SUNFISH QLD WELCOMES REEF PLAN ANNOUNCEMENT

[Vern_Veitch]

Mr John Doohan Chairman of SUNFISH QLD representing 45,000 keen recreational fishing members said that his organisation welcomed the release of the Coral Reef plan which had been 6 years in the development. Our organisation has given many hours of voluntary time as part of the Fisheries Advisory system & has forwarded numerous detailed submissions on all the issues to QFS.

The detailed RIS is still to be released but the broad detail in the Premier & Minister's joint Press release appears to be reasonable but there are still some inequities being proposed he said. We will also have to look closely at the science on the fish sizes & what the real effect will be for our members & all other anglers.

The capping of the commercial effort expansion is welcomed but everyone seems to be forgetting that the recreational sector has already been restricted since 1996 by bag limits & our total catch has steadily been falling.

This has been due mainly to increasing costs to get to the outer reef & less participants. We believe that the restrictions on recreational fishers are working & the same principle should be applied to recreational as commercial fishers & catch levels left the same as in 1996 .

The Department of Transport figures indicate a fall in the "big boat" recreational market in the GBRMPA area & the QFS RFISH shows that recreational fishing participation is less than the population expansion Mr Doohan said.

I very much doubt that the proposal of a 3 months closure would receive much support but the protection of the spawning aggregations from ALL disturbance for 2 periods over the full moon has merit he said. But it has to be a genuine protection where the fish are left in peace & not disturbed by boat or tourist divers as well.

We will look forward to the exact wording in the proposal & will be commenting full when that is released.

End of text
Contact point Brisbane - Mr John Doohan 07 33593086

[Lucky_Phill]

The point of the whole exercise is to have parity in the restrictions placed on Rec fishoes and Pro's.

As we all know the Pro's are having a field day with the recent RIS's and legislation that has been implimented.

Stats worth noting are as follows:-

"While we argue about 100kg of bycatch, 5 fish trawlers in the Gulf are landing 16 tonnes of red reef fish each a week, C/W longliners are netting 50tonnes of bait fish per week, commercial reef fishers are catching 4000 tonnes of reef fish per year, conservationists & animal libbers are trying to stop fishing, SUNWATER is restricting access to dams & so on.
Good luck with the removal of ring nets as this has been pushed by ANSA & SUNFISH since 1993 without any positive change. Now that these regulations are out I doubt the spotty mackerel regulations will surface again for years."

> > ???

[Big_Kev]

Touche' Phil

[Kerry]

Phil, whose fish trawlers?, which Red Fish? and which Gulf? are you referring.

Cheers, Kerry.

[Kerry]

".... genuine protection where the fish are left in peace & not disturbed by boat or tourist divers as well"

Well targeted closures (and not simply closures for the sake of closures) probably have some benefit however there does appear that much/some of the general tourist industry think they are excempt from all/any of this as they don't see (maybe don't want to see) themsleves as having any impact.

All these politicians trying to please all the people all the time (size limits v bag limits) probably isn't really going to work in the long term.


Cheers, Kerry.

[Gazza]

".... genuine protection where the fish are left in peace & not disturbed by boat or tourist divers as well"

Well targeted closures (and not simply closures for the sake of closures) probably have some benefit however there does appear that much/some of the general tourist industry think they are excempt from all/any of this as they don't see (maybe don't want to see) themsleves as having any impact.

All these politicians trying to please all the people all the time (size limits v bag limits) probably isn't really going to work in the long term.


Cheers, Kerry.

Yeah Kerry, sounds like the anti-line-mob and anti-C&R-mob are getting together to blow us all out of the water

Methinks in regards to "Live CT exports" , that the S.I.C. ?.....Seafood Industry Council should be encouraging Rationalisation NOT exploitation
Look at it , 'insatible market demand' coupled with only a sustainable 1~2,ooo Tonnes (decided 2~3yrs. in advance similar to WA Lobster) , the present $35~$50? per KG. WILL skyrocket to $100~$150+.....and they'll pay it OS, just like crappy tasting Truffles in Europe!

Buyout yourselves SIC? to a sustainable limit, and the profits and RecFishing will improve for everyone.

Just my IMHO, of course....
Gazza

[Vern_Veitch]

The Gulf is the one on the west side of Cape York Kerry. The red fish are everything from nannygai to emperor and they are a component of by-catch from prawn, shark and other net fishing. BRD's reduce the catch (by about 25%) - they do not eliminate it. There is no effective method of stopping by-catch in gill nets. If the fish are the right size and swim into the net then it is bottoms up.
Vern

[Kerry]

Vern, someone is going to have to do some hard yards on this one to be convincing that 80 tonnes of so called "by-catch" a week ??? (from 5 boats ???) comprises things like red jew, emperor etc in that quantity.

Simply prawns and those type of fish don't really habitat together and if that claim is being attributed to those boats with that amount of fish (and type of fish) as by-catch then they ain't intersted in prawns.

By the way one won't catch an emperor in a gill net either.

Cheers, Kerry.

[Vern_Veitch]

Kerry,
I will not go on a pro bashing campaign but have you ever seen what makes up trawl by-catch?
Before BRD's for each tonne of prawns up to 10 tonne of bycatch, over half of it small and juvenile fish were thrown back dead. With BRD's that has been reduced by about 25%. Better than what it was but still a long way to go.
Any released fish, regardless of how caught can die, but when it gas been rolled around in a cod end and crushed by other catch, the survival rate is not real flash. Most of this stuff sinks to the bottom and rots so is hidden from view unless you happen to be on the spot at the time.
Our info is pretty reliable from people who are on the water daily.
Vern

[Kerry]

Vern, yeah I know what by-catch is (and that is an issue in itself) but my query was regarding the suggestion that

"5 fish trawlers in the Gulf are landing 16 tonnes of red reef fish each a week" as bycatch ???

and the red fish was "everything from nannygai to emperor"

Well I'd like to see somebody substantiate that one 'cause one needs to separate the facts from the fiction. That amount of red jew, emperor as Bycatch come on.

BRD's and TRD's and all that stuff probably do reduce the by-catch to some extent for species those devices target but obviously not all.


Cheers, Kerry.