Prawn trawlers in the river

[hunter armytage]

Just wondering if anyone has any first hand experience with the prawn trawlers in the river? The reason for my question is that when I use the cast net for prawns you quite often get a lot of bycatch, any thing from little bream, flaties , eels even baby threadies. I was wondering if the prawn trawlers get the same sort of by catch we do and if so what they do with it because there always seems to be a lot of gulls hanging around these boats so if they are getting a large amount of juvenile fish as by catch it would seem not are lot are making it back alive. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with them or even an opinion on what they are doing to the fishery of the river?

[nadders]

I know theres one operator using heavy mono nets which snare things alot bigger than prawns and I also know a few threadies turn up regularly at yuens market in sunnybank. not sure about the other operators but im sure steve will have something to say in here lol

cheers

Dan

[kriso]

been on the river one time with booty watchin them , every thing went into the storage tank fish and all

[Gad]

Wouldn`t be too concerned matey,it`s all those rec fisho`s who are taking all the undersize fish,and their continuous lure tolling through the seagrass and other sensitive areas,that`s buggering up our fisheries.Just ask the government and the green parties

[ellicat]

Must be sustainable as they've been doing it for years and they keep coming back.

Reports from the river (fishing-wise) also indicates there is room for both.

[tyrion]

i spent 8 mnths on a prawn trawler in north qld off york island when i was younger and as a keen fisho asked alot of questions of the dead fish and the illegally kept crays and you seem to get the same answer from most skippers (Although there are some good ones around not trying to start anything) but its a matter of "here is a bucket of concrete".

But you cant catch prawns and nothing else thats the way the job is the've made things to limit the amount of turtle and large marine animals caught in the nets but an amount of by catch is expected.

[Travis]

Dont be afraid to throw 10 balls at them when they come within 5 meters of colmslie pontoon ay wankers

[sunnydays]

I was fishing off comslie boat ramp a few weeks back as a local prawn trawler approached the floating pontoon.

He began to shovel kilos and kilos of freh live prawns and other small fish from a large 'deep freeze' looking vessel into large eskys.

I pulled my line in and inquired:

"Got a spare prawn mate?"

I didn't get a reply!

:laugh:

[rayke1938]

When I was younger (In late 40,s)there were a lot of beam trawlers operating out of Doboy,Norman, Boggy and Breakfast Creeks most of the operators were of Italian decent and you could buy fresh prawns from them.

A few of them also had small shops in the vicinity of breakfast creek.Dad always used to buy from Mellits.

I think that there is only decendants of one family still operating out of Breakfast Creek and all the other trawlers that you see just come in on a seasonal basis.

Cheers

Ray

[hooked_on_trout]

Few come from Aquarium passage, pretty low income kinda stuff, some guys I have talked to have gone out and not made enough to cover fuel.

I seen a threadie at Raptis few months ago, was on ice not gutted, It's got me stuffed why they take big fish like that and then couldn't be bothered cleaning them up for sale.

cheers

[fishguru5]

i go out on a trawler when the prawn season is on and most of the fish caught in the nets die in a matter of seconds when brought on board as they get dragged on the bottom and get crushed by masses of other stuff. bit of a shame but alot of the bycatch like that is rubbish but still they all have there place in the marine life cycle

pat

[ellicat]

hooked_on_trout wrote:

Few come from Aquarium passage, pretty low income kinda stuff, some guys I have talked to have gone out and not made enough to cover fuel.

I seen a threadie at Raptis few months ago, was on ice not gutted, It's got me stuffed why they take big fish like that and then couldn't be bothered cleaning them up for sale.

cheers

Whole fish ungutted is the new commercial method. Leaving the gut cavity intact prevents bacteria spread etc.

Also it is probably outside their licence permissions to sell fish if they are prawn trawlers.

[Keen-as-fisho]

ellicat wrote:

Whole fish ungutted is the new commercial method. Leaving the gut cavity intact prevents bacteria spread etc.

And they get more fold by leaving the guts intact :S

[thecrumb]

I worked on prawn trawlers out of Mooloolaba when i was a bit younger and it's disgusting. Every night we killed a dump truck full of juvenile fish, crustacea and other sea life. Snapper, flathead, bream, trevally, squid, octopus, small crabs and molluscs- all sorts of aquatic life was dumped in that tray in a lifeless heap- and that that did survive that wasn't a sought after creature was eaten by the sharks as soon as it hit the water.

Even though the pay was good and i could eat prawns,calamari and bugs for breakfast every day ( my mouth waters just thinking about it...) I stopped working on trawlers simply because of what we were doing. Hard work as it was- I experienced things out at sea that I could not compare to anything else, but as the avid angler I am I could not sit back and destroy something that I enjoy so much.

Turning 25 in a months time, I have been fishing now for 20 of those years- and Have watch the fishing degrade in my small lifetime. It makes me wonder just how much we have destroyed in our time here. Dont get me wrong- I still have friends and family that work in the commercial fishing industry and I still personally buy trawler caught seafood, but I cherish the day that the last commercial trawler hangs up its nets.

Lets pray for a universal Cancer cure in the mean time.

Steve

[crazywalrus]

I think we have a pretty healthy waterway in that it has been able to support both recreational and commercial fishing to date. I think the Recreational fisherman gets a bit of a bum rap and is dealt with harshly by the law if you compare the waste of juvenile fish in the nets.

I to wish for the day that the commercial fisho hangs up their nets. Surely this is not a sustainable activity in the long term as demand grows. All round the world we have commercial fish farming activities supply seafood for our tables. Maybe the focus should be on creating a viable alternative to commercial fishing in Australia and we as the public support and purchase farm grown prawns and fish. Also I have heard that the government has stood in the way of some developments. Just my opinion. cheers Ted

[hooked_on_trout]

ellicat wrote:

Whole fish ungutted is the new commercial method. Leaving the gut cavity intact prevents bacteria spread etc.

Keen-as-fisho wrote:

And they get more fold by leaving the guts intact :S

What is fold?

cheers

[Travis]

coin

[hooked_on_trout]

Travis wrote:

coin

lol, can't say I have ever heard that one.

thanks

[Keen-as-fisho]

All I ment was that they get a bit extra per kilo with the extra weight in the guts, yummy.

[Beejay]

When I used to work in the scallop industry in Melbourne, I used to unload all the scallop cages with overhead crane and release them into factory skips. There was shitloads of coral and other bottom stuff in the mi and I always seen alot of dead sea horses.

All the scallop boats always had alot of by catch which I used to get some off which included, flatehad, cod, snapper....etc...

When they closed down the Port Phillip Bay scallop fisherie, it meant lots off jobs for the fishermen in Melbourne, but on the other side of the coin, since they stopped scallop dredging the bay has repaired itself and the snapper are getting better every year down there,,,cheers Beejay