New Marine reserve

[Guest]

Hooray

 

http://northchamber.co.nz/imagelibrary/100775.pdf

[Guest]

http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/news/ ... g/1022898/

[banaari 27]

Excellent, and about time.

[wheels 543]

Good step in the right direction, but I have one issue with it. 10 Fin fish is still rediculously too much.

 

Actually I have two issues with it. A comment in the article and I also heard on TV the othernight.

Global fisheries are in terminal decline -

1 - Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna now an endangered species

2 - Pacific Salmon are in broad decline

3 - Present exploitation patterns are unsustainable

4 - Once a fishery is depleted it does not recover - Atlantic blue cod fishery has never recovered

5 - Est. that the world will run out of commercial seafood by 20485

That's not quite entirely true. Yes some fisheries are getting a hammering and some fisheries have gone and I personally believe Global fisheries are under strain, but to say they are Terminal is not correct. The comment I heard on TV took this view one step further in misquoting and said that all Fish would be gone within the next 50yrs.

Now the danger in this kind of view is that you have an extreme that ends up as

a. untruthful, and thus people then doubting further information when indeed that info is infact true.

b. that the opposition, the commercial side, can then play on that untruth and use it as ammo in their side of the argument.

[Guest]

Might be a bit early for hurahhs but I hope it comes through. If a success maybe more areas will go this way too.

[Guest]

An admiral idea and I hope it comes off.

 

But you do have to laugh at that presentation, she's a tad dodgy. Most of it's sources are rather old and it targets the commercial fishos for the boot when very very little commercial fishing happens there anyway. Most of the boats have left the area due to a huge infestation of snapper, which only a couple of 1-2 man little baby boats have quota to catch. Also the major beneficiaries of this plan, land based locals aside, are other commercial fishing enterprises which often target species known to have issues like big Tunas, sharks and assorted billfish. Also the idea is to increase a very popular northland tourist activity, which is fishing. Knot sure how taking a dozen or 2 at most probably (even though the presentation says only 4 people) commercial fisho people off the water and replace them with 100's of people fishing quite stacks up.

 

Another interesting thing is it Quotes Leigh reserve a lot. It also says the fish migrate from that a lot. You go sit 100mts outside the Leigh limits and count the fish then go do it 100mts inside the boundary. Yes some do wonder off but your tally from the above exersize will show fish aren't stupid so the number on the inside count will be far far larger than the outside count. The fish are aware of where the boundary is and that on the outside of it are sharp things waiting for their mouth.

[Guest]

Good step in the right direction, but I have one issue with it. 10 Fin fish is still rediculously too much.

 

Actually I have two issues with it. A comment in the article and I also heard on TV the othernight.

Global fisheries are in terminal decline -

1 - Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna now an endangered species

2 - Pacific Salmon are in broad decline

3 - Present exploitation patterns are unsustainable

4 - Once a fishery is depleted it does not recover - Atlantic blue cod fishery has never recovered

5 - Est. that the world will run out of commercial seafood by 20485

That's not quite entirely true. Yes some fisheries are getting a hammering and some fisheries have gone and I personally believe Global fisheries are under strain, but to say they are Terminal is not correct. The comment I heard on TV took this view one step further in misquoting and said that all Fish would be gone within the next 50yrs.

Now the danger in this kind of view is that you have an extreme that ends up as

a. untruthful, and thus people then doubting further information when indeed that info is infact true.

b. that the opposition, the commercial side, can then play on that untruth and use it as ammo in their side of the argument.

 

 

I agree with you wheels in regards to some of the facts that they have gotten wrong. While some species are under huge threat, others are thriving (but not enough). I would love to see this park go ahead and New Zealand needs more of them I say. How Awesome would it be that in 5 years New Zealand had the best fishing in the world (not to say that we dont already have great fishing).

[darkside 61]

The changes in fish stocks from this proposal being implemented would be very slow.

The avearge recreational catch would be way less than 10 a day anyway and as stated the commercial pressure in this area is low anyway.

You can't compare the results of "no take" reserves like Leigh to "please don't catch too many" areas like this.

[Jon 360]

Only one thing wrong with it in my opinion

Should be fron Cape Brett to Cape Colville including Barriers and Mokes

[wheels 543]

When we had the start of the debarcle in the Sounds several years back now, they looked very carefully into the difference in Commercial Quota and recreational catch. Now the one real plus with the Sounds arguments is that we have some Commercial fish'os that are top blokes and very much on the side of conservation. The figures were tallied and it came out that Recreational was taking far far more tonnage of fish than Commercial quotas were.

I have been stunned by the number of boats fishing out in the Gulf on a nice day and if you times all those boats by the possible catch limit, that is a collosal number of fish being taken out of the area each day and for that matter, per year. And that is the boats out there. Look at how many line the shores with Rods also. I think the limit is rediculous and needs to be dropped.

Plus, there does seem to be an over abundance of snapper out there. Or is there???? Is it that there are lots of snapper, or that there is a lot less in the way of their own Food species to eat, that they take the hooks so readily. I think we have a real concern in the imbalance of fish species out there and too much of one or not enough of another can really have a major implication on the entire Ecosystem.

[ERSATZ 2]

It would be good for recreational fishers.

[Guest]

I'm with Danaide, particularly if you look into that document and check the economic input of 1 fish caught recreationally vs one caught commercially. It makes sense to close all commercial fishing from North Cape to Tauranga.

[Guest]

I'm with Danaide, particularly if you look into that document and check the economic input of 1 fish caught recreationally vs one caught commercially. It makes sense to close all commercial fishing from North Cape to Tauranga.

