Bull Sharks, are we overfishing?

[Jitlands]

Right now three of the first five salt water posts are about bull sharks.

At least once a week sharks in the Nerang/Coomera and local canals are mentioned in the newspaper.

Take a run down the Nerang from Carrara to Southport on dusk and you will see blokes set up with marlin gear in rivrefront parks and plenty of set lines from private jetties

At least once a week there is somthing on the Gold Coast news about the evil sharks with photos and/or footage of carcases on the river bank.

It this "targeting" of the top of the food chain going to affect specie diversity of the local waterways?

We we be telling our grandchildren about the good old days when bull sharks inhabited our local rivers?

Who will we blame given the pros are not involved?

Could be about time we all assessed the value of targeting a Bull sharks???

[bo_sawyer]

i think theres plenty of the fellas in the canals.

[Benny_Boy]

Yes Bo_D, while there is plenty of Bull Sharks in the canals at the moment, the point Jitlands is making is that if we keep fishing for them and keep killing them as it seems is the case with all the shark excitment around the last few years... their numbers will decrease and they will become a thing of the past!

There is a motto floating around called "Fishing For the Future". I guess this means thinking of what the fishing is going to be like in another 20 or so years. Will we still be able to catch bull sharks from the river banks? If lessons arent learnt from previous ancestors fishing behaviours, then the answer is "NOT LIKELY!!"

Yes they are there, and yes there is plenty of them. But only because people haven't really been targeting them till the last few years with all the media hype about sharks we see every week.

The answer is simple. If you are going to fish for them, fish catch and release.

If you do want to keep them, then make a rule of keeping 1 shark to every 10 sharks you catch or something similar.

If this doesn't persuade anyone to fish a little smarter, then remember this...

IF YOU DON'T EAT THEM... THEY WON'T EAT YOU!!!

Benny_Boy

[bo_sawyer]

IF YOU DON'T EAT THEM... THEY WON'T EAT YOU!!!

so your saying that girl who got killed off Straddie was taken because she ate a bull shark.

[banshee]

So it's allright to target and keep the bread and butter type species but not the sharks?By keeping the former and releasing the later you will eventualy create an unhealthy ballance biased in favour of the sharks thus preasuring the bread and butter species even further.

[jpart10]

Bull shark fishing doent hurt the sharks if we are all responsible and release our sharks weather there 30cm or 7 ft.

[mattooty]

Alot of my shark fishing these days, i will go out and keep 2 or 3, then fish circle hooks the rest of the day. Some days hooking up anywhere between 15-25 all within the 2-4 foot range. When i see 10-15 other boats doing the same as me and each releasing way more than is caught, i can see this area as almost able to sustain a hard fished ecosystem. When the sharks move in, it is impossible to get a flatty, bream or jew out of the usual spots along her, and this makes me wonder if these hundreds maybe thousands of sharks, are eating up alot of our bread and butter fish? They have to be eating something down there other than my dozen and a half pilchards or the other blokes mullet fillets or the next ones herring.
Ive had these sharks take legal 30cm bream, legal flathead and legal whiting all within 2-5 minutes of being on the bottom, what would these fish do normally? I for one, dont feel any regret taking sharks out of this equation as i only see them as taking out bottom of the food chain fish that i would normally target when the sharks arent prevalent.
Matt

[bidkev]

Based on the fact that even I can catch 'em, I don't think that they're an endangered species but I do get your drift.

There's plenty of sharks in the canals and some of these have got in when small and are now locked in. I stayed at a resort near currumbin one year and the only way out of the canal that housed the resort was over a weir. I caught 12 in the week that I was there and only kept two. In retrospect, I should've killed the buggers because it wasn't until my last day there that I found out about the weir. My kids were swimming and canoing in that canal as were hundreds of other folk.......pretty scary when you think about it, especially if the bullies bread and butter such as bream, decrease.

kev

[al-straddie]

If this doesn't persuade anyone to fish a little smarter, then remember this...

IF YOU DON'T EAT THEM... THEY WON'T EAT YOU!!!

Benny_Boy

[jim_farrell]

Lets not forget that the canals didn't exist thirty years ago. Therefore we have created a system that has only increased populations of all fish and sharks in these areas. I'm not saying that we have the right to fish them out, just that we have increased the population and taking a few out shouldn't threaten them to extinction.

[eyecandy2723]

hmm im missing somthing here i have fished for bullsharks for the last 4 months in various rivers nerang,coomera,albert,logan,brisbane i will always fish late arvo throu dusk into the night i always will use a full bottle of tuna oil i mix it up with bread ,chook pellets,old bait,cat/dog food that will get put into a weighted berly bucket and tossed out on a rope just upstream of where my lines will be i will fish 2 rods on floats 2 meters of 80lb trace below with ganged 6/0 hooks with a tasty lenth of pike eel on 2 rods with bottom rig which i will use live anything i can get on my light rod 2 large handlines set with liver baits,i always fish hard and put in the hours im guessing well over 50 hours in the last few months but not a touch not even seen 1 in the water so i must just be realy realy unluckyor there is just not as many in these waters as they say but im not sure any comments welcome

[eyecandy2723]

oh if any1 knows a place to get abullshark id love to come alone ill shout the beer and bring the camera

[Feral]

While there is still one to catch, they are not over fished (sorry but they bite!)

[efc]

I wouldn't worry too much Eyecandy, they're not around in the proportions most people think. I hear allot of people saying that they are catching 6ft bull sharks...well I would love to see some pics. And I would also love to see photo evidence of 25 different bull sharks caught in one day!!!
I'm not saying its impossible but come on guys how about some proof of these impressive hauls!

[mattooty]

efc, if you're ever down in maclean, ill take you out and assure you that i can connect you with at least 10-12 sharks in a days sessions. Simply drifting from one side of the broadwater entrance to the other. They are extremely numerous and bite right throughout the day.