Is Comp Fishing Sustainable?

[powderfish]

Fishing competitions are not something i know much about and honestly have little interest in participating in as I treat lure fishing as a relaxing and enjoyable hobby. I do fish very regularly throughout Vic and often in the same locations as bream comps and have come across numerous people with very strong opinions on the damage that comp fishing does to a fishery.

I have no opinion as yet due to my lack of knowledge on the subject, but I have heard some very good arguments to suggest that comp fishing is doing more harm than good to both fisheries and local communities. Catch and release is a great thing, don't get me wrong, but are the fish released in the same area that they were caught? If not, does that affect their survival rate?

To what extent are comps designed around the fish? That is, do the comps occur in the most sustainable times of the year? How about running competitions in impoundments instead where natural stocks are not affected? I have already noticed that within 12 months I can no longer fish a certain lure in my favourite fishing location. It was supposedly used almost exclusively by anglers in two comps earlier this year and it appears the fish have wised-up to that type of lure. I fear that long-term this could impact on our natural fisheries and see our favourite fishing towns suffer.

I am just looking for opinions and feedback so I can better understand the impact of comp fishing on these beautiful natural fisheries that we all care about.

Cheers.

[Squidgee_Man]

Personally i don't think releasing a Bream in a different part of a River where it was caught affects it at all. But I'm no expert either. Here in Perth the Swan river is pretty much the same right through. The only thing that would affect the fish dying was if it was injured or if the live well on the boat was inadequate, but these are checked before the start anyway. As long as the fish are treated with care until after weighing and release i don't see any future problems for the fish or competitions.

Fish not taking a particular lure and or lures at your spots may just be due to weather conditions. Tides, Temp, moon phase etc. In may not have anything to do with the people fishing in comps. Maybe the fish have moved or just not interested on the day your fishing. I doubt it has anything to do with the comps. Don't forget fishing's a funny game! JMO

[brad mcdonald]

i'll answer your question with another one.

is there a more sustainable fishing method or mechanism for increasing the publics awareness of catch and release fishing practices?

yep fish become lure shy - leader shy - line shy but it all goes in circles. they still eat prawns after all.

[Squidgee_Man]

Nice longnose in ya Avatar Brad, i bet that was caught in the lagoon up North? going by the light colours. Mine was caught in 50mt Yours looks bigger but

[Emo]

i dont think it does any harm. Certainly much less harm than comercial fishing, old school kill comps, polution, algal blooms and other man made environmental damage.

[n-fish]

I think that fishing a comp over 1-2 days in a system can not do as much harm as say a normal weeks worh of people taking undersize fish or 1 person doing the wrong thing and throwing in a net or the amount of people who take home a legal fish and then throw it in the bin after it sitting in the fridge / freezer for too long

I think with the amount of people who fish for sport insted of a feed can only be a good thing

[Stealth]

Agree with EMO, comp fishing is definatly not the worst thing happening to our waterways

[walloper]

iv'e gone to a few of the killing weigh ins in my area, as a spy,fly on the wall type of thing, and it's heart breaking. kilo plus bream cleaned 3 and 4kg flathead dead. they'll even kill and weigh wrasse for points only to take these reef dwellers down the boat ramp and throw them to the pellicans, " cause they're crap eating."
there is no future in these type of fishing comps.
catch and release is the way to go.
you can take this arguement all the way to BAN FISHING all together,
which is rediculous.
atleast when released there is a chance of survival.

[Shane]

This would be a question for Murdoch and their research into the Blackwood.

At one point they were tagging our fish caught weren't they?

I think if the system was a very remote one and then 50 boats rocked around for a couple of days throwing pointy things, this could have an impact. How long I wouldn't know. An example is in the comps where prefish Fridays can send the fish down.

Fish in the Swan, for example, are used to the boat traffic and such. They are more at risk to the fertilizer run off from the race course and such.

It would be an interesting study, but one that would have to be performed over many years for a feasible study. Would be a good PHD for someone, "yeah I need to get the latest stat samples for my research, pass my rod over"

[phil jagger]

I don't know if you can blame competitions themselves, the popularisation of the sport by other parties (the media for one) would play a major role also.

Phil

[Ballnuts]

I have had to take a few deep breaths before replying to this as most people that make bold statements about catch and release comps have no bloody idea what they are talking about.

Firstly tournament fishing has done more to educate people about sustainable fishing practices and the benefits of catch and release fishing than any other group. Tagging that has been done at the Vic Bream Comps have had fish that were tagged re caught with in 4 weeks of being tagged showing the fish are released in good health.

Catching fish and releasing them back into the waterway in a different location may not be a perfect scenario but at least they go back alive. Mallacoota was a perfect case in point. Some local loons were complaining about the damage releasing fish in a different location would have on the spawning run and to show how smart these people are I posed to them that more damage would be done over the 2 weeks over Xmas to the bream spawning than at the comp. Their intelligent response was yeah but thats not in spawning season? True but those fish caught over xmas will struggle to spawn next year when they are all DohDohDohDohing dead. Certain people don't give a DohDohDohDoh about the health of the bream in general they just want to preserve their own money making exploitation of the fishery.
After certain people said to me that its bad running comps in spawning times I said thats a fair point and if we really want to protect bream lets get serious and get together and get fisheries to put in place a closed season on bream in Victoria while they spawn, to which they replied you can't do that it would kill the town. BullDohDohDohDoh I said it would kill certain persons businesses BLOODY HIPOCRIT! Happy to talk about protecting the bream if it suits them. So are they interested in protecting the species or a cash cow?

