big M cod to kill or not to kill that is the quest

[kriso]

Hey fellas,

looking for you opinion, and before i proceed no such thing as a right or wrong opinion please rember that when posting.

Each month i get a couple of qld based fishing publications that put pics up of there readers great catches many of which i could only dream of catching, anyway in the sweetwater reports some huge beutiful cod are shown and alot of them arent near the water for release there back at the ramp with slit throats. Alot of people dream of catching the big M cod and arent an easy thing to get a hold of. these fish looking at there size have obvisouly been round a long long time. How do you feel about so many published pics of these slain beuties? I personally would rather see more pics of these fish going back in for release and the smaller ones maybe kept for a feed. I remind everyone that is perfectly legal for these people to catch and kill these fish and should not victimised for what they do.

Do you think the magazines should promote Catch and release of these fish by showing less pics of big cod with slit throats?

cheers Kriso.

P.S i dont know to many facts about these fish so any interesting facts would be appreciated too. cheers [img size=461]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/cod-bec6923e1c47111f0a4e2e98161ebbd6.jpg

[Angus]

I think in wild rivers fish like this should be released always.

In stocked impoundaments, such as Glenlyon I can understand if someone a fish for a feed. Apparantly they are delicious and you are paying your permits for the purpose of restocking.

I personally would (if i was lucky enough to catch one!!!!!), release it no matter where i caught it. However Im not going to crucify anyone for taking a fish (legally) from a stocked impoundment.

Angus

[Shorty]

I think you've asked a great question, and a question that a lot of us would ask ourselves each time we catch a "special" fish, whether that is a big Murray Cod or any other fish. Personally, while the law says I can keep a fish up to a certain size doesn't mean that I have to keep it - it just means I have a choice, and just because I would choose to give the fish a kiss and put it back into the water, it doesn't mean that the next person who catches that same fish will do the same thing.

Shorty

[Zim man]

Firstly i practise catch and release religiously and if i am ever lucky enough to land a trophy cod, a photo is all i need. I feel that a fish like that deserves some respect.

Other people may wish do differently and there is now law against it.

As for publishing pictures in magazines, good pictures can attract more readers but its a fine line between promoting a sport by showing off catches and giving some crazy greeny ammunition to try and ban fishing altogether as barbaric and inhuman. The message in a picture is important.

thats my 2 cents

[ellicat]

Agree that the big ones are too special to be caught once. No problem taking a medium-sized one for a feed though from a stocked impoundment. It's not just dams that are stocked either. Plenty of stocking groups that put the fingerlings into the rivers.

No dramas putting pics of big fellas into the magazines. It's inspirational to anglers to get out there and chase them - doesn't mean everyone will do the same and not release their catch. Catch and Release is rammed down our throats from all directions these days (and that's a good thing).

I once heard Debbie Dare (who runs GL dam with Brian) say those that release them all have obviously never eaten one LOL.

As for pandering to the Greenies and not wanting to give them ammunition against us - well they need to learn to fit in with us, not the other way around (like most of the psycho radical political correctness).

Whether it's dead or alive a big cod is an awesome thing to see - let 'em keep putting those pics in I say.

[Plastic Man]

i would never keep one for any reason ever i have caught three and they have all gone back

but one time when i was at Glenlyon brain dare told me that he liked people to keep the bigger ones because they were the ones that eat all the other littler ones so when someone takes one big one five more little ones get the chance to get that big

[kriso]

Plastic Man wrote:

i would never keep one for any reason ever i have caught three and they have all gone back

but one time when i was at Glenlyon brain dare told me that he liked people to keep the bigger ones because they were the ones that eat all the other littler ones so when someone takes one big one five more little ones get the chance to get that big

something i didnt know cheers plastic man!

[mangler]

The good old Murray Cod, love these fish, and growing up in cod country have seen & heard some amazing stories about these beauties.

In the 50's and early 60's my father grew up alongside a river in the Murray-Darling catchment and grew up as a boy fishing for Cod & Yellowbelly, some of the cod he seen pulled out of the waterhole in the river on their property sounded amazing, the largest he ever seen was 23lb. Back then, catch & release was virtually unheard of, if it was big enough for a feed, it was big enough to keep. Unfortunately, he bought a different farm and I didn't have the same pleasure of growing up on the river, but in recent times we have gone back to the same hole and others close buy, and still pulled out some good sized yellowbelly, but not as many good sized cod.

Yes I have eaten Murray Cod, both from rivers and dams, (abiding by the minimum & maximum size limits, and the closed season where applicable), and they are bloody tasty! However we haven't kept any that we've caught from rivers for about the last ten years, only the dams, and even with the dam caught fish, we only keep the smaller 60 -75cm models, the bigger ones are let go to become truly massive. It would be great to see some 6 ft, 250 pound cod being caught (that is the record according to a site that I will link to later in the post).

In my opinion this icon needs to keep on keeping on, we can't lose it forever like the Richmond & Brisbane River Cod's. There is just too many things going on in rivers (carp muddying up the bottom, willows choking up the waterways, dams & weirs releasing cold water, loss of snaggy spawning grounds, etc, etc) that the poor old Murray Cod has to battle with in the rivers to survive, without me coming along and keeping him for a feed.

