First off I have never been lucky enough to catch 2 Dhuies in a short amount of time

However, if I did and had not got my bag limit I would stay and try to bag out

And if I didn't it wouldn't matter, I enjoy being out there and the fish are a bonus.

 Stay out, but change spots, and change rig / fishing style to something less likely to fish for dhuies. 
so you could downsize your rig and go for baldies etc, head shallower to get away from your known dhuie grounds etc. 

I am well aware that dhuies will sometimes even take the small rigs, and turn up

in shallower water etc. But in my opinion be fair to yourself and the fish in the fact you have 2 x good fish (and your limit of dhuies) and therefore switch it up and try something different to see the day out. Even go for a troll or something like that. You never know what's out there. 

 We often get our dhuies very quickly and then just go sounding.In bunbury if you keep fishing you are most likely just catching more dhuies and I suspect some will die as a result.That is just the way I see it and everyone has their own opinion. I am a more motivated to go sounding as I am always wanting more dive spots.

 Down size and get KGW

 Down size and get KGW

 2 dhuie in 10 minutes would be rare. We have done that in an hour and just moved to other spots around that we have less chance of getting another dhuie. It does happen tho. We quite octen go to our kg spot in closer . 

I say keep fishing but as mentioned downsize your rigs and move. Your on the water for a good day out so you may as well enjoy it while you can

 I would fish diffrent area for a baldie or snapper.

 While the system is the way it is Andy you do what you feel is right...

A fisho will know his spots, as some have said above if you are on a spot that you dong Dhuis then sure probably best to move...

If you get a mixed bag at that said spot then its a lucky dip, keep fishing and hope you get a snap or something instead of a dhu...

Anyone thats caught a few Dhus will also know a Dhu hit compared to a Snapper so just take it easy and get him up slowly to give him a good shot at swimming away...

Stuff coming in early. I always down size hooks and baits. Also lighter gear . Even changing area you can guarantee more dhues going for kgs. Good thing is you tend to take them slower . They release well from top.

I think there are some very sound and responsible replies from FW members which IMO demonstrate the high moral stranded members self impose on themselves with regards to their fishing habits.
Well done fellow members.

Me, I would down size and move or just go scouting around looking for new spots and trawling whilst doing so, and yeah, enjoy the day on the water.

• We always keep fishing with two Dhus in the esky. The key is to bring any subsequent Dhus up slowly, with a deco stop around 5-10 metres. We never have any issues releasing fish that are landed this way. They look really healthy, with no signs of barotrauma.

 My last Dhuie was 16 years ago. Not due to lack of effort

How you gonna upgrade if you stop fishing? 

And would also consider releasing a dhufish then, depending on others in the boat.

i prefer fishing than freezing dhufish. 

good question andy and a brave one imo ..as there is strong feeling on this sometimes

my response is pretty much in line with cranos reply

we fish of margs ...so its always check pots first then once crays are sorted , we head out ,..

and for us it happens quite often that we get 2 dhuis in quick succession ........the last few years we have called it early and headed in ....often before an hour on the hunt is done ,,,,,,,

the logic why we call it nowdays with only 2 fish onboard is for several reasons as below

1st is with 2 of us onboard we have got a good feed each with a fish apiece , i mean lets face it 1dhuie each is a good result on any day

2 couple it with a feed each of good size crays and we are well satisfied

3 if the conditions are right i can go back in close and get some abalone ...have a swim then go home

4 usually if we get 2 dhuis that quick it is a good to even chance we will just catch more even though i switch spots to places im less likly to ..it just is murphys law

5 over the years when we have fished on after a couple of quick ones ...its proven to be that we just cant get away from more dhuis ..so now , rather than possibly kill more trying for other demersal we call it and stop ..

6 my feeling is even though most people think they handle released dhuies well , they dont and many die unseen at depths ...and yes i know some dont ...but there are more dying than surviving ...imo

7 its also about the moral education , trying to get more people to stop demersal fishing once they get there 2 dhuis ... ..getting your bag limit isnt always a must do dhuis are not snapper and we try to encourage that view and put it into practice ourselves

personally i hate seeing reports of lots of dhuies being caught and released by people ...i think it feeds a perception that its ok to do so in the slim belief or hope they will survive ...

so thats our deal and we always get a good feed over the year like this ...

id encourage others to do the same or as above swap over to another target species away from demersals

hezzy

And I returned four successfully including the two biggest.   And headed much shallower chasing KGW and black arse. Often fish alone and using several rods multiple hookups are always possible BUT I fish light so they aren't dragged up through the water column quickly and I have found often a release weight unnecessary as they swim away strongly.   minimal handling essential. 
Oddly on the day I got five in a single drift I had moved from a favourite area after being pinged, stopped on completely flat ground and the sounder lit up five minutes into the drift and All rods went off simultaneously. Kept an 8kg model and returned fish up to 18kg but I always stop fishing once I have bagged out. Our fishing has got so so much better over the last ten years and we should never take that improvement for granted. We are privileged to have such a resource  

