Cray Pot floaters / by-catch
Was Trolling the west end yesterday with my 7yo young fella and the pro Cray boats were in action pulling pots reasonably close to the south end of our run.
My boy watched one pull and reckoned he noticed a few things dropping / getting thrown over, and on our next run we came across a string of by-catch floaters, including 3 small Harlequins.
He's a good kid and has a great respect for fish (including the ones we catch & keep), and (like me) he got concerned when he saw a fin still moving.
So we pulled in the lures and netted 3 of the fish, all surprisingly alive but suffering from mildish barotrauma.
He wanted to try and help them, so out came the release weight and we sent them all back down to ~20m.
So that was our good deed for the day, but what concerns me is the difference in attitude - especially considering these are classified as High-Risk demersals.
I know FA about cray pots etc, but based on what we saw, it appears there is a reasonably significant number of by-catch.
What's the usual practice for these guys ?
We all have to carry release weights to do our bit, but for pros the time wasted trying to release fish is obviously not economically feasible.
So in the end, it appears there's another lack of balance in the effort for fisheries conservation.
Not trying to stir up the cray boys or anything - just putting it out there & looking for a bit of perspective.
The story also probably gives some others hope to know there's kids out there like my young fella who really give a shit.
cudbfishn
Posts: 1311
Date Joined: 06/04/09
Thats great to hear karma
Thats great to hear karma will reward you for your deeds one day. But from other reports that I hear this isnt even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bycatch.
Faulkner Family
Posts: 17863
Date Joined: 11/03/08
unfortunatly this will
unfortunatly this will always happen as the cray boats are not allowed to have any fish on them at all with all the new regs. have heard of them having to throw back size but dead fish of all types. as far as i am concerned if the fish is dragged up in the pot they should be able to keep them but no fishing lines allowed on the boat. until the fisheries see the error in their ruling this will keep happening. hopefully someone like youself will be out there to either keep or release the fish the correct way.
RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together
Dizzy
Posts: 753
Date Joined: 21/02/11
Thanks for the feedback. What
Thanks for the feedback.
What a bloody waste, and yet another example of flawed logic from the Fisheries think-tank.
They should design a big mesh release cage and supply every Cray boat with one so they can just bang each pull's worth of by-catch in there and give it half a chance.
It's "tell him he's dreaming" stuff, I know - but there's got to be a better way.
D_DOUSH
Posts: 497
Date Joined: 23/12/07
In the 6 seasons of
In the 6 seasons of crayfishing heres our dilemma,
Catch a baldy black arse in 20+Fa, absolutly screwed, never seen one go back and no release weight will help them,
Catch a black arse in the shallows and the dolphins love them,
Catch any fish in Gero/abrolhos and good luck getting any fish passed the 6 bronzies that follow our boat everyday
But in saying that getting fish in pots is rare, this season ive seen about 5 baldchin.
Fisheries can not get it right
andyh
Posts: 224
Date Joined: 13/09/11
indeed mr doosh. are
indeed mr doosh. are fisheries gunna start fining crayfishers for not properly releasing dead fish?
Nauti Buoy
Posts: 595
Date Joined: 20/04/09
Pros
The pros are actually now allowed to keep any bycatch in their pots- assuming they are legal size. This was introduced to help reduce wastage of demersal fish being thrown overboard.
Faulkner Family
Posts: 17863
Date Joined: 11/03/08
when did this come into
when did this come into place.last i heard was what i said previously and thaught Ddouch would have known as he is on a cray boat from my understanding. interesting
RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together
till
Posts: 9358
Date Joined: 21/02/08
It was changed at least a
It was changed at least a year ago. Initially they were not allowed to keep a thing, these days they're allowed to keep bycatch, but they're not allowed to have any lines on board still IIRC.
Belly88
Posts: 380
Date Joined: 08/02/12
Pros
Im a crayfisherman and i can tell you that last year we could keep bycatch but this year we are not alouded to again..
Its a stuipid rule but unfortuneately there are many stupid rules..
As it has been said before we dont really catch alot of by catch. Maybe 10 baldies a season and around the same blackbums, a few whirra and boxfish.
We are to keep ockys but no fish regardless of size...
Belly
till
Posts: 9358
Date Joined: 21/02/08
Bummer, that is really silly.
Bummer, that is really silly.
Dizzy
Posts: 753
Date Joined: 21/02/11
Interesting comments
Interesting comments regarding the rarity of by-catch - considering we netted 3 Harlequins and saw at least 2 others (big wrasse from what I could tell from a distance) - all in the distance between 2 pulls.
Maybe a few got out when the pot got clear of the water but were still stuffed due to barotrauma ?
cudbfishn
Posts: 1311
Date Joined: 06/04/09
Any fish pulled up in a
Any fish pulled up in a craypot from any depth by a pro is gonna be screwed. they come up so fast.
tangles
Posts: 1367
Date Joined: 17/12/06
stupid
4 years ago i did my own research at north island when we were crayfishing! from march 15th to may 26th we caught 60 odd fish in the pots and 3/4 of them when thrown back were screwed from biotrauma. I kept a list and had everything writen down type of species condition size effect! kept a log of it everyday and not to mention the large dhui we would get in the pots! some people think a 8-10kg dhui wont fit into a pot but i can tell ya from experience they do and its about It upset me and my skipper to see the cranage but the the sharks got a feed so the food chain was kept going! They are currently thinking of changing the rules again so you can keep your daily bag limit of bycatch from the pots but decision is still pending! as long as you log the catch down and record the bycatch. The further north you go the more prominent it gets especially in the shallows around the islands! At least the guys are sticking to the rules and not keeping them sad but thats the way fisheries role these days! total control of certain things and dont want to listen to the guys that actually are on deck doing the work seeing what goes on! hence the so called apparent lack of juvinille crays around which is bullshit btw!