Plenty to talk about on this I'm sure.....

Since the size of Snapper has been decreased from 1st April how are you finding the new Regulations ???

1.. wastage, are you killing more fish by having to return to the sea that would of been legal prior to 01/04/2014 ?

2.. Would you have kept those fish if the new size had not been brought in ?

3.. Are you able to catch a feed of snapper without killing many fish sub 300 to 270

With the new season about to kick off ( when the weather allows ) Everyone will be out fishing , I'm picking this new size will result in wholesale slaughter of perfect eating fish ,Commercial are allowed to keep from 25cm
We Recreational fishers could now be classed as bad as Commercial for wastage ( but in fact worse as they keep the sizes we throw back...

How many hundreds of tonns increased wastage is this new size adding to an already stressed fishery ?( which was not the case in the past )

Are MPI going to further reduce our allowance because of this ?

4.. Do you think the size should be brought back down ?

5.. Should our size be reduced to 250 in line with Commercial ( thus reducing recreational wastage ) ?

Any talk about Increasing Commercial sizes could only happen with compulsory net changes !!

6.. Inner Harbour Fishers could be the ones most affected by the changes that occurred ?

Good solid feedback would be most welcome to the above

My limit has always been about 35cm. Mainly take 2-5 fish per session can't say I catch too many illegal fish and if I do its in the shallows. New rules have not affected me but I can understand why guys are still miffed at them. Commercial size should match ours in reality 27cm for all.

300mm has always been my minimum.Bag limit has never bothered me as we dont like fish that has been frozen for more than one week .Giving fish away is the best part of any fishing trip!

Size limit increase has not changed what size snapper I take home, always kept 3ocm plus anyway.
When I go fishing I take my limit of snapper more now than previous and also now seem to be utilising a bigger variety of species to supplement catch.
I fish shallow and handle released fish with care but have no idea what survival rate is...
Pretty sure the fish I release have more chance than an undersize squashed in a trawl net though.

27cm was good,the cat got a feed(fussy cats snapper only)i have found the snapper have been in the range of 29.5cm but we have not ventured to far out,but we are going deepish next 3 days good or bad weather we are going.

NUMBER OF SNAPPER TAKEN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SIZE !!!

THERE IS A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR NO MINIMUM SIZE FOR SNAPPER.

WHAT IS WORSE FOR SUSTAINIBILITY - SOMEONE TAKING 7 X 25 CM SNAPPER OR, 7 X 45 CM..

25% OF RELEASED UNDER-35CM SNAPPER DO NOT SURVIVE

Ban trawling and purse seine netting for snapper - long lines only for commercial.

I believe mortality is very much related to depth and how hooked...
So self imposed say 35 cnm fishing say 20+ means a high death/ wastage, regarles of size.
Therefore any caught over 27 cm should be kept in the bin, if blown
As it a 27 cm giving small fillets....If one takes a bit of pride in how they fillet rather than speed, a 27/ 29 gives a reasonable ladies/ child size feed.

But to legistate for depth, size etc let along enforce would be impossible.. and its a total waste of time having laws that are not enforcable  .. usually because of loop holes.

The biggest issues are the commercial regs... well the ppl who set those regs... not the commercial guys....
1/ bottom dredging trawling , descruction of feeding grounds/ spawning grounds has to stop... we are re ploughing over grounds time and again and have been for at least 50+yrs.
This destruction of shellfish grounds has resulted in the Harbour/ gulf now having a muddy , dead bottom.....And destoried all natural filtering of run offs....
2/ Run off.. not much can be done, but most of this could be taken up IF the natural filters had not been destroyed....not degraded... destroyed
3/ no quota limits on bait fish, mullet, KY , king fish....all an esentual part of an over all system

We are complaining about snapper, and other species now... YET we seem to forget these species are just the 'next in line' .....the hapuka of the back of the noises , gone, the tuna gone, the huge pipi/ cockle beds , gone, the crays, near gone... well we have already lost more than what is left

And noticed the price of fish in the last 12 months....basic law of supply and demand
Snapper has gone from just under $35/kg  to near $45/kg.....and other species not much different... except carp

Has this been happening to any one else lately? It's been happening to me a lot. Last weekend I was trying to shoot the little snaps snaps down under the boat quite quickly but the shags still got them. Weird as. Cant ever remember it consistantly happening to me before. Fishing in the Kaiaua/coromandel areas.

During November and December 1995 Project 717 study was carried out off Moturekareka Island where 216 under-35cm snapper were taken from depths of 14-20m. The fishers were local volunteers with varying experience. One group were told to handle the fish as they normally do and a second group given 'best practice' instruction, the intention to achieve a true average. The snapper were tagged then released into a large holding tank with circulating water. Every hour the fish were transported to a nearby 20mx20mx10m deep purse sein holding net situated in 15m deep water. Fish were monitored twice daily, dead fish removed and details recorded. After 15 days remaining fish were removed and assessed. 54 of the 216 caught and released snapper did not survive their injuries.

The anglers were given 5/0 Wasabi J hooks on a one-hook rig which is what most use today.

Had barbless circle hooks been used most fish would have been lip hooked and the mortality rate around 5%


Hmmmm... times have changed in 20 years.

These figures are more or less consistent with other studies, and fishing practices have changed so that far more people are using circle hooks than in earlier times. In addition, the almost universal anecdotal evidence from softbait and slow jig fishers is of pretty much entirely lip-hooked fish.

A bald statement that 25% of caught and released fish die is likely inaccurate these days. If the point of trotting out this percentage is to argue that they'll die anyway, what about the 75% that will survive on these figures?

Most of the studies have actually involved very large proportion of small snapper, such as this one with only sub-35cm specimens. On other species, size and also stress in capture and handling are also shown as determinants of mortality in catch and release. Snapper are unlikely to be dissimilar to other species.