I listened to Minister Punch on the radio yesterday morning state that “no one had provided him a solution”.  I find this statement hard to believe as there are alternate solutions, you just need to have an open mind and evaluate them properly. 

From my reading of the situation, a potential solution is: 

1. Determine and create fish sanctuary zones for the purpose of protecting demersal scalefish breeding areas in the West Coast Bioregion;
2. Divide the West Coast Bioregion into geographic zones (North, Central and South?) and examine the breeding biology of demersal scalefish within each zone, with a view to imposing total commercial and recreational fishing bans as required to protect breeding stock (breeding times can vary over a 900km distance);
3. Change current regulations to minimise overall mortality to demersal scalefish from recreational fishing (bag and size limits, minimising barotrauma – conduct education campaigns);
4. Provide resources to properly quantify recreational catch (reporting methods), and increase Fisheries active enforcement of regulations (officers need to be seen – relevant data could also be collected by officers).
5. Review the current research program by Fisheries to ensure that all key indicators of demersal scalefish populations are measured with certainty, before introduction of “blanket” bans; and
6. Provide “adaptive” fisheries management strategies to aid demersal scalefish population recovery, noting that populations have been recovering over the last 10 years. 

This is just an initial view, but may be worthy of further discussion and action?

 Well the council have done it again. They must have some of the dumbest engineers in Australia working for them They have put a cross walk between the two foot path terminations. No thought gone into it. Not a single thought of the blind sopts that you have reversing your boat down the ramp and they have not taken the two big signs on either side of the ramp head. They have also put a launch and retreive sign painted on the concrete< launch on the west side and retreive on the east side. To bad if there is a strong sea breeze blowing and it keeps pushing the back of your boat onto the rock at the edge of the ramp. I have on two occasions asked to have a physical barrier to be put up so that bike riders and predestrans have to slow down before stepping onto the ramp area. What is work with tese highly educated UNiversity graduates that don't see the potentual danger of what they have in place,this is to say nothing of the potential conflit that is bound to occur when the cray run starts and ther are heaps of boats going in and out of the ramp.

Any thoughts on the subject 

Enjoy 

If we are going to post comments about Covid or vaccines, then maybe it should (again) have it's own forum/thread instead of junking up the fishing proposals thread.

The decreased Case Fatality Rates (CFR) over the years is clearly due to the less deadly strains of Covid and less to do with vaccines.
Any analysis of the data that includes dates, variant, cases, death, vaccinated status numbers clearly shows this.
The unvaccinated CFR's have also dropped from those early days of the Alpha Variant of 3%+ to now be below 0.5% (due to Omicron variants being less fatal)

If the vaccines are so effective, why are people still not queuing up for their boosters that they require at least every 6 months to be effective?
The simple answer is because the mandates are no longer forcing/coercing people to get jabbed against their will.
At the start of 2022, there was a period when Australia was averaging over 250,000 doses a day.
We are now down below 20,000 doses a day.

It appears that now people are allowed to make their own informed consent decisions about whether to get doses/boosters or not, they are choosing not to.
To me that either says people do not believe the boosters are effective enough to justify another shot or they only got those shots earlier because they were pressured to do so.

Hey guys just got into karratha for 2 weeks and looking to do some fishing, more than likely gonna hit the causeway this weekend but 

was wondering if there was anyone going out and needed a deckie, happy to chip in for fuel and bait all good either way, any suggestions

where to go landbased too would be great, mainly just going to be using lures.

Cheers

 Hi all, 

I am perhaps looking for some motivation and or advise and I know this questions has probably been asked but cannot find anything relevant for the moment. 

I just came back from a 2 week trip to exmouth having a great time casting lures, trolling and diving the islands as per some of the pics attached. Also managed to find some great ground for a few muddies. Couple of cobia and macks coming up as well so all in all had a awesome time enjoying the feel of something pulling the line on the other side. Over the last couple of trips telling up the fuel bill has been somewhat of a headache running a older 140hp Mariner 2-stroke on the boat and constantly have to lug one or two jerry cans with me when travelling a little furter than the normal. 

I have been looking at upgrading to a new Suzuki 140 as 2nd hand motors seems to be rediculously priced and supper hard to find. Current quotes are sitting at 24k and a second quote at 26k fitted with the 140bgx with all the controls and upper spec gauges etc. Approx brakedown is $19000 - Motor/ $4000 controls and gauges/ $2000 fitment. 

Does this seem to be a reasonable/expected price with a waiting time of 6 months or am I getting smoked. Happy to hear your thoughts on any of the above and if it is worth spending this much money for the benefits of a 4-stroke. 

Happy fishing

 Any recommendation for someone supplying cheap marine ply? Preferably in northern suburbs. Just need couple of 2440 X 1220 X 9mm sheets. Thanks all.

