Witnessed Illegal Catch

[LakeConjolaFish]

Hi All,

This is a bit depressing but I feel that I need to share this.

Lake Conjola since May 2002 has been closed to ALL Professional Netting and was declared a Recreational Fishing Haven by the NSW Government and NSW Fisheries the Professionals being bought out by the funds raised by the Salt Water Fishing License.

This is something that the locals and holiday makers alike have fought for years to achieve and I still have to pinch myself to believe that it has finally come about, as well as about 27 other Estuaries on the NSW coastline.

The fishing has already improved albeit the fish are smaller there are definetely MORE fish in the lake and the entire biomass has risen.

I on too many occassions watched the pro's haul their nets in and drive 2-3 trucks of fish boxes out of Lake Conjola. And if this wasn't bad enough the by catch (small bream, flatties, mullet, toadies etc etc) was absolutely staggering.

Well the Pro's have been knocked on the head.

But that does nothing to alleviate the mongrel recreational fisho.

This afternoon we watched a bloke and his missus (not new australians-bona fide ockers) literally fill up a pool chlorine bucket with undersized bream.

They used garfish hooks and had about 5-8 bream filleted and sliced up and using them for bait.
Everytime they caught another the "lady" would procede to smash the bream repeatedly on the grass till it was stunned or dead then into the bucket it would go.

I'm not talking just under legal size here, I'm talking 2-3 inch maximum. And they had 30+ fish in the bucket and were still fishing.

Do you think I was pissed ?

This is happenning maybe 20 metres from my front door.

I went to talk to them in a absolute calm and respectful manner (remember this is where I live I don't want a brick thru my windows tonight) the "lady" told me to get f@#ked immediately, no provacation or anything the bloke never even looked at me.

Do you think I was pissed now?

I didn't say a thing just turned around and came inside.
I rang the fisheries. Recorded message. Rang the Cops they took the details and said they would pass it on to a Fishing Inspector.

I rang other Fisheries numbers and they were all recorded messages, I rang the mobile numbers on the recorded messages and they sent me back to the recorded messages.

Do you think I was pissed now?

Finally got on to an Inspector and he took down a description and there licence plates and make, model of the car. But said that that was all he could do as he has a 150klm stretch to patrol and he is the ONLY bloke. The amount of coastline beaches and estuaries in that 150klm is huge and there is one inspector.

I feel so pissed off and depressed about what I witnessed today yet there was nothing "legal' that I could do. Believe me I gave grave thought to the illegal things I could have done.

How widespread are actions like I witnessed today?
God I hope this is a fairly one off thing for this lake and not the norm because what I saw sucked.

I apologize for rambling on and I haven't checked for typo's as I need a cold one or two or three

[Bear]

LCF,
A bit of a hint. Next time you see this happen, take your camera and take a few photos with a big smile as though you're really impressed.

Then take the details and send them in to the fisheries and then to the local MP. If that's not enough, then sent it to the press.

I'm starting to do exactly that. I have quite a collection, ask the guys. You're not alone in this mate.

[Mim]

You have every right to be pissed.

Afraid that it happens everywhere though.

We went on a holiday to Jurien Bay a few weeks ago and saw heaps of people bringing in undersize Silver Bream (Or Tarwine) and keeping them. We told them that they were undersized, but they didnt seem to care.

We used to see it off the jetties around the swan too and would always say something, usually to no avail. Now that we have the boat we don't see it. My daughter is also into catch and release if we are not going to eat 2-3 for dinner.

Wouldn't it be great if we all had the power to make a citizens arrest or something. Maybe ABT can look into what we can do as members?

Mim

[ChrisN]

I ahve also seen acts like this occur on several occasions. The best thing you can do is what Bear said.

On another note, is there any way you could become a fisheries officer (voluntarily) where you just hand out fines and so on with out getting paid. Like say you were fishing and you witnessed something like this you could just give out a fine with out spending all your day patrolling areas. That way instead of trying to ring fisheries or take photos you could just DIY. All law abiding rec fishos could stop these things immediately.

Just this morning in a local newspaper I read an article on the new bag limits and it said there that in the Bunbury area this might not make much of a difference as many rec fishos could fish their whole lives with out ever seeing an inspector.

[beefaman]

I fished Seaforth ( about an hour north of Mackay) a few years back, and was talking to a tour guide and he said basically the same thing, that from Townsville down to Mackay they had 3 (i think) fisheries officers to patrol the entire coast. Amazing considering the distance of travel involved.
Maybe tour guides should be officers as well. What will be left for our kids if people today keep undersized fish?