Taught to people ( tag and release ) as wrong as it is . Release leads are a crock of shit. Death rates in dhues massive doing it that way. Take it Slow ,deco stop .they swim strong from top I’ve found. My thoughts only thoughts. If they swim from top there good . If you have to use a lead there dead.

i can only give my thoughts on what we do and why LJ

over time you have to hope others will do the reading and put critical thinking into their own practices and reasons why they do as they do

we rarely travel more than 7nm on a trip down south ..and we usually are going at least every 5-7 days to check pots ... so its no big deal for me to call it early and come in if we get 2 in quick time ...

not having a go here either , but how often do you read in any fishing report that the writer will almost always state their dhuis released well ?? .im sure many do ..but have you ever read a report that says they had floaters come back up and they had to retrieve them and deal with giving them away to another boatie ??

i think andy has asked a good question and its a great topic for all of us to consider if generally we ar helping to keep as many dhuies alive for our next trip out by our actions and making small changes in how we fish out there
or can we continue to improve on what we have gained since 2008 when constraint was forced on us all ?

i have 3 grandkids and i cant wait for the day they can go out and have ago .

. i hope the rules/demersal /bag limits dont get reduced any more because we cant self educate and moderate our kill of released dhuis which is highly likely into the future if we all continue as is

crabs , herring , snapper . all have come under heavy pressure and fishos have had reductions imposed on us ...rock lobster is the rare beast where we fought to get increases based on science and behaviour but dhuie are certainly in the cross hairs in the near future imo as notable they are now estimating mortality of released dhuis as an inclusion in our rec take

hezzy

I totally agree with your view and why. Not disagreeing at all. I prefer to catch baldies ect first. Makes its simple :)

Here is a slight shift in the topic,

Why don't they do away with the size limit on the Dhuie and make it illegal to throw them back

That way there would be less dying from peoples honest attempts to release the mainly smaller models

I think this is or was what happens to certain species in the N.T but correct me if I am wrong.

While I understand that we all wish to catch the Trophy fish, its about tomorrow also.

Just a thought and happy to hear feedback.

 Awesome replies fellas, reason I asked is that I follow a Dhuie page on FB. Two blokes put up a video of them nailing two Dhues within minutes of getting to their spot and then calling a day saying that's it lets go home. 

I lightheartedly suggested why go home when you could still get two  more fish and make a day of it. Well I got fried by one wanker calling me a greedy C%$T and I'm the type of bloke that ruins it for the rest of us. I gave him as good as he dished out and suggested that if he had the balls to call me all that to my face to pm me. I think if you can call it on a laptop then you can back it up in person. But no he just kept the abuse going but as I said whatever.

I stated to the moron that I've always fished responsibly and as Boony mentioned I and my boys are pretty adept at picking what's hit our line in the way they fight so play them accordingly. 

If we pick Dhuies up early we head into the 40's where the Baldy's abound and try to finish our bag there.

I also stated to the idiot that there's nothing illegal about trying to catch a bag as quite a bit  research has been done to come up with the current sustainable bag limits. 

And hey if you're happy to head out catch two fish within ten minutes head back to ramp and be cleaning your boat at 9am go for it, but imo that's not a day out fishing, fark I work my ass off, pray to the weather gods and just hope to get a nice day out on the water.We always take light rods for Whiting in case we are done early, for me it's probably more about the action than the catch. 

And BJ.......... you need a footy fix :P 

 Spot on there. People that cut loose on t he keyboard like that aren't worth t he effort. Keep fishing and enjoy t he day out. Don't happen often enough

 I saw that post. What you probably could have said in you initial post to avoid the abuse is "target something different". Unfortunately, by leaving that out you left yourself open for abuse. By that point you have no chance to clarify because everyone just stacks on.

When ever I post online I try to never leave my comments ambiguous. Post more words than less. Saves a shit load of heartache.

 Canarvon with all Dhu respect... I can almost 100% tell when i have a Dhu on so i'm not sure if you are fishing heavy tipped rods or why you can't tell but down here where I fish there is really only one fish that has runs like a Dhu does...

Andy you work hard and no doubt don't have bulk time to be able to go anytime there is a window so on the day you finally get a chance to go why not go and fill your day and hopefully your esky with meat for the family...

If i was retired or semi retired and could check the weather weekly and decide the days i'm going to go then i wouldn't meat fish as hard as I do when i go...

