North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

This poor fella sounds very unlucky at the end of the day. If anything it is harsh reminder of old habits we all tend to carry and how we tend to get unintentionally complacent out in the boat. It has made me think about some of my bad habits that's for sure.

The explosion in croc population doesn't bother me but more so the explosion of human population. With some of the absolute farken stupidity our own species tends to demonstrate, I would be more inclined to advocate a cull in the human population.

Condolences to the family and friends . Sorry for your lost Jimmy.

I support a controlled cull to push back some balance of power back toward man. My mate late grandad use to cull croc in the 60 and 70s. He bought home a baby one which is now about 5m living in Fannie bay back yard as a family pet. I haven't seen this croc for 10 years as my mate got married and moved to Melbourne but I assume it's still there with her mum.

Anyways I'm not sure what the size limits was back then but I don't think we need to go that hard on them as they did in the 70s.

I love my guns and plugging pigs, buffs and geese but im staying off the water if it's open season on crocs.

Image the boozed up bogans yelling "shoooot emm shoott em"

This is an extremely scary and tragic stituation. I think everyone should imagine that it was their family member that this has happened to before making flipand and insentisave comments. The poor family must have felt soo helpless and clueless as to what to do, I don't think I could imagine a worse stituation. I do think they were lucky (if you could call it that) that their boat didn't capsize (again I'm only going off what little info has been made public) and there have been an even worse outcome.

I think the greenies blowing up on social media (not so much on here but come of the comments of different media stores in FB have been very inappropriate) about the two offending crocs that were shot really need to give them self an uppercut. For the family to have some closure, and to retrieve the remains. Not to mention that there is a croc that has evolved enought to work out it should not show fear of boats but stalk them as they carry food.

For me this is a game changer. Every croc attack that I have heard of to date I could put down to the human taking risky behaviour (generally swimming) but by all reports this man has not done anything I would not have, not to mention put my kids in the same situation. And this has totally changed everything for me.

Will I stop fishing, no. Will I stop taking my kids out no. But I will change my behaviour, greatly.
I don't think a cull will solve the problem unless we wipe the total population out and I don't think the human race have the right to make a decision to wipe out an entire species (again). We must change out behaviour to reduce the risk.

Personally I will be setting up a deck wash off my live bait tank to reduce the amount of times I have limbs outside the boat. I will also make sure I have a potty/ bucket on the boat every time I take the kids out, no more little bums hanging over the boat (I generally do this but forgot on my last trip upstream on the daily and now can't help think what could have happened) I also will be modifying my trailer to reduce the time at waters edge launching / retrieving my boat (to date I have been telling myself that no one has ever been taken whilst retrieving their boat but as I said the game has changed and I don't want to be the first).

As it stands this is unfortunately just a tragic freak accident. Even know I have never met this man (as far as I know) I will think of him everytime I'm on the water. My thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and friends.
.
Mickey Barratt

Here.. Here Mickkk x2.

Rug wrote:The explosion in croc population doesn't bother me but more so the explosion of human population. With some of the absolute farken stupidity our own species tends to demonstrate, I would be more inclined to advocate a cull in the human population.

From the crocodiles perspective it's a human population explosion since the 70s where there were only a few fishermen a couple of times a week. Now it is dozens everyday, even more on weekends and localised annual explosions of hundreds at a time.

Previously we were random encounters with strange habits that didn't fall neatly into the predictable habits of other animals frequenting waterways. Now we are common place and conform to similar patterns and our numbers give great opportunity for them to watch and learn and predict our habits.

mickkk wrote:This is an extremely scary and tragic stituation. I think everyone should imagine that it was their family member that this has happened to before making flipand and insentisave comments. The poor family must have felt soo helpless and clueless as to what to do, I don't think I could imagine a worse stituation. I do think they were lucky (if you could call it that) that their boat didn't capsize (again I'm only going off what little info has been made public) and there have been an even worse outcome.

I think the greenies blowing up on social media (not so much on here but come of the comments of different media stores in FB have been very inappropriate) about the two offending crocs that were shot really need to give them self an uppercut. For the family to have some closure, and to retrieve the remains. Not to mention that there is a croc that has evolved enought to work out it should not show fear of boats but stalk them as they carry food.

For me this is a game changer. Every croc attack that I have heard of to date I could put down to the human taking risky behaviour (generally swimming) but by all reports this man has not done anything I would not have, not to mention put my kids in the same situation. And this has totally changed everything for me.

Will I stop fishing, no. Will I stop taking my kids out no. But I will change my behaviour, greatly.
I don't think a cull will solve the problem unless we wipe the total population out and I don't think the human race have the right to make a decision to wipe out an entire species (again). We must change out behaviour to reduce the risk.