Second comment, comps have a negative impact on communities.... Are you for DohDohDohDohing real.
Studies have shown that each Vic Bream Comp will bring between 50 to 100 thousand dollars into the local communites they are held in through pre-fish visits, comp weekend food, accomo, fuel, tackle. Also many people that firstly visit a place through entering a comp will come back with families for holidays. Don't know who you are talking to but they are ill informed. Speak with business owners in the towns where Vic Bream Comps are held and I'm sure you will get a different story. I purposely plan all my comps out of school holidays or long weekends to give towns another weekend of revenue. I work my arse off to ensure my comps benefit towns. The people telling you this would be people who either want to keep their sleepy little town to themselves or business owners that have missed the opportunities the comps have offered them through their own silly greed and or laziness.

Lastly you mentioned mate some of your faviourite lures are not working anymore. I can't comment as to the truth behind bream getting smarter but guess all I can say is that lure fishing is a challenge, embrace the challenge and try some of the new products on the market and I'm sure you will have success.

Sorry to get heated guys, but I get sick and tired of hearing this DohDohDohDoh about comps that are one weekend a year when over school holidays in all these towns bream are slaughtered by the ton. If our comps can educate more people about the benefits of catch and release fishing them maybe more kids may say to Mum or Dad over the school holidays when they catch a huge bream " Dad on Vic Bream TV they were saying how slow bream grow and it could be really old so can we let it go I don't want to kill it" then we have done our job and how anyone can say that that message has negative impacts on fishing or towns then I would love to hear how.

[Pete D]

I personally think if anything it is a good thing, fish get caught /released and then wisen up or become more careful when feeding which in turn these fish grow to be bigger bream which creates better breeding.When you find the fishing isnt as good its probably not because the bream arent there coz i think u will find they are,just they are smarter we just have to become smarter ourselves to catch em and besides the amount of bream caught in c&r tournaments isnt even on the same scale as the amount that die from netters and algal blooms etc.

[IceManDude]

Well said Bill, i've nothing more to add really...... scary isn't it?

[Bear]

Personally, as someone who had been a the front of the tournaments, the biggest issue that organisers will face is keeping interest and growing the comps across ALL (not just Eastern) states. Keeping the status quo isn't going to further the sport. Anglers in each state need something more than just a National GF, JMO. Giving the juniors something to aim for is also important if teh sport is to grow.

Again, JMO.

[forsterfisho]

Good evening powderfish,

The fisheries manager's have designed a system where the organisers of a comp can run a check on their individual event and see if it is environmently sound.
You question about catch and release at different points in a system. With bream this should not pose much of a problem, as bream roam an entire system, from the brackish regions right down to the mouth of a system and out to sea to spawn.
Bass comps, i have no knowledge about, but by the looks of things, they are held on dams more so than rivers? As long as the bass are returned back to the water, ie in the dam not below the weir or somewhere else. That too i can not see a problem with.
Barra comps, ditto.
A flathead comp i have fished, did raise a few concerns on fish handling and C and R ethics. Many of the fish "released" died within 2-5m of being released. A few boats had plastic tubs, with no insulation, no plumbing and yet the organisers said this is ok, as long as you changed the water. Obviously this wasnt being done.
I guess with ABT comps, there would be closer scrutiny of the requirements for live wells.
I also noticed at this flathead comp, competitors werent very sure on how to handle fish, with fish being left on warm tinny thwarts as hooks were being removed and not being handled with wet hands. Maybe when you sign on for a comp, each person should recieve a booklet written by fisheries dept about fish handling and the requirements to keep them heatlthy.

Also mentioned in your post, was about running comps with stocked species. Bass and barra are run on stocked systems as far as i know. Bream would be different as they mainly live in an open system, so how would one know what is a farmed specimen and what is not?

To a point i agree that comps can make fishing a system harder after an event, but there doesnt seem to be a long term effect (although the comps have not been run long enough to have a study of "long term" effects undertaken. This is something I am aiming toward achieving proffesionaly). Perhaps the reason the fishing has been shut down is due to other environmental factors?

I think that the amount of comps in a system needs to be closely monitored, as Forster is apparently set to hold 3 bream comps next year and 2 flathead comps. It is not a "large" system, plus factor in the amount of tourists the area recieves outside of comp time, plus the problems of pro fishing. Then this could pose some problems on the biomass of bream (and bi catch, eg flathead) in the system?

As others have mentioned comp fishing needs to have other factors taken into consideration, ie $$$ value to the economy, product knowledge and R and D. I think comp fishing needs to be closely managed by fisheries officals, so as not to "create a monster"

Perhaps the people that profit from fishing, ie tackle companies should start investing heavily into fisheries management, so that they secure there future? Does the ABT put a percentage of money taken, into Environmental R and d?

So in conclusion, Fishing comps do have take a toll on the environment around them, but what is the price of this toll? Does the negative impacts on the environment outweigh the monetary reward for all the people involved in running the comps, from the ABT, tackle companies through to local communities?

Sorry for the rant, but is something that i intend to conduct futher study into.

Regards,
ff