was rediculous.....Is this a species under threat...?
Fishing is 'seasonal' with some years awesome for certain species and some quiet.
This year the sailfish were fantastic according to all reports and it returned to the days of old........so the three years prior were they extinct or a species under threat..?????..
Its all a load of horse $hit with flawed science in every corner and its just a further push from the greens etc to slowly wipe out fishing.
Pete
You are right but for the wrong reasons. While I highly doubt that the Rec take is 400+ ton a year I also highly doubt that the signs of good fish stocks and an increasing yield from the area will be taken in the right way by fisheries. It is quite clear that the end goal at the start of this assessment ( before an ounce of data was garnered or put into a computer) was to reduce the Rec take of RRFF. More taken in any context is bad in their eyes. I'll give a hypothetical example:
If you were to make reefball artificial reefs out to the three mile mark from tweed to double island that creates so much more habitat that snapper stocks exploded and catch rates went through the roof and we hit a 200 ton TAC in 3 months we would have more restrictions heaped on us because the idealism is to reduce the take. Any situation where Rec Anglers were taking more tonnage of fish would be frowned upon.
Answer my question Andy, if PEW was providing this data or did the surveys would you be chastising the masses for being upset at the method and demanding it was done properly and asking us to prove PEW wrong?
Democracy: Simply a system that allows the 51% to steal from the other 49%.
well perhaps you should get ecofishers to remove your name from their website.
so you are saying, that as we are not scientitsts then our opinion does not count..get real and get over it..this is a democracy.
Gee Andy..had you been around you would have been all in favour of the introdcution of the cane toad also. and i guess you would also have welcomed thalidomide ..because no one had any proof to prove otherwise..thank God Dr McBride made some assumptions of his own.
That thinking of yours is so flawed it belongs with PEW..
here is my assumptions as to why fish stocks are supposedly low..it is due to the increas in the population of humpback whales..these huge creatures eat krill and small fish..therefore these small fish are not being eaten by larger fish of other species so those larger fish either die or move elsewhere..my solution..cull the whale population. care to prove me wrong ???
I never said that.Andy,
Just because fish are not being caught on a particular day does not mean they are not there. I have had the 585 absolutely LIT UP with huge shows of fish on my snapper marks with no takers. Four hours later after a tide change they are on the chew.
Day trip charter operators leave at the same time each day & work a relatively small number of spots. Their fishing plan is fairly inflexible & they are are not in the business of staying out until 2100 for the next bite period.
I have come home with nothing in the esky apart from ice in the past although the fish have been there if the Furuno is to be believed. I would guess (no science though) that I am not alone in being skunked.
The science looks to be dodgy & similar in quality to the infamous "grey nurse survey" where the young lady who provided the shark numbers got her info from dives on two shallow water locations whilst disregarding every other reef off Moreton.
I shall organise to have my name removed ASAP.
You have totally missed the point Greg, and not once did I say your opinion did not count.
I like your whale theory, why not put that foward as well? Is about as plausable as the "We do not take 400t a year because someone said so on AF" Theory.
Poor Andy, Mate you are coping an undeserved flogging.
Lets all stop for a minute and consider the following:
Two years ago at the RRFF working group at Mooloolaba Fisheries marine biologists and researchers advised the meeting that snapper was under a sustainability threat and they wanted to reduce or cap the total tonnage taken by all three sectors to 400 tonnes in order to let the snapper stocks rebuild back over the critical 40% level of the original biomas.
They proposed to limit the tonnage of the Charter and Commercial sectors to 32t and 108t respectively and monitor the catch by perusal of logbooks already mandatory for these two sectors. They estimated that the recreation catch could be reduced to about 260 tonnes by closing the season down to recreational anglers for 4 months between May to October EACH YEAR FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS.
