2 out of 3 being gobbled down by shags,
Think he's dreaming....

of2fsh wrote: 2 out of 3 being gobbled down by shags, Think he's dreaming....

Must be some very clever and fat shags just follow the Red Boats around.

Nope. My mate went out on a charter. About 100 snapper caught altogether. About 5 were big enough to keep. The rest were released - and virtually all were immediately eaten by shags. The shags just stayed beside the boat, and grabbed them before they had a chance to dive down.
Result - people kept far fewer fish than before - almost a hundred snapper died.

Agree with the charter boat man. Lots of undersize get shagged & lots of others released die anyway -shags or not.

This seems to be a problem when fishing the channels or in close to islands.

Fished wed & thursday. Wed was a tad windy ,N.E, so found shelter in close. Kept 5 fish 35-high 40s,but released some as well,mostly 28-low 30s c.m . I kept a rough note of shag damage. Around 50% of released fish that swam off quickly were shagged.

Thursday.Fished out much wider. Kept some good fish ,and released a small number just a fraction under 30cm. Didnt see a shag out there ,far from land so all good.

Came in and tried closer in near rangi on the way back. Once again shags turned up. Caught a few good snapper but also released a few just undersize. Many  were shagged. Had 7 shags around the boat at one stage. Also landed and released one shag.

Cant blame the shags . But can blame poorly thought out regulations.

Many small boats cannot fish past the channels and inner islands on most days for weather and safety reasons. They will see many fish lost this way.

A depleted fishery, like what we currently have, has lots of smaller fish. A rebuilt fishery will have a better average size fish / be made up of a greater diversity of year classes.

To rebuild the fishery will require a change of behaviour. Just as recreational fishers are looking for a change to commercial fishing methods and area exclusions, recreational fishers should also be looking at their practices and what actions might benefit the fishery. Be it moving on, methods, handling, or hook sizes. It's pretty much common sense.

Like most MPI regs, current size limits were nothing to do with productivity or reducing waste in the fishery, they were about constraining recreational catch and that "nice" word sustainability.

You can always manage a fishery sustainably using the same old bad methods such a as trawling. What the Fisheries Act, nor MPI has ever promoted, is productivity.

Watch TV3 this Wednesday evening - 3rd Degree - Michael Morrah on waste in the fishery.

This was dicussed before
And about the shags....
How to get rid of those pesky shags off the back of the boat.....
actually feed the undersized fish to them...
1/ its entertaining....fishing is hard anyway
2/ They take off and leave u to it....get rid of them
3/ an observation....we have not actually been able to hand feed the fish to the shags before, thu hesitant, they are surprisingly eager this yr.
We have kept/breed/ tamed even from wild, parrots, real parrots , big parrots for many years, so rather familar with 'body' language etc.
They are coming in to take from the hand this because are short on food , not because taming down........This is significant...we are not pulling as many small undersized fish , no where near as many , this yr....we are not seeing the schools of bait fish, as many or as big or with as big size...
We are not seeing the big  fish under these schools
The mullet, KY even snapper in the shops... in the days they get the fresh stocks in....any near as big as last yr or previous yrs.....

There is as far as I know, no historical numbers on size or quanty of fish going to market.....to make a science based judgement.... and any jugdement made by anyone regaless of experiance knowledge is unscientfic, and unacceptable.
The requirements are that one has a PhD, is a snotty noese kid out of uni with no historical experiance, little common sence if any, and gets paid big taxpayer money by the beurocratic BS deskjockeys padding the number od staff below them  to justify further salary increases.

Dont get me wrong, those front line fishery guys are experianced, and are on the ball....and get their boots dirty....I dont include or diss those guys.
And he same goes for DoC.

Thanks for the thumbs up bite time. Will be watching on wednesday.

New size limits have nothing to do with sustainability . They have everything to do with the agenda of privitisation of our fisheries, and that when you visit fish retailers overseas you can be certain to see a tray of fresh ,whole N.Z snapperthat are all under 30cm.

Saw this in Sydney recently. Undersize N.Z snapper $21.95 Kg. None over 30 cm.These are the same fish we as citizens of N.Z are being denied by legislation.

The fecundity (how many young they produce) increases exponentially in most teleost fish (snapper included) with an increase in size. As snapper have a wide range of adult sizes the population as a whole is susceptible to what is called growth overfishing, where the process of fishing reduces the average size of the population and consequently the fecundity. The reasoning behind the increase in size limits is to try combat this growth overfishing, obviously this isn't going to work if commercial limits aren't the same aswell! But as to the charter man above he seriously needs to look at where he is fishing if he is returning that many undersized snapper, very irresponsible IMHO.  

We used to keep all the little bits of scrap used bait on the boat & if shags became a problem we would toss a couple of bits in one direction & quietly release the undersized fish back into the tide on the other side of the boat. Almost always worked but if the bird got one they would always bugger off & as previously stated if all your catching is undersized fish then we would bugger off.
The rules are in place & it's now up to us all to work constructively within the rules IMO.