Personally I will be setting up a deck wash off my live bait tank to reduce the amount of times I have limbs outside the boat. I will also make sure I have a potty/ bucket on the boat every time I take the kids out, no more little bums hanging over the boat (I generally do this but forgot on my last trip upstream on the daily and now can't help think what could have happened) I also will be modifying my trailer to reduce the time at waters edge launching / retrieving my boat (to date I have been telling myself that no one has ever been taken whilst retrieving their boat but as I said the game has changed and I don't want to be the first).

As it stands this is unfortunately just a tragic freak accident. Even know I have never met this man (as far as I know) I will think of him everytime I'm on the water. My thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and friends.
.
Mickey Barratt

That is by far the most sensible post in this entire thread.

just throwing it out there.....I reacon crocs behave different in different river systems..ie.some lizards will stay right away from you and steer clear....and others don't give a f.... and are inquisitive etc.
Is this because the ones in certain areas get the occasional shot in them???
Just something ive noticed on different waterways.

????

bring_it_on wrote:just throwing it out there.....I reacon crocs behave different in different river systems..ie.some lizards will stay right away from you and steer clear....and others don't give a f.... and are inquisitive etc.
Is this because the ones in certain areas get the occasional shot in them???
Just something ive noticed on different waterways.

????

I tend to agree. Crocs on the Roper are rarely seen in my experiance. I often see a swirl or a splash or a slide but its not very often you see the croc just sitting there let alone coming up to the boat and rattling water off its back and hissing. In rivers in kakadu the crocs dont give a rats ass about boats or people.

cuddlescooper wrote:

bring_it_on wrote:just throwing it out there.....I reacon crocs behave different in different river systems..ie.some lizards will stay right away from you and steer clear....and others don't give a f.... and are inquisitive etc.
Is this because the ones in certain areas get the occasional shot in them???
Just something ive noticed on different waterways.

????

I tend to agree. Crocs on the Roper are rarely seen in my experiance. I often see a swirl or a splash or a slide but its not very often you see the croc just sitting there let alone coming up to the boat and rattling water off its back and hissing. In rivers in kakadu the crocs dont give a rats ass about boats or people.

You obviously weren't checking the banks to hard we seen a fair few crocs and the couple which call black fella home were more than friendly

Great post Micky Barrett.
I need to change my behaviour as well I suppose.
For the last 15 years, I have refused landing nets on my boats. I hate the bl..dy things, take up room, hooks get tangled in them, ended up one day with a treble tangled in the net, one in my hand and the other in the fish, god i hate nets, all of em. Since that day, I have either comfort lifted, or stuck my hand in the bottom jaw, while holding the lure away from my hand with the other hand, via the leader, and landed my fish that way. Biggest ive pulled in my boat by hand is 118, every time ive leaned over, and had my whole upper torso over the side. Only once have i had a croc try and get the barra, and i belted him over the nose with a 4 foot gaff i keep in the side pocket, ive lip gaffed a few lightley hooked fish.
Guess ill have to stop landing barra this way.....will stop as soon as I give up smoking....

thoughts are with this mans family and friends. Dont think culling is the answer either, we need to modify our behaviour in their territory.

Yeah i hate the knot less nets as well for all of the above reasons. So i now have one of those rubber type ones. Hooks dont get caught.
For years ive swum the fish over the side in the net.

Great post mickkk

I have definitely changed my behaviour over the last few years since I started seeing evidence of the bigger crocs where I go LB fishing, keep as far away from the water as possible, only fish the high banks and not go out onto overhanging trees to fish while only a foot above the water. Always drag the fish up the bank with the leader, if I lose a couple so be it

Mind you, every time I go out there I see evidence of others footprints etc right there at the waters edge, have mentioned the crocs in the south to the rangers a few times. I've had them come up out of nowhere and sit there silently watching me.

Will definitely be more careful and vigilant now

I'd like to be here to see my grandkids.

My thoughts are with this gentlemans family..

As soon as something involving a croc or a shark occurs out comes "the old cull Band wagon" yet every year there are countless women and children preyed upon by the worst kind of predator and all we seem to want to do is lock them up for a few years why is that ???????

Keen as to wipe out an animal for trying to live !!!! Yet when it comes to Rapists, Murderers and Pedophiles we are happy to lock them up...

IMHO society as a whole needs to wake up to itself and work out what the real threat to human life is .........

Food for thought

Great idea about the donations... Weve kicked in a few bucks..

RIP Bill Scott, and condolences to the family.

Another Darwin family (I assume) mourning a road crash death now. Lives end or change in a blink, gotta live hard every day.