Band Together…

[Beekeeper]

Band Together…

21 million Aussies on the books at present… Possibly 1/5 of them wet a line at times. That means around 4.2million are recreational anglers
If each of us gave $10 each, every year, we would accumulate $42million each year.
Numbers like that would sway governments to listen to a group of people about whom, up till now, they couldn’t give a rat’s arse what they did.

Even if we didn’t have that money, if 4.2million people rose as a body and demanded their ear, they would listen.

The problem is collecting that group, organising it to stand as one, not “she’ll be right… they don’t need me… there’ll be plenty without me… I’ll just continue fishing.”

I personally know many men who have been fighting for anglers’ rights over at least 20 years… most of them are aging terribly… into their 70’s and on, up over the hill as well. They are fighting your fight, while you go out and catch fish that years ago could only be dreamed of.

Surely there must be at least a couple of you in AKFF who would willingly cross swords (verbally and on paper) with the clowns who push our faces into the mud and give commercials the right to net the guts out of our fish stocks then export it overseas… and then the same Government allows inferior product imported back here for our population to eat.

That really gets up my nose!

When you complain about this, the explanation always falls back on the “National Economy.” National economy, my arse! That just doesn’t make sense to me.


Netting good healthy fish to can for pet food… eg tailor & salmon… how do you feel about that? Winter-whiting trawled daily to feed dolphins at Gold Coast resorts. Semi-trailer loads of mullet bodies buried in trenches beneath sand on beaches… unwanted after the roe has been taken to feed overseas gourmets. Roe for Christ’s sake… generations of future fish wiped out just to line the pockets of greedy netters.

To me, the sea food-chain should not be broken… every species has a part to play… netting the guts out of one species has to adversely affect this chain… the lowly mullet (I love eating this fish) would appear to be not of any importance to fisheries, who I know for a fact, fully realise that they are disappearing at 50% each year, yet fail to impose a complete no-take ban on the species. Old-timers talk of mullet schools, the beginnings nor ends of which you couldn’t see… they were so huge.

If Fisheries were to completely ban the take of mullet for a few years, the species would take off like wild-fire. But… never again allow the butchery that occurs now… don’t allow it to be sold for crab-bait, or the roe taken and sold overseas… what’s wrong with using the frames as crab-bait? The crabs won’t give a bugger!

Pilchards… another species netted around the world… wouldn’t be missed by us as a food item, maybe, but their place in the vital food-chain surely would. Look at all the species that would have to look elsewhere if they were to disappear. Just about everything eats them!

They’re just two species that are under threat throughout the world. We humans apparently don’t think enough about the food chain to push the point… DON’T DO IT!

Fisheries throughout the world apparently can’t see the writing between the lines… They don’t realise the importance of this sea food-chain… consequently, lots of fisheries have gone to the wall. All due to greed for big biccies on the part of some-one with enough resources already, to re-build ocean liners into massive fish containers, with other smaller vessels near-by filling it up daily.

In my own local Redcliffe area, after the initial prawn glut ceased, prawn trawlers when using ground rope with a tickler chain, used to catch some prawns, trash fish and a little weed… when they began using wire ground rope, they still took the trash fish, not only a little weed, but the roots and all plus 6inches of mud! And of course plenty of prawns! One ex-deckie who told me about this, said that they knew they were doing wrong scouring the bottom like that, but at last they were making money with all the prawns that were caught! So they continued!

They still do it… right here in Moreton Bay in a Marine Park! Have been doing it for ages! Oh Boy! This place used to be home for Dugong… acres of them… I wonder where the grasses that they eat have gone?

Fisheries blithely go about their business… seemingly unaware of the damage done by trawlers. How come they allow trawlers to scour the sea-bottom in, of all areas, a Marine Park?

Our much loved Tailor… Blue-fish to our Yank friends… Elf or Shad to South Africans… a species that was depleted in South African waters to such a degree that Fisheries pulled the pin on taking them at all… by anyone! Complete No Take until the species made a come-back… then one or two per angler, and never to be netted again! I haven’t kept track of this for some years now, but apparently stocks were coming ahead in leaps and bounds! Try to interest our fisheries managers in doing the same? Not likely!

