not enough , the fine needs to be more, the laws were put in place for a reason,we will get our legal turn at the crabs in good time

It seems every 2 months theres a mob that goes before the courts,,will they ever learn ?

i suppose their excuse will be..."i didn't know"??? should be a fine and $1000 per crab...

people are thick lol

Cockburn sound is over flowing with crabs...so open the season. Has any one seen so many crabs this late in the year ? Someone said they are golng to continue with the closed season again this year.

good work by the fisheries i was starting to wonder how much they get out and about these days due to tight budgeting

I wouldn't like to meet the judge down this way, he's going to make suffer big time..for that one..

TT ( karl )

Well Rig,,from what i read in our local rag they have been very consitent catching the baddies,but another 2 dozen baddies pop up to replace the last lotand so on,Mangles bay is a popular bad boyz hang out.

yeah it really is a slap on the wrist to people with that mentality. it gets my goat every year with the summer chopper tailor run.i spend a few hours fishing throwing back tailor that are just undersize while the guy next to you keeps them all night and when challenged they always play the "i didnt know" card

At the ramps at the club last summer, there was nice big crabs in the marina, it sure is tempting to throw a pot in, but we went out north of CS and got a fee, if they open the crab season in CS hope its only for amateurs.

He's right Shorty. Some people are going to grab a few crabs illegally when you can see the sound is bulging with then. But no season again this year, i would like to know y. How about a season will a smaller bag limit even . Norman must be chasing more tax in fine monies i presume cause I'm stuff if i know why we haven't got a season. Can someone please let me know why ? and i won't cop the bullshit about [stocks still recovering] Won't be to long before the dredgers start on the new harbor, That will be the end of crabs anyhow imo.

Out Wide ,,"Experts" say the spawning egg count was low again this year ,,something like that was the reason given anyway,,cheers,,

oh yeah,,stocks not fully recovered was a secondary reason, Cockburn sound is a breeding/nursery grounds.

I work at Bp and at for the first few months this year i was out working on the jetties. in the shallower spots where i could see there were heaps of good sized crabs running around it was really noticeable. It wouldnt be such a bad thing in my opinion to leave the sound as a hatchery and then the crabs would migrate out of the sound to spots where the have a bit of a better chance of survival and then return to spawn bit like the pinkies. dont think they would let the pro's back in now

Rig ,how about us returning all females { ban the taking of female crabs period ]

I would like to see a low bag limit,,something like a dozen crabs per boat (not sure what the limit is now)enough for a feed and an adventure. I brought a small Ally dingy about 3 years ago with the intention of potting around Mangles bay with my young neices and give them some crabbing adventures, a week after i brought it they banned crabbing and the boat has not been out of the yard since i brought it. The girls have missed the excitement of prawning in the river from shore also,,that seems a thing of the past as well,,now we have to pay fees to take them fishing soon,,hmmm not good.

Ban on taking females ??? bloody good idea.

yeah good point out wide, especially with crabs it is so easy to throw the brown females back in. i dont know what the stats are but as shorty suggested they dont show to be good enough yet. Alot of people dont like to keep the females anyway and will throw them back to fish for the future but Fisheries may look at the amount of meatheads they have caught recently taking crabs when the sound is closed and think that people will just take the females in the name of getting a feed and once a again the minority will ruin it for the majority, sad i know

you said can't prawn in the swan? is that the law now.
I have'nt been prawning for years (drag net) but would love to take the boys now they're getting bigger.... is it allowed or not?
cheers
shane

Thats still a fair bit of money for someone really. Think if you've got your mortgage repayments, or loans or whatever, think about how much that would screw up your budget (obviously they don't or they wouldn't do it, so hopefully they learn their lesson). I still think they should be a little more thou.

My partner is a FMO and trust me, they are out there nearly all the time.

I read a post somewhere a couple of guys go night diving for prawns with a scoop type net, from the pics they posted they did fairly well,
Looked like deep water down near Blackwall reach. ......

There are another couple of guys on Utube. Type something like diving swan river or such.
Apart from the prawns they also chased crabs from memory.

Yes divers do well,,boats in the middle of the channel can scoop them when times and tides are right,,just impossible to get dragging prawns nets like the old days,,man that was fun,,,

I disagree $3600 is piss weak fine amount & it sure as crap wont make up for having no sealife left.....
Shoot the wankers its that simple.....Im sick of seeing morons with buckets full of juv snapper etc playing the ignorance game.
If I find any in the future Im grabbing their bucket & upending it for them.
And it should already be law to return all female crabs & people should just do it anyway IMHO.
my 2 cents.

Ever since i was a young fella we have always returned the female crabs. A couple of years ago i was crabbing in mandurah and was watching a family pick up small crabs, pull the claws off and throw them back. When asked what they were doing they said they had been fined for taking small crabs previously and thought it was okay to just take the claws??? i upended their bucket and almost got into a blue......now that sort of $#it really peeves me off!