 

and then 90 mile beach on the west coast. I hate it when the commercial fisherman go and clean areas out of fish just before Christmas and new years leaving hardly anything behind.

[DrWatson 380]

I'm interested in what appears to be the imbalance of fish species in the gulf and broader environment.

 

While I'm sure there are still other fish out there, it seems that if you put a line over, 99 times out of 100 the bait will be taken by a snapper. In the last 5 years I've caught nothing but snapper aside from 1 gurnard in Man o' War bay, and a large feisty kahawai while anchored for the night in Little Hekerua.

 

Everything else has been snapper, regardless of where I'm fishing, how I'm fishing (position in water column), bait choice, line colour, type of explosive...

 

In the same manner that we can get "Kina Barrens" if there are not enough predators to control the prickly little buggers, how does the apparent huge population of snapper affect the viability of other fish populations?

They're not out there chasing down mullet and pilchards, but grinding through the mollusk base I guess, but is there a link in the web that's broken and we're missing it?

 

Perhaps Grinna has some ideas to go with this?

 

Any Marine reserve is a good idea though.

[Grinna 2]

Dr W, the prevalence of snapper as a caught species in the Hauraki Gulf is partly due to snapper themselves, partly the habitat and partly due to fishing activity knocking out other species.

 

We'll start with the controversial one first. A few years ago now, there was some talk about bringing in a quota for kahawai. Kahawai has never been a commercially targetted species ... if anything its been a bycatch and a sport fish for recreational fisherpersons. When the quota talk came about all of a sudden the commercial bods started catching kahawai like it was going out of fashion. They didn't have a market for it, but they wanted to establish a history of catching kahawai so they would then be allocated quota based on their catch history. Kahawai got hammered all of a sudden and most of it got turned into pet food or fertiliser because there really wasn't a market for it. There was a huge decline in kahawai numbers in the Hauraki Gulf as a result and stocks have still not recovered, though things are improving slowly.

 

The Hauraki Gulf as habitat is pretty good for snapper. Its reasonably shallow, reasonably protected and there's a good and varied food supply for snapper. Snapper tend to be pretty aggressive and will go after bait readily and generally fairly aggressively. They will generally get to a bait before something like a blue cod will and they tend to be the dominant daytime predatory and generalist fish species on a variety of habitats (reef edge, worm beds, shellfish beds, etc). You do catch other fish ... or at least I tend to and I'm not doing anything special. Species like John Dory are always going to be much lower catch rate fish because they're a higher order predator that cruises quite specifically around reefs looking to ambush small fish. There are a bundle of other fish species about that you're not likely to catch. Species like butterfish, red moki, hiwihiwi, spotties, leatherjackets, demoiselles all hang around rocky reef areas during the day but you won't catch them ... at least not on gear that is good for snapper.

 

We tend to fish quite conservatively and in a fairly old school manner .... ledger rigs with 2 or 3 5/0, 6/0 or 7/0 circle hooks and we've been using pilchards or squid for bait. We'll get snapper, but we also get the odd tarakihi and we've caught kahawai on a ledger rig with bait. We've caught dogfish in Sergeant Channel. Just recently we've been investigating fishing without bait ... using sabiki rigs to catch bait fish, soft baits, lures, flashers etc. Mixed success is probably the way to describe that. When there are bait fish about the sabikis work well and its great to be able to stick out a live bait on a stray line rig and wait for something big to come along. The soft baits haven't been so successful for us, but we're still experimenting.

 

If you want to catch gurnard, you really should be looking at the Manukau or Kaipara. Different type of harbour, different habitat, more suitable for gurnard. Interestingly, you'll get snapper in the Manukau, but not as big as in the Hauraki .... and the Manukau has had significantly less commercial (and recreational) fishing pressure than the Gulf has had.

[John B 106]

I seldom go fishing, I go boating and if I get a fish, thats great.

I've noticed a lot of Kingies over the last couple of years. Remember 2 or 3 years back there were a lot of bred juveniles released up the coast at various spots... I think thats had a big effect.

I caught a Porae this year! thats a first for me. Funniest damn thing. I saw it under the boat in 10 metres. basically I bounced the softbait on its head until it got p'd off enough to bite it.

I still thought it was a snapper right up until the kids started commenting on its colour and pectoral fins.

[Old Girl 0]

Wheels I agree, stock decline is not always a case of over fishing. I see quote states Salmon in broad decline. Was thinking Salmon fishing in Dunedin Harbour a fun thing to do as the water cools. Sadly it seems the harbour is now over run by huge Barracouta. Salmon wouldn't stand much chance against them would they? Yesterday fishing in the harbour I had around 20 hookups in just a couple of hours, place is teaming with them. Or has the harbour always been a home of the Barracouta because of the Salmon? Once the Salmon go do the Barracouta, food for thought but not my table ......)

[wheels 543]

Barracouta is a big problem around the top of the South too. I haven't seen any here in the Gulf yet. Maybe they are a Colder water species.

[Guest]

Barracouta is a big problem around the top of the South too. I haven't seen any here in the Gulf yet. Maybe they are a Colder water species.

 

 

winter , back of the barrier, puka fishing......they'll find you

[Old Girl 0]

Few years back I caught one between Tiri and Rangitoto, not as large as these southern ones and the dorsal fin for memory was not as large. Anyway they must be wide spread. Likely would be effecting fish stocks if numbers have increased or did increase, perhaps far more than recreational fishermen? Great to have more reserve areas, good move thats for sure is my thinking.