North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

How is it shaping up pete you have had a couple of days to chew that act over.

I remember the days when it was easy to start a stink about AFANT.

Woops

Ahh, mate. I've decided not to worry about it. I only reef fish 4 or 5 times a year and I aim to fill my esky. I never used to get any where near my bag limit for 3 or 4 people (120 fish) and the esky I have would be chockerst.I now just about touch the bag every trip (but still haven't completely filled it) and still my esky is full. The law hasn't really changed my fishing a lot and I still don't do a lot different. The only real change is I went from 20 goldies to 12 for 4 people and probably do 1 or 2 more drops in different areas chasing different fish to fill the void. The 3 redfish and 10 over all is a bit harder to manage as it is hard to select small mouth and large mouth as they tend to be in the same schools but it can be done.

I think the Golden snapper limits will make a difference because they are a easy fish to target or not (Usually on specific patches and easy to fill the bag and move away). I don't think the rest of it will change much at all. What fish the individual bag limit saves will still float away dead any way as people will keep fishing until they fill the 15 fish qouta throwing back fish they probably would have kept to fill the 15 over all limit other wise. 5 trickie's per person is nearly impossible to stick to at Dundee for example. People will toss smaller fish to keep good size ones. I think they would have been better off leaving it open slather to 15 fish. The average joe blow will struggle to target all of the different species.

Out wide of Darwin the charters wont change much as 15 x 10 redfish bag limit is still a whole lot of fish and is mainly what they catch in numbers in deep water apart from Goldband schools. The day charters don't usually get that many fish that they can fill the bag limits any way (except the jew, goldies or macs on occasions in the good season. So Jew and Goldies on the at risk species will make a difference but the rest wont change at all IMHO so a waste of time and paper to write the law. If the redfish were on the at risk table it would make a difference to total numbers of fish killed out wide bit wont really change the inshore grounds much.

It probably marginally slows the black market but people who do the wrong thing will still always do the wrong thing. It just makes it harder for them to justify have so many fish on board.

Pretty good analysis peter particularly the red fish bit. Generally i am in the same boat as you with its impact other than I am able to tote that extra box and stay out a bit longer so I used to get that bag for 4 every year or so but always held it as the target. I haven't chased goldies specifically untill now and was only an opportunistic Jew chaser and Spanish until now as their will be time on hand to target those fish for the bag on two day or more trip as a large part of the 15 fish. Is is really a fairly ordinary wording in the change to the act as it is unusually open to interpretation I will be following the inevitable prosecutions. I am interested in your opinion of if the act states that a 5 up boat can only have 4 x15 of the division 3 list cumulatively or if it reads that they can go to 5 x 15 staying under individual species limits. Definiitly thought those red fish would be on the div 3 list and from what I heard them say I definitely thought they were going for a 4 x the gpl full stop if you had 5 to 7 on board. I wonder if they thought they had. That why the act that they change in parliament is the one to watch not their mouths or brochures.

Laws are introduced when the govt department responsible for that arena see a need for change. They propose a draft of the changes they would like to see. Then that draft goes thru various legal sections and finally up to the government for approval.
The final thing is almost always a long way from what the original people who saw the need were looking for – but they are stuck with it
Laws are fine tuned for many years after they are introduced.
But that process is almost always the result of failed court actions. Ie fisheries take someone down the prosecution path and fail on technicalities. So then the lawyers sit down and revamp the law to read exactly what they wanted in the first place. It’s a very slow process to get it right.
It can all be dropped at the stroke of a pen when joe public makes representations to his local member with a complaint about the law. Or when the govt changes

Internally, I bet the people at fisheries are shaking their collective heads at the new law while towing the departmental line publicly

by the time any changes are made, it will be too late for the jewies at Ch Pt

AM wrote:Pretty good analysis peter particularly the red fish bit. Generally i am in the same boat as you with its impact other than I am able to tote that extra box and stay out a bit longer so I used to get that bag for 4 every year or so but always held it as the target. I haven't chased goldies specifically untill now and was only an opportunistic Jew chaser and Spanish until now as their will be time on hand to target those fish for the bag on two day or more trip as a large part of the 15 fish. Is is really a fairly ordinary wording in the change to the act as it is unusually open to interpretation I will be following the inevitable prosecutions. I am interested in your opinion of if the act states that a 5 up boat can only have 4 x15 of the division 3 list cumulatively or if it reads that they can go to 5 x 15 staying under individual species limits. Definiitly thought those red fish would be on the div 3 list and from what I heard them say I definitely thought they were going for a 4 x the gpl full stop if you had 5 to 7 on board. I wonder if they thought they had. That why the act that they change in parliament is the one to watch not their mouths or brochures.

I read it that you can have 4 x the table 2 fish (at risk fish) and still take up to the persons on board of non at risk fish. So yes if you had 7 on board you could still potentially take 7 x 15 fish total.

As said the basic break down pamphlets lead you to believe that it is 4 x 15 fish with 4 to 7 people on board but the act doesn't state that at all in my view. As you say it gives you the total number of managed fish but not a total GPL limit.