So just to clarify I have eaten Murray Cod & probably will eat it again too. But I won't eat cod caught from rivers, even if that river is stocked. I will eat smaller legal cod caught from dams, but this would be only one or two a year (if that). Maybe if I had grown up elsewhere, I would have differing opinions on these beauties? Having said that I have no problem if other people want to keep bigger cod, or river caught cod, as long as they respect the size & bag limits, and the closed seasons.

But the main thing is that times are changing/have changed and we have sensible restrictions on freshwater cod fishing nowdays. For example no more of this goes on "Murray cod were grotesquely over fished by commercial fishermen in the latter half of the nineteenth century. For instance, in year 1883, more than 147 tons of Murray cod were sent to market from just one port (Moama). It is staggering to think that that real figure, incorporating unreported catches, was probably at least double that. It boggles the imagination to think what the total catch for all ports may have been."

That was taken from the website I mentioned earlier - http://www.nativefish.asn.au/ and then go to the Murray Cod page.

While It is sad that this used to go on, the problem is that people didn't know any different back then.

Just to finish off, will tell you a story my old man told me. After a big flood in the sixty's a lot of fish got washed into places where they had no chance of getting back into the river after the waters receded. Anyway a few days after the flood, his father was working in the paddock repairing fences and sadly found a massive Murray Cod caught up in amongst a pile of fallen timber and rocks dead, It was to far gone to get a feed out of, so he picked it up and nailed it's head to the strainer post he was near so he could show the family. My dad said that this cod was nailed to the top of the post and it's tail touched the ground. My father has showed me this exact same post nowdays and it's a good 1.4 or 1.5 m out of the ground!

Cheers,

Matt

[Terry H]

I wont keep any murray or mary river cod. all C&R

[kriso]

great post mangler love the history side of things

cheers

[mangler]

kriso wrote:

great post mangler love the history side of things

cheers

No worries mate, the site I linked to is great and there's heaps of info there too if my novel there wasn't enough!

Cheers,

Matt

[Leighton]

All big Cod, fresh or Salt deserve to be released

[Aaron H]

Me personally can't kill a Murray Cod, when I worked in Fisheries research in Victoria they were my pets, the broodstock used to know when it was feeding time in the ponds and u could see them coming up for the ox liver we used to feed them, I used to gather the eggs out of nest boxes, see them hatch into larval stage, put them into plankton ponds, wean them onto pallet food and then eventually see them "Graduate school" and off to stock the Murray basin ahhh memories (Damn Bracks govt cutting the budget costing my dream job:angry: )

[kriso]

can see why you would be pissed aaron thats a shame.

[ellicat]

Seems everyone's along similar lines with the release factor, just some to more of an extent than others.

I'm still keen to hear the members views on the other question as to whether the magazines publish the pictures or not if the fish obviously is not/has not been released.

[kriso]

beat me too it brian , guys would love to know your feelings on that side of things.

personally i think they shouldnt with these fish

[Shorty]

Well it's a tough question to answer I think. It's all well and good to buy the magazine to read the reports and get the information, but don't people also want to see the results as well...??? Does the end result always have to mean a dead fish though - not in my books it doesn't at least...!!!

Whether it's worth killing those fish, which is legal given the current rules and regulations, I'm not so sure... Personally I'd PREFER to see a pic of the angler holding the fish, in the corrent way and supporting the fishes weight before slipping the fish back into the water for it to fight another day... but not everybody fishes for the same reason I do either...!!!

Hopefully by showing more and more pics of live fish just before they are put back into the water, more and more people will start to do it too - so i'd like to see the magazines lead by example and show more fish being photographed shortly before they were released.

Shorty

[bretto]

My father and I have caught many cod in the past and we have never killed a big one. From memory we have taken one small one for a feed when I was about twelve years old. All cod were released unharmed bar one and I will continue to do so in the future. Such a beautiful fish with such an uncertain future should be preserved for years to come so future generations can enjoy the pursuit of chasing these elusive fish.

Brett

[flatty_catcher]

I have caught Murray Cod and after I kept the first one I ever caught I never kept another.

Dont like killing Cod,I thought most of em where protected anyway?

Good subject, but may be touchy to some.

Personally I dont rate cod as a fighting game fish at all.

I am not sure why the magazine would bother, they barely put up a fight.

when I was a kid I caught a large one I estimated it was 50kg but it spat the hook when it surfaced, I was glad it was quite a site, I never wen't back to catch it, unluckily my mate told his old man who told his neigbour who went out to the spot a few weeks later and caught a 70 lb fish.

which I was guessing was the one I caught or its partner.

I didnt like that much, I would have prefered to see the fish live than become BBQ steaks.

BTW they live in breeding pairs and often have terrtory that a pair will live in.

Dan

[James W]

i guess out in the west people grow up catching cod and eating them...thats no worries to me...but coming from the city i would love to see my first cod swim away...but...i have to catch one first...thanx kriso..for the nightmares im about to have tonight.

[jeff f]

too pretty an icon to kill i can live without tasting one

but 'lkl never winge about someone killing one for a feed as long as they stay within the guidelines