Great to hear. I'd dare say that you're giving them the best treatment there though Paul. Any specific tips you're doing not covered in the handling booklets? I dont think they cover letting the fish vent when bringing them up. It would be interesting to know how useful/helpful giving a fish a deco stop at say 5 or 10m is.

But how do you know they're the same fish you released....do you tag them some way?

Just bringing them up slow ,and getting them back in the water as soon as posible,there is a little more to it than that but i'll tell you more in six months or so,at the moment i'll just catch and release fish and keep track of how many are recaught,letting a fish deco at 10m would help heaps .if your going to release the fish it realy wouldn't matter how long it takes to get it up .have not had to use a release weight yet .

That means there will be some for me (Lol).

Yer colin but will be some time before they are big enough to keep,the biggest so far was 600mm that was a week ago.in 32m

They are the only ones I catch anyway Paul.

We can change that hopefully,give me a yell when your ready for your trip.

Jesse sounds like he is becoming a real Ben Cropp.

we fish the same area and get a fair few little ones and really try hard if we know its not a keeper to bring em up slow as possible and get em back down asap,

we often also wont even need a release weight for the little tackers they jus go nuts straight down and yeah same spot /lump im sure we have recaught ones from earlier times but nothing definate...

there is im sure a decent school down there has been for years we call it farming for the future hehe always get a few monsters but one for the lump per day every so often has kept this going for years

havnt had the pleasure of wetting a line since the ban but good to hear that uve caught a few from earlier times,

interesting topic really cause talking with a few crew from work they are jurien local boys had a bit to do with trying to farm dhuies a few years ago they rekn any dhuies caught over 18 or so metres would die randomly even after 3months in prime aquaculture condtions?

I do believe returning a juviniule fish to its school and asap in prime condition would give it a lot better chance of survival..

 what do u rekn?

good to hear about the recatching the fish, goes to show your doing something right

good to see your research is working out as planned, nice to stick it up em when you know your right ;)

Westline I as you have lumps that dhuies come to each year,and school but some stay behind when the schools move on I just here so many thing from one person to the next ,I have and do release heaps of fish and am just courious if any do survive,It would be very disapointing to think of all the fish Iv'e released in 40years of fishing all dead.we have been seeing a lot more small fish in the last year every trip you release 3-4 under 400mm as you said these fish are the ones that do release the best.Even diving of late we have seen lots of young fish on the inside reefs,some as small as150mm.My brother in law use to have a collectors licence to catch and sell to the shops ,he only caught small fish of different species .He would put them in large bottle and hang them under the boat for a deco stops .This worked with most fish coming to the surface with no signs of baratroma.

nice 1 paul, look forward 2 your results............

definatley agree paul it would be a very dissapointing thing if all those fish over the years havnt survived i certainley havnt been fishing for as long as you but have released a fair few nice fish back down to those lumps in the last few years and many more to come i hope

Im sure many if not most of them do survive when released properly and i really look forward to your results,

interesting idea for the collecting of fish to keep alive your brother in law had not a bad one at all,

sorry for the late reply internet died very inconvinient over new years break..

Probably see ya down at the ramp one day will come and say gday,

happy fishing and tight lines :)