I appeal to you, members of AKFF… please think about becoming a member of some organisation that is trying to ensure fish stocks for your grand-children and their grand-children. Perhaps they could keep up the good work as well!

Somebody has to bite the bullet and make a stand! Fisheries apparently can’t or won’t see the writing on the wall!

Jimbo

[Barrabundy]

Not taking the piss but the good news is we're getting a full time local fisheries officer here rather than having them come down from Townsville. I think this is a great idea, I just hope they are allowed to work outside normal business hours because that's when the cowboys operate.

The commercial operators have been calling for this for the last 20 years because they are the ones who constantly come across old mate with his illegal nets strung across that creek where the commercial guys aren't allowed to get to.

[goanywhere]

The biggest problem is corruption. In many countries bribery is just a part of doing business. Anyone who thinks Aussie fisheries officials are above such things is just grossly naiive. In SE Asia, India and Africa whole fisheries have been sold out to US and Russian fishing conglomerates for a few trinkets and decimated beyond recovery.

Unless we the recreational fishing public demonstrate a genuine concern for the environment in a politically effective way we will not just lose a passtime, we as a nation will join much of the rest of the world in poverty. A healthy fishery is just one key to securing a good living standard. Australia is seen as a soft target by unscrupulous and corrupt players around the world. Back in the late '80's and early '90's Russian trawlers all but gutted the Mulloway fishery in the Great Australian Bight. I have spoken to fishermen there who tell of schools of 100 tonnes at a time rounded up and netted in a single day, day after day. Only when it was no longer economical did they leave. Only recently has that fishery somewhat recovered. Must be just about time for a visit again. In the mean time the local fishery industry is cut to ribbons by being locked out of so-called marine reserves.

[grinner]

jim, you're obviously a passionate and very sensible man.

therefore its extremely likely your views will be ignored

i admire your persistence but i gotta say fishing is just nice to get away from the phone and i agree whole heartedly, it's an "I'm alright jack attitude"

its just exhausting worrying about this stuff and so i just zoned out and thought, these decisions are sooooooooo soooooo stupid, they will obviously never change .

to look at it in another way though. of the 4 million who fish, i'd say 3,900,000 are really just dabblers who wouldnt even know what a green zone or a commercial fisherman was.

of the 100,000 left about 50,000 are just blokes who want an excuse to drink grog with their mates and use fishing as a cover to keep the missus from banning them from the pub. they'd probably be just as happy at the pub.



what to do.

here's a few suggestions. i love fish, not to eat but i really like them, like some people like cats or dogs. i presume greenies like fish (in the way they probably like pandas and orangatangs)
greenies should be our friend , not our enemy. so the first thing to do is to form an alliance with the greenies.

passionate people like you understand the ecosystem and the greenies should be beating a path to your door for advice. we need to be their "eyes and ears"

secondly re commercials, taking away someones livelihood is going to cause them to become a lot more passionate than taking away someones hobby. so i feel they have to be dealt with in a different way.
the problem is really that bad practices make them rich and good practices dont. its simply in their own economic interest to take as much as possible and sell to the highest bidder. sort of like if you let farmers go and round up cattle anywhere. no incentive really to put stuff back. i sort of see the rediculousness of this when i watch the trawlers in the logan clearing there nets after tehy unload the prawns and tossing the bycatch into the river as they chug along with 200 angry birds swooping down on the poor little blighters. like i say, i feel bad for those little fellows.

just need a compulsory redundancy. paid for out of the following...



the ammount of income (gst and income tax) generated by the rec fishing industry is more than enough to compensate the commercial guys.. over 1,000,000 boats registered in qld at $300 to $1000 a pop. and you dont have to build road infrastructure on the seas or fill in potholes. mother nature does it all for you.



particularly with the fall in retail sales and the 2 speed economy, employing people in these areas for rec fishing has got to be better than any income from commercial guys.


i was at the airport friday nite and the place was abuzz with guys in blue overalls and flouro tops coming back from the mines for the weekend. now, the greens may listen to an arguement that getting a good rec industry in north qld and the pilbara may stop all these young single males flying back and forth to cities every weekend(to drink away their pay) and will also help the local indigenous fishing charter industries they should set up . win win.