Now the three recreational reps (Bill Corten, Ray Ozich and myself) and the two tackle shop reps let Fisheries know in no uncertain terms that this was not acceptable. We said that we had no faith in the estimates of the recreational catch as the figures were extracted from a telephone poll of 1000 so called recreational anglers and limited boat ramp surveys. We did agree however that we accepted the argument that it wouldn't hurt to rebuild snapper stocks over the next 10 years if it was found that snapper were being overfished by recreational anglers.
We were confident that recreational anglers were not catching the tonnage estimated by Fisheries (415 tonnes annually) and demanded to be treated the same as the other two sectors. (i.e. we supply accurate catch data to actually see what snapper tonnage we catch instead for locking us out for 4 months every year for the next 10 years).
Now this is the history behind option 1 but without the fee.
Fisheries were adamant that a six weeks closure be implemented early in the season to ensure that the total tonnage by all sectors was not reached too early in the year which was to commence on January 1 each year. The Charter and Commercial sectors agreed to this but a few months ago before the RIS was finalised Fisheries acknowledged that the 6 weeks for Charter and Commercial was not necessary as these sectors would be fishing under an ITQ (option 1) or Competitive TAC (option 2).
The start of the season was amended to commence April 1 each year (how appropriate) and I requested on a number of occasions that this being the case there was no need to keep the 6 weeks closure in Options 1 and 2 for the recreation sector as the six weeks from Feb 15 was now at the end of the season not near the start as originally proposed.
Like I have stated in earlier posts unless we make it clear to Fisheries that we are not happy with the four options as detailed in the RIS and put up an alternative option (option 1 without the massive fee and delete the 6 weeks closure) we will be saddled with a 4 month closure while the other two sectors fish under their ITQ's or TAC's
Why choose 4 months closure when it could be avoided by supplying actual catch data. If the catch data shows that we as recreational anglers are flogging the snapper stocks then by all means close the snapper fishery off when we reach the 260 tonnes.
Andy is right as this whole snapper stock assessment was started when a number of Gold Coast Charter operators complained to Fisheries that there were no snapper on their usual marks that they had flogged for many years. Also a number of snapper marks on the southern end of the Gold Coast silted up when the NSW Govt built the sand pumping outlet on the southern side of the Tweed River. This not only stuffed up the snapper fishing but also made most of the southern beaches too wide requiring a cut lunch and a drink stop before you reached the water.
Cheers
Barry
Now you are trying to treat us like a bunch of lemmings Andy...we can read and make our own decisions..not just follow what someone else said. it is amazing that the vast majority here do not believe in thier so called science.
My options:
If closures are implemented I will ignore them.
If fees are implemented i will not pay them.
As a person that pays for quite a few charters per annum I will not be using thier services during any rec angler closure periods.
If and when the Govt comes up with a plausible method of stock analysis and this is not some shonky phone calls..and it is shown that the stocks are in trouble then by all means discuss with us what they propose and what we propose and then perhaps a solution can be found.
Until then Andy..tell ya mates at Fisheries to take their thumb and insert in rectum..cos that is how much respect I have for them..NONE.
end of my discussion on this subject.
Thanks for the refresher Barry. It sounds like you have the thoughts of the majority on here sewn up and are getting the Rec Angler word across ( well we hope anyway).
I have one question though. Are you supporting a 260t TAC to be implemented now or only after the proper research has been conducted (catch card/log book data) and is deemed necessary then?
Again thanks for all the hard work.
Cheers
Chris
Democracy: Simply a system that allows the 51% to steal from the other 49%.
And that is exactly what I am getting at folks.
Chris,
Fisheries want the 260 tonne TAC introduced in the first year but please note that it is a notational TAC and will only be introduced with logbooks. The logbook data will be reviewed by Fisheries and they will issue snapper catch data on their website as I understand it. This data can also be monitored by Sunfish and Ecofishers Queensland if they want to and verified against the logbooks.
With the snapper season starting on April 1 each year I doubt that we would reach the TAC by November. If we do then its closure time.
Cheers
Barry
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