Posted by Philip, Dannevirke on 4/10/2007, 3:37 pm, in reply to "Re: Fishing wagons"
Guys, part of the answer to guaging our fish stocks is to establish what is caught where and when and by whom. The fisheries biologists are supposed to work out the biomass from that data (best guess I recon, and then not very accurate!) The thing that really stuffs MOF today is that they are only just realising some of our fish dont mature till about 15 years of age and dont produce a lot of eggs. Add to that the random way they spawn and the predation and over fishing, one can see how rapidly a stock can diminish, for example Orange Roughy. Go and have a look at www.fishbase.org and type in the name of a fish you like to catch and find out how quickly they reproduce and replace a given portion of their population. I was stunned and I think you will be too. I'm all for reducing the fin fish bag a little and restricting netting, but I recon some of our inshore fisheries need serious support in reducing the commercial catch. I recall a trip out of Tutukaka one time, we were off the Poor Night rise and there were hundreds of huge snapper dead on the surface, the commercial guys had high graded their catch, keeping only iki snapper, the sweet little ones, boy were we ever p'd off!! I'm going fishing now, before it's too late!! Tight lines, Philip