Tagit wrote: I think a lot of the scallop depletion is due to the governments crazy decision in 2012 to lift the TACC from 22 tonnes to 315 tonnes Supposedly the commercial boats would fish this massive wonder stock that they found deep in the gulf. Of course there are lots of scallops closer to home that don't involve travelling all that way, so first you rape all the close areas before the rec fisherman can take any when their season starts, and then you move into the deep water areas where the rec fishermen can't access the beds easily. Why would you do anything different? That's why the rec season for scallops in this area was one of the worst ever immediately after the said the stock was so abundant that they increase the commercial TACC by around 1500%. They couldn't even catch that volume, and the rape of the recreational beds was completely foreseeable, so this was just a totally ignorant bit of fisheries management. MPI at it's ludicrous best and our current government showing what it really thinks about recreational fishing. |
A time lapse recording of those boats dredging up and down all day would make a great add for someone like legasea!
Last season was by far the worst for scallops that I have encountered, of the 4 spots that I know of close to home I was unable to get my limit of scallops on a full tank. Previous seasons I could go pop down, grab my scallops and then pop back up and go and look for a cray on the same tank.
pjc wrote: is there no commercial season?as it is out of season for reccreational? |
The commercial season starts 1 month prior to the recreational season. So they get in and clean up before we get a chance to have a crack. Wont matter soon, there wont be any left.
Tagit wrote: If you are a commercial scallop dredger and you know that you will catch all your TACC within a month or two anyway you don't need to go hard at all the beds. When our MPI idiots provide you with a few 100 tonnes of free extra quota that you couldn't catch in 3 seasons let alone one, you go hard all day, every day to fill your boots. End result is that all the close in beds are completely raped by the time the rec season gets under way. What part of that wasn't completely obvious when they dumped nearly 300 tonnes of extra quota into the TACC. Answer is that it was totally obvious, but they don't give a ****. Since they can't catch it all with the current boats, look for extra boats to come into the fleet and then when the fishery starts to collapse they will reduce the recreational bag limit to help it recover. Now where have I heard that story before? |
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