On another note it does state that no person shall carry a King Threadfin over 90cm unless they can prove it was caught on a vessel and then can have 1 per person in there possesion. It didn't mention barra at all that I saw???????? I will have to re-read it but that is how I saw it from my skim reading.

nomad wrote:
Internally, I bet the people at fisheries are shaking their collective heads at the new law while towing the departmental line publicly

by the time any changes are made, it will be too late for the jewies at Ch Pt

Rubbish nomad they had many many reprentations that channel point would go the way is appears to have gone. They say they are the law makers and that they have designed the package to suit the big picture. Well here a month or so in is some serious collateral damage.
I sat with them at berrimah farm and said what about channel point well here we are what about channel point.

I guess that legislation will always be complicated but this one seems particularly loose.
Thanks Peter.

cuddlescooper wrote:

AM wrote:Pretty good analysis peter particularly the red fish bit. Generally i am in the same boat as you with its impact other than I am able to tote that extra box and stay out a bit longer so I used to get that bag for 4 every year or so but always held it as the target. I haven't chased goldies specifically untill now and was only an opportunistic Jew chaser and Spanish until now as their will be time on hand to target those fish for the bag on two day or more trip as a large part of the 15 fish. Is is really a fairly ordinary wording in the change to the act as it is unusually open to interpretation I will be following the inevitable prosecutions. I am interested in your opinion of if the act states that a 5 up boat can only have 4 x15 of the division 3 list cumulatively or if it reads that they can go to 5 x 15 staying under individual species limits. Definiitly thought those red fish would be on the div 3 list and from what I heard them say I definitely thought they were going for a 4 x the gpl full stop if you had 5 to 7 on board. I wonder if they thought they had. That why the act that they change in parliament is the one to watch not their mouths or brochures.

I read it that you can have 4 x the table 2 fish (at risk fish) and still take up to the persons on board of non at risk fish. So yes if you had 7 on board you could still potentially take 7 x 15 fish total.

As said the basic break down pamphlets lead you to believe that it is 4 x 15 fish with 4 to 7 people on board but the act doesn't state that at all in my view. As you say it gives you the total number of managed fish but not a total GPL limit.


On another note it does state that no person shall carry a King Threadfin over 90cm unless they can prove it was caught on a vessel and then can have 1 per person in there possesion. It didn't mention barra at all that I saw???????? I will have to re-read it but that is how I saw it from my skim reading.

Definately made a mistake with the Threadfin salmon law. I re read the law and it later states that it is an offence to all persons on board a vessel to be carrying more than 1 King Threadfin over 90cm in a fish management zone.

It definately did not change my reading of the reef fish laws. Open Slather to 15 fish per person apart from At Risk species.

Yes you can read it a heap of times and then see something different printing the relevant sections makes it a bit easier for a dinosaur like me. I must have missed the bit where 5 fishos targeting at risk species have a reduction to their esky limit from 5x15 to 4x15. Sure you can't have more than 4x limit of any of the at risk species but move to another species. The division three table nominates the amount of each type of fish you can have if your able to find them. I know they meant to say you can only have 4x15 at risk but I just don't think they converted on that one. Anyway it will make fishing a bit more interesting if I ever get motivated to go these days.

AM wrote:
Rubbish nomad they had many many reprentations that channel point would go the way is appears to have gone. .

Thats what im saying. its a long process and things get changed at every step

I had a lot to do with proposing new laws in nsw. We had the firm idea of what we wanted introduced and put that in draft form further up the line. The legal ‘project officers’ made their changes and passed it further up the line to the parliamentary counsel who made their changes. Then the govt made their changes to make sure it was ok with the people (nothing that would upset their own voters) and it went to committee after committee before being agreed on by the party. Then it was proposed as a bill and the changes that to be made to get it thru were made.
Often, the final law was nothing like what had been originally proposed but we had to toe the govt policy line when implementing the law.
I assume its the same up here

Agree with all that Nomad, my point was the guys that put the original stuff together didn't consider that Channel Point was even worth putting on the table as it was no chance of getting legs. The thinking was that with the goldy reduction strategies they didn't need the extra reduction on jew that closing Channel point would bring anyway. Problem is as predicted by many it has concentrated effort on that aggregation possibly to the tipping point for it, just have to wait and see I guess.

yeah fair nuff. I thought they put it up originally but it was lost in the process

Here's my take on the issue of the at-risk possession rules.
This might help.

Straight from the Fisheries Regs and they give you the numbers so you don't have to get bogged down by the maths in the poorly written info brochures.

The Regs are straight-forward but the info brochures confuse the issue.

46BAC Vessel possession limits – specified fish

(1) This regulation applies to a vessel on which there are 5 or more people.

(2) Each person on the vessel commits an offence if more than the permitted number of specified fish are on the vessel.

Maximum penalty:
(a) for less than 3 times the permitted number – 8 penalty units; or

(b) for 3 times the permitted number or more – 85 penalty units.

(3) In this regulation: permitted number, of specified fish on a vessel, means:

(a) if there are 5, 6 or 7 people on the vessel – the number specified in the second column of the table below opposite the specified fish; or

(b) if there are 8 or more people on the vessel – the number specified in the third column of the table below opposite the specified fish.

Be wary of (2) which means everybody on the boat has committed an offence if vessel limits are exceeded.

A penalty unit in the NT is currently $153.

The table in the Regs didn't want to copy across so I had to do up a new sheet and copy the info.

Here's the link to the Regs and then scroll down to 46BAC

http://notes.nt.gov.au/dcm/legislat/leg ... egulations

If 4 or less people are on the vessel the simple personal limits apply in the case of these listed at-risk species.