Many thanks for posting this very well thought out and written document, Lindsay.
Couldn't agree more with your comments re commercial licence 'buy backs'.
Definitely the best aspect of our NSW fishing Licence system!
Personally I would like to see the eventual buy out of all beach seiners, at an equitable price, preferably sooner than later!
Only my personal opinion, but I live in hope!
Cheers and thanks for a great read!
Slider,
Personal thanks for posting the information it has been a great help to me.
I agree Nigel that these guys should be well compensated for the loss of their livelihoods. They have provided product to the larger community for a long time and it wasn't so long ago that they were thought of in a much better light by the majority. To a fair extent they are victims of circumstances beyond their control. ie estuary pollution, improper management strategies, population explosion, illegal fishing activities etc.
It is my firm belief that many of these guys can still be viable although the numbers must reduce. The netters around here absolutely hate me and line up on the beach and give me the finger when I drive past. I don't blame them for that at all. If somebody was trying to take my job away I'd feel the same way. They just aren't aware that I'm actually trying to prolong the existence of some of them as opposed to the push for a total ban. I'd like them to know that but communication between us is not possible at the moment. We have mutual friends and I'm told that they are good guys that are working this beach and that I don't doubt.
Anyone that has read the article on tailor migration and management will know where I'm coming from. Hope one day to be able to sit down and have a beer with them and be able to tap in to the huge wealth of knowledge that they must possess.
In fact there must be some ex pro fishermen out there that would be able to help me fine tune these strategies. If so, I'd love to hear from them.
Thanks for the compliment Nigel.
Great article Lindsey , thanks .
Some of you who have read my posts in the past may remember my espousing the recruitment theory of stabilising declining fish stocks. In other words breed the buggers and release the fingerlings into the wild at an optimum size for survival.
So here is something you all can do this season. Next time you catch a tailor gently strip the roe & milt into a bucket of seawater.
You can do this by squeezing the gut in a sliding motion from the pectorals to the vent.
Now I have no idea whether the eggs and milt so harvested would be viable or if fertilisation would occur, but, it would only take a second or two and that fishes reproductive potential then has some chance of being realised, rather than none if the fish is killed and the roe discarded.
Then when you finish fishing chuck your egg & milt soup back in the ocean and let nature take its course.
Who knows you may have just created 200000 baby tailor that you and me can catch next year.
Now think about what would the cumulative effect If say 200 of the 10000 fishers on this site did that just once this year!!!!
rando
You could do the same for any species you catch during their individual spawning runs.
r
Slider
I am not 100% sure but I believe there has not been any beach netting on the gold coast beaches for years from D,bar to the Spit( someone please correct me if Im wrong), but you are hard pressed to find a fish most times. Why do you reacon that might be??? They get a few around narrowneck, and the sandpumping jetty but there is a lot of water between fish elsewhere.
rando
good posts boys.. I agree with the NSW licencing system and def the buyback of licences, at a good rate
Rando do they not net these beaches n e more, I noticed a 4x4 there early last yr who def was a pro fisher, not sure if he was a netter or what but he was scoping out for schools of fish....
Masterdusky
When I was a kid I remember seeing them shoot the net at places like Bilinga & Tugan, maybe even Greenmount / Coolangatta I am talking the early sixties here. But i have neither seen nor heard of beach netting for a very long time on the Goldcoast .
I assumed It was the ban of private vehicles on the beach by the council. I might be wrong though.
I am interested to know if anyone has seen a shot in recent times.
rando
As I rarely spend any time on the Goldy I can't comment on current netting activity or geographical factors that may influence tailor movements and I haven't researched the area. I would be interested also in any info on netting of the area.
To be considered is this - when tailor are migrating north, any inshore netting activity will cause the tailor to pursue an offshore path that will mean that they may bypass perhaps the next 100km of coastline north of the netting before they feel safe to again come inshore. It may even be further but nobody knows. So for example - if netting of mullet occurs on the beach between the mouth of the Clarence River and Iluka Bluff,(and I'm assuming that it does)) then the tailor will bypass that netting and may not head inshore which is their instinct until maybe Ballina. If any netting is occurring near Ballina, then those same tailor won't come in til say, Surfers. And so it goes on. So the netting can be 200km apart but still cause total area abandonment of migrating tailor for many, many hundreds of kilometres. There are slight exceptions to the rule such as time elapsed between successful shots by the netters, allowing short term returns of fish. Remember also that all fish 'amplify' the distress signals. That is - when mullet in a net 'scream', mullet and other affected species that are not in the net will also scream in order to warn further away fish of the danger that exists in the area. A single vocalisation from a mullet can be heard up to 20km away and it travels at 5 times the speed of sound in air.