anyway jim, gotta fly, interesting topic. never knew about the mullett roe and go anywhere, never knew about the russians.

i do know about the tractors pulling tailor off the beaches on straddie. $1 a kilo for cat food. amazing when 100,000 tourists visit fraser each year and are happy to keep the local economy afloat in harvey bay and a lot go there to target the tailor.


as for a political presence. maybe a fishing union. craig thompson used to run a union and he will be needing a job next year. we can all chip in $50 and that should keep him well looked after. really need our colleagues in canberra like brother wah to take this direct to julia. come on paddy, get her involved in fishing man.

i know you took dave taylor out fishing paddy , so he should have pre stretched the hobie seat to accomodate our glorious leaders generous booty.

[koich]

I sometimes think it would be great to unite all fishos. Then I read fishnet or fish raider and decide that I don't want to be publicly affiliated with those people.

[anselmo]

The answer is simple enough (in theory)

Institute a rec fishing licence and use the money to fund commercial buy backs and fisheries officers to police the waters

The difficulties lie in educating the hoi polloi in why a licence is not only valuable but required
Also getting a government with the balls ti actually implement then stand over the policy is ususally the first and biggest stumbling block ...

feel free to flame away!

[patwah]

Crack me up Pete, I'll work on Jules for you brother

[Ubolt]

I agree we need to do something to protect our hobby and for some it is more of a hobby. Most of us diehard live and breathe fishing. A few points I'd like to bring up is the bream tournaments these generate hugely to the economy add up how much all the boats and kayaks and rods and reels and lures would cost. If this was taken away it would massively affect the economy. We Also need to get the professional sector on our side I was talking to an old pro who now helps out on fishing charters out of whyalla, he said on the opening week of the snapper ban he helped a mate on his pro boat and they caught a rediculous amount of snapper like over well over a five hundred kilos a day and he hated it doing it said it was wrong and all the other pros were doing the same. He said they would wave the rec guys over to where the fish were let them get there bag then in no uncertain terms told them to piss off. The worst bit was he said they were only getting like two bucks a kilo when they sold there catch. We definitely need a leader to stand up for the recreational guys and a fishing license would help fund more and better infrastructure. Just my two bobs wortH

[Junglefisher]

Wow, lots of commercial fisherman bashing going on here.
So we institute a national rec fshing licence (means tested?) and use the money to buy out commercial fishermen.
Where do the non-fishing or occasional fishing fraternity get their fish?
That's OK, we'll buy it off foreign owned fishing fleets.
You know, the ones that don't have to meet Australian standards on mesh size, turtle exclusion etc.
I have no doubt that in some areas commercial fishermen are doing the wrong thing.
However, in my opinion, rec fishermen are responsible for overfishing areas way more than commercial guys.
I spoke to a commercial fisherman the other day, they don't even drop lines until they've gone 10 hours straight out so that they get out further than the rec and charter boats go.
For crabbing, they go up to shoalwater bay as the local creeks get way too flogged by the rec guys to be worth the effort for them.
Probably the nost damaging method of commercial fishing IMO is trawling for prawns in and arouns estuaries. Most of which are sold as bait to recreational fishermen.

[shabby]

I sometimes think it would be great to unite all fishos. Then I read fishnet or fish raider and decide that I don't want to be publicly affiliated with those people.

Hahaha...so true!

[Ubolt]

I'm not directly picking on the pros your right with out them people can't buy fresh fish. They are just doing it cause they can. Flooding the market with tons of snapper directly after the snapper ban doesn't make sense. Perhaps we need stricter quotas for the pros. They do here in south oz with tuna as stocks have increased so has quotas. Rec guys have a lot to answer for there are still many who do the wrong thing as well.

[Beekeeper]

Well, I got some good resonses there...

However... I agree with most points, especially the one that says lots of rec anglers are doing the wrong thing... however, most that I see are OK... but there is a certain element that are extremely good fishermen, so good that they catch huge quantities of fish and bloody sell them!

That's the blokes who should be caught by the law and prosecuted until they hurt! not just a slap on the wrist... take their boat, all their fishing gear, the 4x4 they tow their boat with, fine the buggers big biccies, and let them see what the insides of gaols look like!

That might dissuade them from what they've been doing.

