Hi all, as you can tell by the name 'fishwife' ,I'm a fisherman's wife but try not to hold that against me,lol. I have a question for recreational fisherman, what do you think of the shared fisheries proposal? I have a pretty good handle on the commercial side but I'm keen to know how recreationals feel about it. How do you think it will affect you? What is your view on how it could affect the commercial boys?

So noyone else has an opinion?

Well you may be surprised to hear that I agree with a lot of what you posted. Please note at present quota is a property right which is bought sold and leased on the open market. A simple way of ascertaining a fair market price would be to take the average price over the last year to avoid the big boys upping the value.

Thanks Smudge, the recreationals aren't the only complacent ones, too many small guys in the industry leave it up to the big boys and don't talk to anyone about what is going on.  I think this is half the reason when the public think 'commercial' they think of only the big boys and not the owner operator who has a mortgage etc same as everyone else. Generally I think the public know very little about the qms and how it works but noyone does anything about it. I had to explain to a guy the other day how qms works he thought it was a free for all and that the qms only tracked what was caught- no wonder he was so anti every boat with a number on the side.

I don't have any accurate figures but I'd say 90% would be pretty accurate, Almost all the deepwater quota is held by big companies, and the inshore quota is getting that way too. Aotearoa have just had a spending spree in our area and are now the major quota owner here. The big boys have the money so noyone new can afford to get into the industry other than catching someone elses quota, therefore they set the prices etc but the little guy still carries the can so to speak.

finally a good forum on this subject with veiws from 2 sides,except from the corperate side as they are too busy making a dollar to care,im in sydney for personnal reasons only ,i love nz and cant wait to get back cos the sea is so polluted round here,i worked for sealord for a season as some may know and lived on the west coast were alot of my mates worked for (and shafted by)sanfords, i met a woman here in sydney a few weeks ago who was going to register her daughters with ngai tahu because her great grand father was of that decent because she believed they would financially benefit from their fisheries interests,the other half owner of sealord is the japanese who continue to illegally plunder the oceans of whales,i dont know about any of the new fishing rules over there but customry ,small commercials and rec fishermen will never be the main problem,

Two comments, one charter fishing operator's do not 'catch fish'.  In fact there are no such beasts as 'charter fishers'.  Charter operators sell a service and an experience, and they do not own any of the fish taken on the vessel or landed as it's all caught under the rec limits, the charter boat takes passengers to spot a or spot b for a good day out and to possibly catch a feed or battle with sportfish if all goes to plan.  It's the same as a travel company taking a group overseas, when you get back you can 'land' or take an x amount of piss and fags through customs each.