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    Re: Food for thought Archived Message

    Posted by GaryK on 26/4/2012, 10:26 am, in reply to "Re: Food for thought"

    What do people do with the big hauls of fish we hear about from longlines? Is it just an ego trip, a chance to show off to your mates, or is it an insatiable desire to eat fish.
    Real fishermen would not be impressed.
    I hear that some of these guys give most of their fish away because they catch so much. (Ego again). Why not teach the people you give it to to catch their own? Catching a fish for dinner in Hawkes Bay is pretty easy and I guess around the country too. If you wanrt only snapper then you will be dissapointed most of the time, even with a longline. Try eating some other species. You can catch a kahawai most days, what wrong with them, poached in white wine, smoked, deepfried, made into fish cakes, curried, or any other of a hundred ways?
    Longliners need educating. We can help. Invite one to come out rod fishing with you. Tell them they can have all the fish and even tell their mates that they caught them if thats what spins their wheels. Show them that fishing can be fun and prove that some fish come in close so there is no need to be fishing way offshore. Take a photo of the look on their face when they reel in a kahawai.
    The longliners are never going to catch all the fish in the ocean but they can have a localised effect. As they learn to use the the longline in different manners such as floating a surface longline over a reef or other structure and when they learn to space their hooks (always wondered why the 25 hooks are often in the first 25 meters, do they know that they are sending the torpedo to a prearanged 25m feeding area) (maybe they do with the programmed, GPS torpedoes) to cover more fishing area then they will start to harm some individual areas where fish may localise at times, such as a nearshore reef or drop off.
    Some people probably think that they need the advantage of fishing well offshore with a torpedo (or in a boat). Good luck to them I just hope that they can see the whole picture and not just their little red flag on the horizon.

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