Enjoy 

well.. just when I thought i'd seen it all...

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

 I've asked this question before and still can't really get my head around it. Kalbarri to Augusta is around 880kms. Why can't this be split in 3? The argument is you are only moving the problem to the next zone! We've seen by the take up of the petition that a huge majority of fishers are pretty bloody lazy! 18,000 signatures out of a few hundred thousand fishers in the zone. Do we think those people are gonna be motivated enough to travel a couple of hundred kilometres to go fishing for a few fish? Yes there will be weekends away planned (could be better for tourism) but there won't be the ease of just driving to the local boat ramps. Wouldn't mind hearing some thoughts on why it can't happen? I assume it's harder to manage more zones but will it make it easier for better research and samples? 

 Hi all. Im looking for a replacement tilt motor or my 20 year old Yamaha. Any recomendations about who I could see to get the correct part. Tilt motor off. Live 200km north of perth but coming to big smoke soon

 Hey fellas just seeking some advice on a new transducer. I use furuno 588 with p66 in the say 40 - 70m with good results but looking to head wider to the 2 - 300 m shelf. Will be transom mount so what type and a fair estimate of $$ I should expect.also should I still use the p66 for the shallower fishing. Cheers

 Hey guys does or has anyone ever fished or know if yellowfin whiting inhabit the Leschenault estuary in Australind?

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8e3b32

Enjoy 

 Hey team,

Taking the misso to kalbarri next week wondering how the river fishing has been. Is it worth taking the crabs nets up this time of year or wasting my time? 

Still rewiring the boat and onto the switch and VSR which I had installed by a boat mech.

He has wired the positives to position 1 and 2 on the 4 way switch using 30a cable but looking a diagrams I should have it wired to the positive of each battery.

Should I replicate whats been done or run positive wires to the batteries? At the moment it's running 30a to 115a battery cable...

I think I've come to the answer typing this but keen to hear thoughts.

 I was heading out from bent street a week ago just as two blokes came in. looking into their boat it was hard to miss the jumbo crays they had in a tub. they had been diving out in the 32 meter mark and reckond there were a heap of them out. the said they had seen about 500 jumbo crays.

they are ashit load braver than me, there are some really big bitties out there, whites as well as tiger and bronzies. Good luck to them.

i sure as hell don't need crays that bad.

Enjoy 

 
the issue was a faulty isolator and the batteries was not holding a charge, all good now and motor started first kick without the choke and seemed to have more power with new batteries, thanks to everyone especially wifecallsmegrumpy 

Cheers

Hi Guys my Johnson 140HP 4 stoke aka Suzuki has lost power to the ignigtion and to the tilt/trim, power to the accesories is OK, I've check every fuse I can find including the one's in pic located in the motor and the someone has suggested the Power Harness Fuse, can some point me in the right direction ( or post a pic ) where this fuse could be located ? 

TIA

Cheers

Removing everything makes huge difference . Wait for mine to be done . Have a look ( only near rocko hospital) new LED lights all new fittings on way .pool about 46 thou litres

 Hi evcery one we are heading to Augsta in mid Otober taking a 3 mt poly mainly chasing flaties and Whiting any sugestions Thanks 

Hey all

 A mate was fishing out of Thursday Island over the weekend. He had just caught a tuna and was bleeding it off the side of the boat when a couple of sharks decided to remove the head and gut cavity of the tuna leaving the best part of the fish ( pretty thoughtful of em I do believe ) They were pretty worked up and had a go at the leg of his donk too.

Can anyone report on the clarity of the water just out of the heads? Is it still brown?

Whats looking better north or south?. 

Cheers 

Hi guys,

I'm heading to Ledge Point in a week or so with the missus and kids with the caravan and I'm thinking of bringing my 3.75m tinny also. I'm interested in squidding with the young fella and maybe catching a dhuey in close if I get lucky. Is it worth taking a tinny there and any tips for areas to target for squid?

Thanks guys.

Hi guys,

I use an elite 12 ti for navigation only. Two problems I have recently had and wondered if anyone else has had same / similar problems?

- sometimes maps don't load properly (all the contours / depths) have to keep turning off and on until they do. This is a pain in the arse when your trying to navigate out through the reef

- yesterday after deleting a waypoint my trails decided to delete aswel and did not restart. This made it difficult to set a drift. When into settings and trails were still turned on. Flicked on / off, restarted sounder but no luck. 
 

maybe my unit is just cooked 

cheers

Won’t be cheap to replace. Hole bottom of 3 rd step .bugger . I got 16 years out of it . Was full, 2.5 hours later lost 3 feet In depth

 Happy to squid, fish fish for pinkys etc, will pay my way

Anybody bothered targeting the

robust or common name storm

Gar . Obviously the southern is

still protected . Been seeing a heap

lately might have a crack at them .

cheers pirate..