Also something that hasn't been mentioned here which is the thing that pisses me off the most thinking about this is the Pro net boats...

Fellas here have mentioned there is a mortality rate with released fish which i'm sure there is a percentage ( my opinion if handled correctly would be low ) however, every year ( yep i'm bashing on about it again ) during the ammo ban in comes a net boat and strings his "shark" net along the capes in the 20's-40's, while these blokes are allowed to catch demersals and how ever many of them fall out the net or get chewed on by seals/sharks etc etc  then fuck it i'll continue to go pretty hard when i fish. I'm in a 4.2 Tinny with also not much time.

I want to be eating fresh fish a few times a week and fucked if i want to buy it..

 A couple off Dhuies first up would mean a can of red death would be on the cards. Then I would hunt other species. 

I can pick that I have a Dhuie on probably 95% of the time.....and I'm normally around 80% right when I have a Baldie on.

Nohing grates the line like a Dhuie and the thump thump thump of a Baldie is usually a dead giveaway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMhM02NT62U

 Happens quite often to us, we have lumps marked that produce dhu. What we do most the time is move off the lumps and fish the flats for a couple of baldy. Other times have just called it a day. Allways stop when a limit is met though and keep every size fish.

Once I had  dropped anchor in 10m, fishing solo dropped for a dhu and saw a heap of fish on the sounder. Next drop was double header, felt the line pop one off. Landed the second released and switched to bait casting unweighted mulie. I was trying to burly snapper bait casting still the dhu kept coming right to the boat so caught and released a bunch more before they moved off. not something I would normally do but hey there not likely to get barratrauma taking the baits right at the boat. A bit of a one off will probably never happen again. 

Took a mate back to the same spot some time latter and he landed the one with my quite distinct circle hook from the double header. 

What a nice problem to have!

When I'm solo I stick to the 28-30m line and keep fishing if I bag a dhu as I'll usually nail a blackarse on that ground and I've only had the one floater... that I know of. I fish fairly light @ 30lb so hopefully giving them the best chance to swim back.

My plan of recent times is to head to the 22m whiting patch and load up on big sandies then shoot across to better ground and by the time I've landed a demersal I'm usually pretty happy to head back in and do the school pickup and if I don't have a demersal I still have a feed.

WOW. am just waiting for the day to be faced with this dilemna :)

reckon  i would keep fishing, but change up and either trawl and sound, or go for kgs/herring or bait fish etc. either that or pull up soomewhere for a snorkelif it was nice. i agree would be a sahme to have to head home afetr an hour or 2 given the effort and anticipation/excitement of getting out!

no rules broken, and no problem with continuing fishing if I have my limit of dhus on board. 

I reckon we can call the fish correctly about 80%+ of the time, between baldies, Pinkies, and dhuies. 

We generally fish pretty light these days, so bringing them up slow happens anyway, and we have never released a fish that didnt swim off strongly. 

Interesting convo. Good that people are at least thinking about it. Few points.

there is a big difference in releasing a fish with care and without care. Hot deck, fingers in eyes and gills, full sun (fish don’t have eyelids by the way if you think about it and aren’t conditioned (Dhuies anyway) to have direct sunlight in them. Wet towel and minimal handling (even an in water dehook) increases release success.

Not having to release any is the best scenario - but can be difficult when trying to bag out.

Tag returns are in the many hundreds now demonstrating some survivability.

one mate of mine has caught the same fish four times in 28 metres. But he knows what he is doing with release.

And disagree with release weight being useless. In a fish with barotrauma they are the best option.

i cringe when I hear people bragging about catching and releasing ten in a day though.

Im not sure exactly what’s right but deliberate catch and release is not it. 

It is largely about self educating yourself on fish handling and understanding that legality and morality are not always in sync...

There always seems to be an attitude that, 'My fish are OK I know what I am doing'. I am always surprised how many people go out fishing the shelf and stay there all day, rarely takes us long to gather a bag.

I have fished all my life, a good portion of it as a commercial fisher, I do take it easy bringing them up often giving them a rest half way if suspecting an under size. Most the time fishing less than 30m. I still don't fool myself into thinking all my fish survive, reality is deeper you go a considerably larger % will die. Some species much more than others. 

Baldies are the big one, we certainly don't release them in hope of a big dhu. 100% can be expected to die after release, next time cleaning one have a look at the internal bleeding and blood clotting inside the gut cavity. 

More than happy to keep the first 2 demersals, great feed from a black arse and a baldy plus an opportunity to chase a macky or gather some whiting etc. 

The release wieght does give the fish a fighting chance, but also an out of sight out of mind feel good that the fish actually lived. 

Some one said once, limit your catch. You don't have to catch your limit to have had a good day on the water