Have SEQ species changed or do we just fish differently?

[Huxstang]

Didnt want to take over someone else thread, but the discussion re grunter is and example of discussions I have had with friends.

Winding the clock back to the mid 90’s and we used to hear about the odd threadfin being caught in the northern reaches of the passage but usually if you wanted to catch them you were going to Maryborough.  Now without saying they are now common place there are certainly good schools of them around the estuaries.

Grunter - now there is a fish I thought was really only ever up north.  Its interesting to see the sizes of these being caught - heck a 50cm specimen up north is a good fish and here we are with 60cm fish.

Nannies, coral trout and red emperor…..yes normally just small but are they more prevalent?

So is it just that the internet has opened up more discussion about what is caught and they were always around or is the warming trend of the east coast current bring warmer climate fish further down south.

Or even the reduction in commercial fishing and fairly strict size and bag limits for rec fishers increasing the numbers to the point that they are observable.

As a second point could it that nannies and reds in these southern waters are just a product of the current and as they grow migrate north for warmer waters?

Anyway its an interesting thing.

[mangajack]

Good topic....leaves me with mixed feelings on todays fishing.

Most notable fish changes I have noticed are the following:

Bream....catching genuine 1kg bream used to be normal....fish in the high 30's were normal in the 70's and 80's....biggest one I caught was 47cm but skinny as anything post spawn. In the past two years I have caught two legit 1kg bream.

Yellowtail kingfish.....in the early 80's there were large schools of simply massive fish in Moreton Bay....1.2 to 1.5m fish. About mid 80's NSW had massive YTK fishtraps being used....almost wiped out the stocks migrating the coast....Have not seen one over 1.2m in decades.

Snapper....numbers have not changed much but average capture sizes are about 1/2 the size of the 70's is most areas I have fished. Interestingly snapper were either bait or trolled hard bodies back then and plastics didn't work well....plastics have taken over, but I have noticed a bit of decline in the past 6 years in two places that hold decent fish....bait is still catching the same amount.

Sharks....seasonal for me and I didn't target them too often but I don't see the numbers of sharks I used to in the 70's and 80's.....I remember seeing them in the hot water outlet of the power station in frightening numbers, dozens visible any time of the day or night.In the Bribie Passage we used to lose decent snapper and jew to sharks fairly regularly back in those days...I have lost fewer than 5 fish in the past decade to sharks. I know lots of guys have real problems with them these days, but I just don't have the issue enough to bother me.

Gold spot cod......they are bloody tiny these days on average. I could manage 80cm cod every run to the port in the 80's....a 50cm cod now is noteworthy.

The biggest changes though are fishermen and women.....numbers are simply massive now and lots of those are decked out with high tech sounders and GPS units....Sure most don't use them well but still quite a lot use them effectively and catch lots of fish.....and this brings forward the next point.

Fish education.....catch and release might be good for fish stocks but it does educate them about the lures or baits we use. The "in" lure to use today gets flogged in the faces of the fish so much they learn to not touch that lure. Now catch and release is essential for all undersized fish and I fish myself also selective of the size of fish I will harvest.....I will not take snapper under 50cm for example....so I am guilty of educating the fish with the lures I use too.

I recently dug out an old lure box from the 80's....I will be giving these lures a run heavily over this winter to see how they go.....will let you know.

Also of note here is the environment.....it has changed massively in a lot of places, some better and some worse. In the 80's Redcliffe tides ran south for the incoming and north for the outgoing all the way up to Scarborough reef and probably beyond....todays water movement is a slow constant southward current and no north movement at all....This occurred with building Fishermans Island at the Port. The reefs off Redcliffe are well silted these days as well.

Water quality of the Brisbane River is far better today than in the 80's up to Breakfast Creek....not much data outside of that though.   We had regular droughts back then as well....salinity levels were higher then than in the past 15 years with the constant flushes happening.....results show in the captures.

In the mid 80's there was a quite severe drought where we saw lots of fish that were normally offshore being caught inshore. Pearl Perch land based around the Tweed and on the sunshine coast headlands....spanish mackerel in Bramble Bay...cobia at Dohles Rocks....YTK at Shorncliffe pier.

 

[Huxstang]

I definitely agree to the fish getting wise on what not to touch…at least the older bigger ones.   

I wasnt fishing down in Brisbane in the 70’s or 80’s, we were in Bundy and havent fished up there since we left so it is great to get some perspectives on things.

There is no doubt there is significant fishing pressure but I imagine the actual take would be less that it was - I mean Dad and I used to bring home 100 whiting or bream in a session back in the day.  It was fill that basket and feed the family fish until next trip, no one even thought the numbers could reduce.  I do feel confident that bag limits and a lot better educated people about sustainability is doing a lot of good.

[ellicat]

I remember @Andrew_P telling us that Moreton Bay is a good place to raise the kids as it is full of nutrients, so that is why we find a few of the more northern species showing up here.

@crazywalrus has caught Nannygai in the Bay at least 10 years ago. I have been hearing of northern species being caught in and around the Bay for quite a while. I have a spot on the southern end of the Sunny Coast where we regularly get undersize Red Throat Emperor, although last time @benno573 managed a 46cm version.

Perhaps due to the extra people fishing, since every man and his dog bought a boat during the Covid years, and the proliferation of fishing pages on Facebook are combining to highlight more that these northern species are caught locally. From my observations of social media, Peel Island seems to throw up more than its fair share with crayfish, Coral Trout and Nannies.

Maybe these fish have been local in greater numbers in the past, but with less fishers and no real means to communicate the catch, or even a reluctance to divulge, we never heard about them. No doubt technology is playing its part also.

[mangajack]

Around 1986 I got to read a fishing journal from a elderly fellow that had recently died then. He lived at Shorncliffe and noted the fish he caught after work several days a week to feed his family from the late 1800's to about 1960ish. He seldom got days off work where he could go fishing for a day.

Snapper bream and mackerel were commonly caught...flathead were mentioned every week or so but not as common as snapper and bream. Mackerel were seasonal and he would exclusively target them when around, ignoring the usual fish. Mackerel were mainly 2 to 3 feet long.

Kingfish were a prized fish, probably because it was land based and handlined being a tough fish to land. Jewfish were known as soapies, he did not mention a large one.

Numbers of fish caught were generally about 4 to 6 fish...enough for the evening meal i guess.

Seldom did this man spend more than about an hour fishing and always land based with cat gut lines.

Baits were generally off cuts from previous captures, although he did use ox heart and liver at times.

Weed beds were thick right to the foreshore.

From memory he encountered sharks only in the summer months.

He seldom mentioned crabs....and if he did it was large numbers....potato sacks full.

Eels were commonly complained about.

Weather from what i gathered and remember reading was not unlike our weather now....droughts and floods / flushes, prolonged winds and hot or cold temps.

He noted captures declining as well.

[Huxstang]

Just went to a maritime Museum just south of Vancouver.  It is in an old cannery.  They had 25 canneries in this one area (Steveston) and this one cannery would get so many Salmon in a day (this was in the late 1800’s) so using row boats with 2 people and siene net, that the cannery would often throw thousands of dead fish back as unable to be canned in a day.  The older timers said that there were that many fish you could walk across the river ontop of the fish.  Only a 2 month operation but canned some ridiculous number like over 1million cans in that time frame.

The whole industry collapsed due to a partial blockage of the river caused a mass loss of spawning in one year.

I guess my point is that even back then the view of this unlimited resource was being learnt as not being the case.