Should Snapper Size and Bag Limits be Increased

[dfox]

I,d be careful what you say on this issue, theres already been a number of changes implemented in very resent time.
Firstly weve had the size increase from 30 -35cm which i guess everyone was more then happy to see, this gives the fish at least 2 years of spawning before reaching a size that can be kept.
Then we had bag limits reduced from 30 -5 fish, this alone had a major impact on the amount of greed that some anglers seemed to thrive on.
The GNS closure areas are all major spawning areas for snapper, and its only a mater of time before some major south east queensland offshore closures are implemented. Imagine if over a third of the banks, hards ,wide coloundra, 12 mile, noosa reefs, murphy's,deep tempest, DI etc reefs are closed to fishing indefently.And this will happen just like the GBR. I bet this would have a big impact on your success rates.
Then theres the possiabilities on placing a maxmium size of say 55cm on the fish as well, wouldnt that open a can of worms.
Ive been fishing the last few months at shallow tempest, hendersons, wide caloundra, the banks, the hards, off of D I and at every location ive bagged out on large knobbies with ease and released hundreds unharmed, all i see is an extremely healthy offshore fishery, Any changes could only be detrimental to all you fellow fisho's and lead to tighter more restricting conditions.
None of us want to see the day when we cant head out to our favourite winter offshore locations and enjoy the pleasures of finding,fighting and catching and eating one of our favourite fish.
Lets keep things in prospective, its a bumper year, not every year is! Enjoy it. The current restrictions are working.
Unless we start seeing reports on how no-one is catching snapper, i'd be more concerned about the main issues of water quality, closures and the like... catch ya ...foxy

[gropeher]

Dfox,
I agree with everything you say,
We have had a number of poor seasons in the past and all of a sudden we have a bumper season and the panic button seems to get pushed, Leave the limit as it is now as it seems to be working. One thing is we also dont know the survival rate of all the fish we release, imagine if you then had to start releasing all snapper 45 or 50cm.

[blaze]

In Tassie we have no bag or size limit, I have just spend a great deal of time to get a bag limit brought in for september this year. copped a lot of flack from some people for that
cheers
blaze

[nils_desporandum]

closed season during spawning
put size limit back to 30cm(inside bay)
keep bag limit @ 5
more closed areas
we are watching and contributing to the extinction of a species

[Smithy]

I sort of go along with 620SF. #Lets hope the bag and size limits are working. #I also agree about more policing at the ramps. #On the weekend we could have loaded up but we did recounts about 3 times in the boat and still stuffed up coming in 2 Pearlies under to be legit. #If we weren't honest we could have gone to town. #What I hate is when and honest person gets caught out with a fish that shrinks 1cm or they are accidentaly one fish over due to counting. #I know it has happened to me once we have got home and had a recount or remeasure. #It is easy to do accidently, luckily we have only been gone through once by fisheries up at Fraser Island with the exact amount of Spotties onboard for the 4 of us onboard. #Meanwhile all the Shamatuers are sneaking in and selling it on the black. #Remember when you meet fisheries they have discretionry powers. #Be yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir and they will soon work you out.

As a side note we tagged something like 23-28 Snapper Saturday night in 118m of water up to 75cm. #It will be interesting to see how they go. #They were coming up aok, only one small one had bulged eyes. #I wouldn't be all gloom and doom about fish survival. #I tag hundreds of fish a year and let me tell you they are pretty tough critters when they need to be. #We weren't just tagging willy nilly either. #We were tagging as part of a Release Fish Survival Project. #You may have seen the ET Ettinghousen ads. #The first we got up we were using a drop shot on them to release them back down deep so they could equalise themselves. #The next one we vented to expel the air and the third we just tagged and let go. #Number 4 was drop shotted again and so on and so forth. #It will interesting to see which method is best when a few recaptures show up. #Also remeber that most damage is done baurotrauma-wise in the last 10m. #If you have them away from the reef and no sharks are up their clackas take it easy on them bringing them up that last 10m. #Plotting it on a graph that last 10m is like a log scale doubling in pressure for every metre or something.

[zepp]

In nsw the limit is 10 fish over 30cm, i think for the honest fisherman who will not throw the dead smaller fish overboard when bigger ones are caught, this limit is quite ample, remembering it is the big muthas, not the squire that are the good breeders. As for an off season, excellent idea around spawning time, as this are when snapper are most active.
mick

[bugman]

GDay Mark,

I think the first thing you can discount is the current capture success having anything to do with the changes to size and bag limits made only 18 months ago.