An example - netters last July were just south of Teewah and I was watching them from my brothers balcony which overlooks Laguna Bay. When the net was attached to the 4wd's on the beach and they began the retrieve, the mullet started to panic as they always do. At the very same moment, the schools of mac tuna and spotty mackerel that were feeding on froggies all over Laguna Bay and had only just returned after a haul of mullet 2 weeks previously, stopped feeding and disappeared. Every school, and I could see probably 15 different schools from where I was. A pro wormer friend of mine was at Double Island Point at that time and reported to me later that day what he thought was a strange thing. He said there were heaps of schools of tuna and mackerel working one minute and the next they were gone. We checked our times and assessed that it was at the same time. Now D.I. is about 40km further north. We didn't see any more schools of tuna and mackerel until December.
Rando. I am fascinated by your suggestion that we may be able to release the eggs and milt of caught fish in order to gain some reproduction of that species. Don't have any idea as to whether that can work and it is a new one on me. In theory I believe that it is possible but there would be limitations as to success rates. The surf will wash the majority back to shore I am certain and the eggs would need to be fertile enough at the time for them to be fertilised. I'm not saying it doesn't work because I simply couldn't possibly know. I am saying that it is possible and that with appropriate research we may be able to find ways of increasing the likelihood of reproduction and what a fantastic thing that would be for otherwise wasted eggs and milt.
No such thing as keeping my posts brief it would seem and I thank everybody who is taking the time to read them and offer feedback. It's all really too big for me to do on my own and it takes input from experienced fishos and the gathering of information to allow accurate conclusions to be drawn.
Cheers
Lindsay
Slider
The DPI boys or the hatchery at Bribie might be able to give you info on what the fertilization requirements for tailor are. But I reacon If you've got a bucket full of seawater and squirt all the eggs & sperm in there then you have got a fair chance. Leave it a while for nature to take its course,, If you wade out to your goolies and chuck all this into a nice rip there is a fair chance it will get dragged out to sea.
I know they use hormones to induce some species to spawn ( a contraceptive pill in the water=oestrogen might be required to ripen the eggs. The right conditions for fertilization probably include such things as water temp, 02 levels and most importantly ripeeggs, whether those conditions are achievable in a bucket I can only guess.
BUT ITS WORTH A TRY.
If it works call me the father of 10 million tailor
You might be the father of a lot more than that many tailor Rando if I've got anything to do with it. If we could get confirmation that such a method does work then I'd expect caring anglers would be happy to get their usually already wet goolies, repeatedly wet. Somewhere like the northern side of Waddy where the majority of recreationally caught tailor come from would be quite easy for anglers to perform this rewarding task because of the calmish water.
One greenback of 2.5kg can have 1000000 eggs alone. Imagine the benefits of this en mass rather than them dying with the fish. Beautiful!!
Also the fact that the reason why so many tailor are taken in this region is because they are in the process of spawning, means that the eggs are mostly 'ripe'.
I will take this further Rando and thankyou.
Then there's bream, flathead etc etc. Awesome!!
Exellent idea rando .Lind i think you finally gave the explonation why bribie surfside went dead after a very promising beginning of the season ,if ya search trough the post youll find my reports from about 4-6 weeks ago ,there was multiple catches of big dart -flatties- macks -bonitos .Since than all i seems to manage is stingrays as they probably slip under the nets.I should mention as well that while im not an expert im aint exatly a novice to surffishing,so i couldnt find any reason before i read your article .Anyway thanks for the explonation .
cheers
George
ps:im yet to chase up Gary sorry mate im a bit slack
At Heaven's gate a soldier stood,
his story ready to tell,
St Peter said, 'no need my son all is understood,
Go right in cos you've already served your time in Hell'
George, I think Lone Wolf has been fishing Bribie this week. Just to cloud things a little. But yes, flathead are not affected by seine netting and I would imagine stingrays as well.
What's the netting scenario at Bribie at the moment George?
YEahh by boat so he can go over the tip were we not allowed with a 4b
Thats were the gutters are at least the visible ones.Nigel at gateway tackle telling me that netters are around in numbers targeting anything from bonito to mullet.To back it up he sold me some fresh bonito fillets that just came in from the trawlers.Good on ya Wolf i read your report had no idea that you fishing on that piece of paradise .
cheers
George
At Heaven's gate a soldier stood,
his story ready to tell,
St Peter said, 'no need my son all is understood,
Go right in cos you've already served your time in Hell'
Slider
Just had another thought , dumping a bucketful of fresh spawn could possably trigger spawning by other fish as they smell the scent trail left by the stuff washing down the gutter. Maybe even make scattered groups of fish school-up for reproductive purposes. Interesting possabilities hey!!!
rando
I will from now on milk all tailor into a bucket and send it back to the sea, what a great idea if we all do it and only a 5% complete the buisness it is 5% more that we had before. Now just have to catch the critters.
Cheers
Barry
Take photos and memories leave only footprints, respect the enviroment when 4 wheel driving , never be too busy to help out someone in need.
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