You did better than me LCF, I would of lost my cool.

The camera is a great idea.

These people know the law, they just choose to ignore it knowing there is little to no chance of being caught!

Try this,
Get some small crabs, like the ones you find under a rock on the foreshore. ONly four or so. Leave them in the sun for a few hours till they stink! (kill them humanely by freezing) and chuck them in the car of the offender or leave them near where they are fishing. The stench is unbelievable and because the crabs are small, it's hard to trace. Try it, as you can get some more crabs and use them as burley or bait on your next fishing trip.

it reall yis a disgrace and i see it all the time aswell and we can never get hold of fisheries either!

[pete s]

make sure whatever you do to them its not illegal.

because as sure as eggs is eggs, if you do something illegal, they will kick up a stink about it and you'll end up facing charges. i bet the police will be more concerned about assault than illegal fishing!!!

ive been fishing for 25 years and i have NEVER been asked for my license let alone seen a fisheries inspector.

[LakeConjolaFish]

Bear, the camera sounds like a great idea. I can play the smiling ubiquitous Japanese tourist click click click.

Pete your quite right, the police would go very heavy on any aggressive action and thats just not me anyway.

[mike_mad_fisho]

gday guys and ladies
i would go with the camera idea, we used this idea in another instance us kids in the streets were doing knock and runs and kicking down letter boxes so me and my dad hid and took photos of the kids in action and sure enogh that was the last night the did it becasue the cops rocked up at there house that was up the street and they had to apologise to everyperson in the dstreet and fix up there letter boxes lol serves them right .
and as for the fishing i think it is appaliong catching so many undersize fish and the procedding to kill them and use them for bai.
thanks micahel

[LakeConjolaFish]

LOL, Hey Mike don't leave school yet

[LakeConjolaFish]

I wish there was a spell checker myself

[Richo]

After all those phone calls mate, I would have been that fired up, I would have confiscated his catch myself and SandWedge in tow. And thrown all his crap in the river ..... Or put in a call to the Police about some bloke doing a bit of raping down on the river bank, might have got a response then. How rude only having 1 inspector per 150km, no wonder rec fisho`s abuse the rules, they get away with it 99.9% of the time.

We`ll soon see fisho`s forming vigilante groups to end this type of behaviour...... mmmm

cheers

richo

ps, You did more than most would have even attempted. Well played mate.

[Mim]

There is a number you can call. I am not sure if it is just for WA and I have never tried it, but I think I will add it to my mobile phone.
The number is 1800 815 507. It is for all illegal activity.

I guess all we can do at this stage is be vigilant and keep calling. Eventually the powers at be will have to do something

Mim

[torvic]

"I can play the smiling ubiquitous Japanese tourist click click click."

Haha LCF great sense of humour!!

Yea when I read your post I was thinking the shotgun approach, come out of yer house firing rounds and yelling at em. Or you could go the crocodile dundee approach with yer big knife, and say if the fish aint as big as the knife then neither will they be when you get thru with them.

Anyway on a more serious note, just last night this regular fisho that comes down to claremont jetty was about to keep bream around 15 cm long. I used to respect him since he was retired and looked 'wise'. Anyway the firs tbream he chucked under the upturned bucket he was sitting on like you do when sweeping something under the rug. I told him it was undersize, and he goes 'never mind dont worry'. I was abit pissed so I just stood there a minute thinking of what else to say. Then he caught another small one and was about to keep it too. Then I told him again that it was too small and showed him the proper legnth the bream as to be. He wasnt going to put them back until a couple of afternoon strollers came by and saw the fish. At this point he was compelled to throw them back and he did simply because of the presence of the other ppl.

I cant imagine why people do this, I reckon and I'm sure most fishos also know that the legal size for most water species are already VERY small, and the meat you get from undersize fish is so pathetic its not even worth it.

ChrisN I'v been thinking of the same fantasy of voluntary fisheries duties forever now but yea its only a dream. They wont give ppl the power to do this without proper training and full time commitment to the job.

[Dave W]

It's all too often Jim

There are a lot of people out there who see it as their right to take whatever they want with no thought for the consequenses.

The good thing is, with the amount of publicity in regards to size limits / catch and release over the past few years, the younger generation is really getting the message