Thanks, John, for alerting us to this new research; : termed buccal venting and involved piercing the everted stomach protruding into the buccal cavity or out of the mouth with a 16-gauge hypodermic needle (a practice previously not encouraged).

I've been spouting the previous wisdom ie not encouraging.

Science never stands still, huh? (Josh W, as a qualified marine biologist, knows this; my son NJay as a qualified marine ecologist keeps reminding me...)

seems to me that the higher the size limit the more mortality.Lots of anglers will be returning more sub 30cm snapper in the quest for plus 30 cm fish. Some of those will not survive. A fish that is caught and handled has a chance of not surviving.

Dont think for one minute the size increase was done for you ,or the benefit of the fishery or any other reason to enhance stocks. This will increase mortality. Plain and simple.

It was a resource grab.  Take from one group and give to another. Commercial 25 cm ,recreational 30cm. Makes the concept of a shared fishery a sham.

Sometimes one sees things in a clearer way . Saw this last week. Walked into Coles in westfield  bondi junction,Sydney. And here they were . Whole N.Z snapper. Gutted and scaled,for $21.95 KG. Not one of those fish were over 30cm. All around 27-29cm. Being bought by strangers in another country, while we at home are not allowed to keep those fish
While i dont have a problem in export of fish ,this seemed wrong,in that the week before had a lean day in the gulf,and came back with hardly a feed . Returned some fish 28-29 cm. I am not allowed to keep them ,yet strangers in a another country are allowed to buy them. WHY ??

This size increase makes a mockery of MPI and a mockery of recreational. It is a bad move. Will not benefit the fishery one bit,will see some charter boats possibly go to the wall. So much for govt supporting small local business.
MPI and the govt are meant to be our servants. We pay their wages.  They obviously dont represent us or our interests in this case. Their needs to be accountability for this decision. So far there has been none. This decision,it would seem, was for the elite few & no one else .

the elite people that mouthed off about i dont take anything under 30cm is what caused the problem cirrus,
MPI saw this as a great chance to put us in a different category which was perfect for the Commercial sector,
well they got their wish and we are stuck with it...  

there is no way we will ever get the Comm's to come to the party as smaller are better in there quest to supply the market,
plus until they change their way of trawling the capture of such small fish will continue, so better they make use of them than throw them back dead i guess,

how many big snapper die after release is not such a problem as they are few and far between...