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Sheepshead are for boy's, Goatfish are for men!

So they currently ass-u-me rec catches are between 13.7 tonnes (5%) and 27.4 tonnes (10%), who ever formulated that for the model is a g-estimating calculus genius, was it Elkana Ngwenya?

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http://www.brimbosports.com/

what u just said steveo made absolutely no sense

personally i believe it is pretty much an impossible ask to accurately estimate the recreational catch of SRL across the state. It's a big ask. So many variables - eg. for divers, in a season with plenty of great diving weather the take would be 10 fold+ compared to a season of generally shitful weather.

If they were to have a crack at it, a survey would be as good as anything. Surveying people from dive clubs (both scuba & free), fishing clubs and probably the best one of all - get more fisheries officers out in the field surveying people getting out of the water. Even doing this i'd say that a fair % of people wouldn't be honest about their take.

They're better off saving their $ and doing what they are doing now - guessing because they have absolutely NFI.

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bluedevilspear@hotmail.com

-> Good on ya though for sticking your head up and having a crack at this anyway.

A curly question - how do you get an accurate and representative sample of the recreational spearo take of SFL?

Here's a thought; how are other people doing effectively the same thing (and doing it really well)?

Then take a tip from that on what to do, and how to sell it to the public. -> How well is the duck population in Australia being managed? How are they monitoring the recreational take? Endorsements on licenses? Surveys? Etc, etc. Have you spoken to the mob in charge of doing this?

How about internationally? I've read that in North America, it's been the duck hunters who've done the most to protect and safeguard the wildfowl populations over there.

What about the deer populations? Elk, moose, geese..... the list goes on.

Is there a recreationally hunted/fished species out there that's been really well managed? If so, how did they do it, and most especially, how did they get the hunters/fishers involved?

I suspect this may well be a question Fisheries have already asked themselves, followed up on and found that other monitoring organisations are not doing things any better than they themselves are.

But who knows, I might be wrong.... the question's out there.

In answer to your own question though as to what is the general feeling about divers being required to get a rock lobster endorsement?

For myself, I'd be willing to pay a small fee ($2 to $5) for an SFL endorsement on my fishing license.

As others have remarked though, I'm not keen to see this spread to other species.

Perhaps if the fishing license cost was reduced by that $2 to $5 so the total cost of the fishing rights you've always had (assuming you tick SFL endorsement box) remains the same?

Even so, I must admit, I'm still not too keen on the idea of a paid endorsement.

As regards the other options:

- Buy tags to attach to crays once you catch them: no thanks - it's a hassle, especially if you lose your tags or forget to bring them. Doubly so if you're fishing somewhere remote with no chance of acquiring more tags.

- Dive store survey: happy to do that, but as I rarely visit dive stores (get most of my equipment through the dive forums), a survey in fishing stores too would be needed to cover people like me (I do at least visit a fishing store once a year to renew my fishing license - although I must admit, my next licence renewal will be for a multi-year licence).

- Phone survey amongst all fishers with a rec fishing licence: happy to do that as long as it's outside of business hours -> how about if the fisher gets an initial call and arranges with the surveyors on a date and time to do the full survey?

- Boat ramp/creel survey: sure.

- Diver diary: sure. Have actually had a few ideas on this kind of thing recently.

Roamin are you Jazzbox???

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Like a farken underwater ninja!

The fish were blinded by overexposure to his pure awesomeness!

wtf?????

No.

What brought about that comparison?

I do have too much time on my hands though, so my posts can get pretty lengthy.

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Il mio mare e i miei fondali sono quelli del golfo de La Spezia

Hahaha, just the long opinions and questions! I thought maybe he'd pulled his head in and come back! Don't take it in a bad way, just had slight undertones of him. No problem with you whatsoever! Actually do feel bad for the comparison, was all about size not quality!

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Like a farken underwater ninja!



The fish were blinded by overexposure to his pure awesomeness!