I reported it to the authorities but i don't know what happened??

Dont have a "put back female crabs" everywhere though, crabbing catches down here are usually made up of about 90% jennies and a couple of blues thrown in. Dont know why it's like that and it was well documents with Fisheries WA a couple of years ago who looked into it to see why.

Cheers
Dale

Well itseems that some one agrees drag netting a waste of time,,i just saw a near new one at the Rocko tip recyle area just now,,$5 and i reckon it yours,,,

we throw them back. Hubbies theory is, if there aren't any girls around the boys will piss off. But it sure made my bloody boil when in the seafood section of IGA last summer saw heaps of females for sale & they were all caught by pro's

If everyone keeps the males there will be no/few males to breed with the females.

(just occurred to me 1 minute ago)maybe take 1/2 and 1/2 and keep things balanced ?

Just throwing out ideas here

Agreed Shorty its never a good idea to take all one sex. There needs to be a mix of both for breeding.

Maybe thats why Cockburn Sound got closed,,everyone took the sperm donors thinking they were doing the right thing ?

more like taking more than the bag limit??

How come there is only a few bulls and rams for that matter for so many females . You can argue about stuffing up the gene pool but one male will mate and impregnate plenty of females

http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/pub/FactSheets/Fisheries%20Fact%20Sheet%202%20-%20Blue%20Swimmer%20Crab.pdf

ITS ACTUALLY A SHAME TO SEE THE AMOUNT OF SMALL FISH WHICH ARE TAKEN BY ANGLERS OFF WOODMANS POINT JETTY!AND THERE IS NO POLICING OR CONTROLE BEING PUT INTO PLACE TO STOP THIS. I WON'T EVEN MENTION THE GARBAGE DUMP WHICH WOODMANS POINT IS BECOMMING!!

MOTOR VECHILE BREAKINS HAVE ALSO BECOME A HUGE PROBLEM WHILE PARKED AT COCKBURN AND WOODMANS POINT PARKING AREA'S, WHY ARE THE POLICE NOT DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

A MONTH AGO FISHING WEST OFF ROTNEST, I WAS BUZZED BY BOTH DEPARTMENT FISHERIES AND THE WATER POLICE WITH A HALF AN HOUR OF EACH OTHER, SAFETY GEAR CHECKS AND CATCHES WERE NOTED. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WITH THIS, BUT WHY THIS DOUBLE POLICING IN AN AREA. WHY IS ONE BOAT ARE THEY NOT CHECKING THE SHORE ANGLERS, AS THIS IS WHERE THE MAJOR DAMAGE IS BEING DONE TO OUR FISH RESOURCES. I HAVE FOUND THAT BOAT ANGLERS HAVE THE TENDENCY TO BE MORE ETHICAL FISHERMAN AS THEY SHOW A LOT MORE RESPECT AND CONCERN ABOUT THE FISH RESOURSES.

no kidding the last time i went to woodies i got so worked up i nearly stabbed someone...
nearly everyone was placing tailors at 20cm in the bucket... especially those fobby asians -_-

bliksim i'm glad you got that off your chest........rather than whinge why not do something about it if it is such a concern?

Can you put those fobby people who take small fish and undersize crabs or crab claws under citizen's arrest? :P

It astounds me to hear some one getting checked out at Rotto (dunno about double as they are separate depts with seperate jurisdictions)but no-ones being checked at a central landbased spot such as Woodies. The differences in resources required to check boaties at Rotto compared to driving down and checking fishos at Woodies must be pretty high, esp for a dept who aren't exactly resource rich and should be going for more bang for their/our buck. It seems they've got demersal fever at the mo' so it's up to concerned citizens such as us to have DOF on our contact lists and let them know when you're seeing anything untoward going on. Blikism, nothing wrong with a good vent cos it brings the problem to a wider contingent but, if you haven't already, you should probably let those in the position to do something about it know. Enough people dobbing them in to the DOF and they'll be forced to tackle the issue.
dshoot, plenty of Asian fellas on our side of the fence mate, united we stand and all that, harsh generalisations get you nowhere bruvva.

i am asian :)

they just need to find better hiding spots

Can anyone give me the number to report undersize fish captures?

Also in response to the earlier comment about it being the asians taking the undersize fish I have to agree. When ever I fish canning bridge there always seems to be at least one asian sometimes with up to ten undersize (like ten cm or so) bream flapping to death in a bucket. I may sound racist but thats just the way it is. I have rarely seen anyone else taking undersize bream.

Aidan,
Don't worry about race, colour etc... If you see anything untoward the link below gives details and phone details to call.

http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/sec/feed/fishwatch/index.php?0803

Cheers,
David

Yeah its sad but I'd have to agree with it. I'm asian myself and I really take joy in fishing with my mates and having a good time (not forgetting the feast of LEGAL fish after with a cold one) but keeping undersized fish is just way unethical. Gives us all a bad name. Sheesh.

Fish For the Future.