Recreational Bag Limits WE HAVE QUESTIONS by Todd Lambert.
The opinions expressed in this article are just that, opinions, but they are based on the information that is publicly available to us all. I put them forward to generate discussion. I will leave it to you, to make up your own minds as to the accuracy and fairness of content. I have tried to put forward a fair and valid assessment of our current flathead and whiting fisheries.
T
he recreational and commercial fishing hold a strong social and economic worth to our island state and this article as not intended it to be an attack on anyone, nor any sector. What I seek to do is drill down into how accurate statistics are when talks of future sustainability and cuts to recreational bag limits are put forth. The intent is to also question how the resource should be allocated so recreational and commercial sectors hold a shared responsibility in regards to allocated catch. Is it skewed at the moment and if so, why and is it equitable? The commercial sector is well represented when putting forth submissions on their behalf and good luck to them, lobbying for the best outcome for their industry is what it is all about. Does our recreational representative body hold the same standing and influence? I personally don’t think we do, I am sure many well-meaning voices have “at times” stood up for us as best they can, but when political funding controls the narrative of any organisation that relies on it for its very existence, perhaps that voice is substantially muffled? In my opinion, the best thing that happened to recreational fishers here in Tasmania was the supertrawler debate and the discovery of social media, some ten years ago. It first evolved through online fishing forums and then through mediums such as Facebook. Recreational fishers started to organise themselves, held state-wide rallies, formed political parties and although we all hold wide ranging political views, decided to stand together and fight to protect what was important to them, in this case it was their small pelagic fishery. I firmly believe that only after this event did our politicians (both state and federal) suddenly realise that a sleeping giant was starting to awake and to ignore recreational fishers’ interests in favour of corporate stakeholders, could become perilous for them at election time. Given the broad spectrum of what is involved here, I am going to concentrate on just two bread and butter fisheries; one is the emerging King George Whiting and the other is sand flathead. I limited it to these specifically as the wider discussion into the management of species such as abalone and crayfish for example, is a whole different ball game again. Fishing News - Page 14
Sand Flathead Sand flathead currently have a status listed as “depleting” and the latest IMAS survey – 2017-2018 on page 27 in table 8 says that recreational fishers take 184.3 tonnes a year as opposed to the commercial sector who take 3.5 tonnes. Based on that it would not be hard to imagine that further bag limits to restrain the recreational sand flathead catch may be put forth. How was this information obtained and is it accurate? The short answer is phone polling and a memory based diary for the previous 12 months (the long answer can be found in the Survey itself which is too lengthy and involved to go into in this opinion piece) Here are a few things to think about, recreational fishers have already had a bag limit reduction from 30 to 20 fish per person. There is another stakeholder in the flathead fishery called Danish Seine, it hasn’t been reviewed since 2011 and I have correspondence from the Wild Fisheries Management Branch that there is little appetite to do so, due to limited resources. A quick overview of Danish Seine netting: They can operate their nets in as close as one Nautical mile off the Tasmanian coastline. Danish seine vessels in Tasmania typically operate close shore (although outside of the one nautical mile limit) on flat sandy bottom. Water depths fished are approximately between 10 to 90 metres. Danish seine fishing gear is light and does not plough into the sea floor, but rather skips over the substrate, scaring and herding the fish into the net.
There is no total allowable catch (TAC) for flathead or whiting in the commercial Tasmanian Scale fish Fishery.Targeted fish are generally tiger flathead and southern school whiting. They do have to abide by size limits, but it is unclear if bycatch or undersized fish are returned to the water dead or alive. Bycatch i.e. discarded catch/catch
not retained is not recorded in Tasmanian waters logbooks. Bycatch is recorded in Commonwealth waters logbooks when fishing within them. Sand flathead would be considered incidental catch by a Danish seine operator even though they can fish inshore as close as one nautical mile. There are six non-transferable Danish Seine Licences and one limited Danish Seine licence holder in Tasmania, it appears around four are working consistently. I am told Danish seine work in a grid pattern when operating and it seems unclear how long localised depletion would exist for after they have worked an area and how often they fish in the same vicinity as recreational fishers. Are recreational fishers being held responsible for depletion issues not of their making? After all, recreational anglers drift over an area, harvest a few fish and drift on further. My understanding is there is no documented case anywhere in the world wherein recreational fishing has been solely attributed to the decline/ decimation of a fishery as appears to be touted now regarding our sand flathead. So, what’s at play here? How can flathead numbers be declining when recreational bag limits are decreasing and size limits increasing? With the emergence of new species to target in our waters such as snapper, kingfish, tuna and whiting, how many hours in a day is there to do the damage to this species we are currently being accused of? King George Whiting In the last scale fish review in 2019 we saw a massive bag limit reduction enforced on Tasmanian recreational fishers with the daily catch take reduced from 30 fish per person down to 5. The reasoning behind this was: as it was classed as newly emerging fishery and a “precautionary principle” needed to be applied to it until a true stock assessment status could be made.
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