Pete... you mention mixing with the Greenies... In my opinion, all rec fishos have to have a tinge of green about them, but consorting with the hard-line greenies? (those who want to close complete fisheries to us so they can have complete green zones) not for this little black duck! Pete, they don't want us fishing at all!

Boat owners have been paying a levy in Qld for many years... this levy was originally there for rec fishos to supply the money for Qld fisheries to buy out the commercial fishermen, giving us Recreational Only Fishing Areas, or ROFAs. This levy has been taken from Queensland boat owners for over 10 years, and used by the Government for anything but buy-backs!

It is seen as money there for the taking when money's tight in other areas.

This has been a very sore point with Sunfish Qld for years. Millions of rec fishing dollars not used for the purpose that it was intended.

Also... apparently no Government in Qld appears to want the stigma of being remembered for creating a Qld Recreational Fishing Licence. I believe that they think it would get all fishos off-side for future elections... probably would, too, but if they had the balls, it would be there, just like other states in Oz.

That's enough from me for now...

Jimbo

[FazerPete]

Maybe I'm just naive but why have they never figured out how to successfully farm fish in sufficient quantities? Fish is the only food source that still comes from the wild.

Quality? I've heard stories of it not tasting as good as wild but surely it's not as bad as the cheap crap from Asia that is sold in most supermarkets.

Cost? I can't imagine that it costs that much more to set up compared to land farms does it? Maybe the pro-fisherman could use any buy-out money from the government to form sort of co-op to spread the costs. It's always going to cost more than ripping it out of the wild but there's going to reach a point where the rarity of the wild fish is going to push to costs up to meet the farmed fish costs at some stage.

[Beekeeper]

Here's a bit more...

Don't get me wrong... I feel that there is still a place for commercial fishos... the non-fishing general public relies on them for a feed of fish... I have no bones about that... however... the life-style is pretty well idyllic... not hard work, but sometimes unpleasant conditions... plenty of time for having a drink with other commercial fishos... when the fish are there, must work!

That's OK, but when a commercial fisher has several children, they grow up with seeing dad living the life of Reilly, and as he is the one they look up to, they want to follow in his footsteps... next thing, as they grow up and are able to join the work-force, the job they choose is often commercial fishing... working with dad for some time, then out on their own.

From one commercial fisho, we now have up to half a dozen!

One is OK and he will eventually fall off the tree, but the rest of them are young and will want to eventually feed families. The only way to feed their families is to take as much from the sea as they possibly can! You might think this is bull-shit, but it's true!

The biggest percentage of fish caught in OZ is sent overseas... they pay more for the fish than will will here... then our Government has the gall to allow inferior product to be imported back to us here! all in the name of economy!

Crap! No fish should be exported from Aussie waters!

Yes! have commercial fishermen... however, limit their numbers so that our fisheries can and will be sustainable!

Don't let all and sundry become commercial fishos at the expense of fisheries throughout our country.

Lots of people don't think much about mullet... that's the fish the commercials catch... not really a line fishing proposition...

Think about mullet as this... another link in the sea's food chain! Other fish eat them for Christ's sake! Just as the prawn is another vital link, the mullet is needed for other fish to survive... commercial fishermen have been raping the coast-line of this species forever... folks older than me have told me stories of mullet schools that stretched further than the eyes could see... you just don't see that in Qld now!

Trawlers have very little prawns these days to trawl... not like in the early days of trawling...

Can you see a pattern emerging?

I've gotta go... got to get the yak on the Suzuki for tomorrow...

Jimbo

[anselmo]

Maybe I'm just naive but why have they never figured out how to successfully farm fish in sufficient quantities? Fish is the only food source that still comes from the wild.

Quality? I've heard stories of it not tasting as good as wild but surely it's not as bad as the cheap crap from Asia that is sold in most supermarkets.

Cost? I can't imagine that it costs that much more to set up compared to land farms does it? Maybe the pro-fisherman could use any buy-out money from the government to form sort of co-op to spread the costs. It's always going to cost more than ripping it out of the wild but there's going to reach a point where the rarity of the wild fish is going to push to costs up to meet the farmed fish costs at some stage.

they have
but its not without its own set of problems and issues

see: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Fish-Future- ... =four+fish