Update from Jeff Romeril

Swordfish

Commercial Tuna boats of plague portion have invaded the East Coast ports of Northland chasing Bigeye Tuna following the closure of the Bluefin fishery for three months. This has given cause for irate charter boats skippers to contact the council and vent their ire. Tuna boats only mean one thing to them, more Swordfish being illegally targeted from their preferred fishing grounds. They have good reason to be angry, at a recent pelagic working group meeting hosted by the ministry we witnessed a new twist in the message of denial from Tuna operators. Company operators openly accusing others of Swordfish targeting. A breakdown of the normal solid line we normally encounter. More evidence of illegal targeting was flashed before us on a table presented on an overhead slide by a ministry contract representative. The table strangely was missing from our individual handouts. In the mass of numbers lay a telling statistic. The catch per unit effort of Swordfish had gone up 10 fold in the last three years. Basically commercial tuna fishermen now find 10 times more swordfish on their line for on the same numbers of sets, than they did 3 years ago! Hard to swallow? You bet, and acknowleged by the ministry representative as the result of probable swordfish targeting.

But help and a word of small comfort to the charter boat captains is at hand. Following our last approach to the Minister of Fisheries some action is imminent. He states “Given the rapid rise in swordfish landings, I acknowledge that there is a need to determine stock status, and to develop a management strategy for swordfish as soon as possible. Indeed, this would be consistent with the precautionary approach as espoused by the Information Principles from section 10 of the Fisheries Act 1996” With the minister now acknowledging the problem the first step in the right direction has been taken. While he talks of stock assessments in conjunction with Australian researchers and reviewing sustainability measures, we are calling for better observer coverage of the fleet and interim control measures until that research is completed.

Old Man and the Sea

This is one of the most prestigious NZBGFC trophies awarded annually. Donated by film magnate Jack L Warner of Warner Brothers fame to the council in 1958 to commemorate the movie of Hemingway’s famous book. Fittingly the trophy is awarded to the most meritorious catch each year as decided by an appointed panel of three judges. This year’s winner Graeme Sinclair had to under go an exhausting three night ordeal of drift fishing for the targeted Swordfish but instead catching and releasing numerous XOS Makos and Bronze Whalers. On the third night success was at hand when Graeme struck a Swordfish at 2.20am. A well-known television fishing program presenter, Graeme also suffers from Multiple Sclerosis disease that confines him to a wheel chair as he has very little mobility from the waist down. Special procedures were adopted that allowed him to conform to all IFGA requirements when fishing.

A long fight developed and I use the words of the boat Captain who described it as follows. “The 2 hour 40 minute battle was tough, slow and never give me an inch affair. Graeme showed signs of fatigue in the last hour, but with plenty of encouragement from his team and also signs that whatever was on the other end was starting to wear out the same as him, so who was going to give in first? Like the old Man and the Sea himself, he endured pain, blisters, fatigue, but he showed the gritty determination that Old Man of the Sea had, to finally win the battle.” And the trophy as well as the satisfaction of successfully angling the sought after Swordfish that weighed 164.4kg on 37kg line, which only a select few kiwi anglers each year can claim.

Fishing in NZ hugely popular

A freshly released report on a survey of recreational fishers in NZ has raised the previously accepted number of fishers by 40% who have fished at least once in the last 12months. The survey counted 1.4 million marine recreational fishers of all ages and they carried out 14 million fishing trips in the year prior to the survey. To put it succinctly that is one hell of lot of fishing and money spent into the economy for recreational pleasure.