With a growth rate of anywhere between 2 and 5cm a year, those changes would have little or no impact on the numbers of 60-80cm fish being caught this year. As everyone has stated - it's been a good year - the question I'd like answered is where have these fish been for the last 5-10 years (who knows).

As mentioned earlier in this thread any changes to regulations must take into account your average mum and dad fisher who doesn't own a 6m boat and is unable to get out to the barwons but still wants to take home a feed of snapper. Believe me that is a very very big consideration when Govt committees sit around drawing up size and possesion limits. That basically rules out a big jump in the size but I wouldn't be unhappy laying money on an eventual rise to 40cm in the next 3-5 years.

Targetting spawning aggregation is pretty much the buzz fishing management tool of the time and I'd lay good money we'll see the introduction of winter full moon closures eventually. I remember posting here a toungue in cheek look at would could happen if we go down the path of closing certain areas for fishing. It was in the thread related to the proposed NSW diving closures.

Anyway would anyone be agreed to the permant closure of certain areas known to hold resident snapper - Deep Tempest and Hutchies would be two of interest.

As a side note I remember speaking to a very senior fisheries manager about 18 months ago who told me that the decline of snapper stocks in Queensland was probably the biggest issue facing the state's fishery. This was a guy that gets all the research and works closely with people in the pro and rec industry. I remember he mooted at the time some draconion measures to try and save them - bag limits of 2 and size limits of around 45cms.

I wonder what he's thinking this year.

Bugman

[Kiktz]

I think leave bag limits and sizes where they are, but I have to agree with a closed season. Sure its going to be a pain for the short term but the longer term pay offs will far out way

[steve_n]

Leave it as it is. We have had enough changes to size and bag limits over the past couple of years. Give everyone a chance to get used to them and see if they do what the legislaters hoped they would do. What if next year is a poor season? Do we then increase the bag limit and decrease the size?
Steve

[Thunderbird]

If you up the size it still doesn't stop the fish that are caught and die in nets. so maybe a closed season is the only way to go.
I think the size limits should be increased also, as there a pretty hardy fish and survive well after release.
35cms is a pretty small fish considering they grow much larger than that.

[Cheech]

If the snapper size increases, it will pretty much make snapper fishing the exclusive domain of offshore fishing. You just do not get that many big fish in the bay. Do not be deceived by the posts of big snapper caught in the bay. You will also notice that the same person does not post them week after week. (ok, there are a couple of gun fisho's, but they are the exception). It can give a false impression of catches and ease of catching them.

And even if it is increased to say 40 or 45, these are often released when fishing offshore because you know there are bigger fish to get.

Increasing the bag limit is irrelevant for most snapper fishing. In the bay you would be lucky enough to get one or two legal fish. You will almost never get 5, let alone 10. The most I have caught in the bay in a session was 4 legal fish.

Just my thoughts,

Cheech

[Bearded_Clam]

nsw are thinking about 32cm

[BigCods]

Mark,
I'm sure you expected plenty of debate on this topic and it is one that will probably hang around for a while to come yet. Being an offshore fisho the dilema is that you invest a lot of time and money into trips so u want to come back with a decent feed while also wanting to see a continued healthy fishery. I wouldn't be surpirsed if the regulators introduce a closed season and I'm also inclined to think along your lines Mark with an increased minimum size. From a bag limit perspective though I would surely be happy with 5 decent snapper for the freezer (more than a good meal) and then go looking for other species (parrot, pearlies etc) to put some diversity in the esky.

[Kiktz]

I'm just curious.....

We talk about alot of difference subjects on this site. All in the own way carry different weight. With a topic such as this which can be debated till the cows come, but more importantly other topics that to us the every day fisho carry alot of weight re pro netting in the bay and others like it.

What do we do about this? Is there any feed back to QLD Fisheries or goverment body that takes heed of our comments.

Excuse me if I am a lil out of line here but most of the guys that are on this site have very good knowledge about fishing and the every day do's and don'ts. I have not heard alot about the fishing party and what they actually do, but is this where they get their info from to support and US?

Is this site (and not trying to take anything away from it in any respect)
like having a conversation with a mate that you debate a topic and then nothing is done about it.

Cheers Aj

[Somethn_Fishy]

raise the size limit to 45 cmand drop the Bag limit to 3.

Too many fish killers out there.

Also NSW should definately increase from 30 and ten.....