DOUG wrote:instead of lowering recreation limit why not make the pros and commercial fisherman go further out make a minimum limit of 200km of darwin
they are still going to get there massive numbers of fish and that would take the pressure of local waterway
imagine if shady camp and chambers bay area wasnt netted you only have to see a full net on a good tide to uderstand how many fish they can pull in a tide
most pro have the boats and gear to travel further out than they do they just dont need to yet so make there grounds further out this will increase fish populations 10 fold in my opinion and decreasing recreational limits will achieve nothing and i cant understand why and how people think the fish that recreational fisherman catch has even a slight impact on fish number opposed to the commercial fisherman
I dont know if you have read back through this blog but I put a couple of maths equations up about the Jewfish that show that the amature anglers have almost as big a effect on that population of fish as do charter vessels and as do the pro boats close to Darwin.
This surely shows that we can make an affect for the better by lowering limits. Adding fish specific size limits is proven to have effect and a closed season on jew should be garanteed to have an effect as it would prevent every body including pros and charters to fish them in sporning mode which is when they are vulnerable. If we make a start then we can keep pushing the commercial guys to make change and push change for charters even harder.
The other thing is that netters dont really affect the reef species ( other than Jew) and the coastal liners mainly target Jew and Goldies so the rest of the reef species are predominantly amature and charter so we can make a big difference there.
In regards to the circle hooks I suggested it as a lot of people are pushing to ban live baiting completly on some rivers such as the daly to fall inline with places like the Mary River system and Kakadu. As a compromise to this instead of a potential complete ban you could use circle hooks and stop the others from going the whole hog and pushing harder for a ban completely. It is only a idea that I have toyed with mainly for the Daly and NOT Territory wide, that is smashed by Cherabine choking grey nomads day in and day out. I too want to have the choice to livebait but dont mind making a small change to suit. It also wouldnt be hard to police as if you were caught with a J hook on your line while on the river fishin not using artificial lures you are obviously baiting and should be dealt with accordingly if the law was brought in.
Dropping the barra limit is probably going to be hard to swallow as the netters have a major effect. Dropping the jew limit is the same as the pros do damage but a seasonal closure would affect pro/amature/charters all the same. You simple cant fish in a set sporning area while in that mode.
Goldies bag could stay the same but put a size limit. This would affect amature/pro/charter all the same. Possible put a lower charter bag as I have prior mentioned.
The other thing about the pro Jew catch remaining stable and the charter vessil falling. Majority of the charter day ground is Within 40nm of Darwin or a two hour steam. This area is becomming badly depleated of Jew thus reflecting the lower catch due to the mounting pressure of amature/pro/charter. There would be lucky if there is one patch of ground that isnt Gps marked in that area by a lot of boats. The fish simple have no where to hide.
The pros can go far and wide, have better tecnology than the past with faster vessils, better sonar, Gps to go with the fact that they can work the areas where the fish are most likely going to be at any one time and the habits of the fish are more widely recognised even by the pros.
Sooner rather than later it is a fair bet that the pros will stop catching as well and that has already started with the extra effort that is needed to catch the same numbers. I would bet the size is a lot smaller as well which is the first sign!