[Killer Weed Wins]

Killer weed wins

FISHING in Pittwater faces a wipeout after the State Government admitted this week it had given up the fight to eradicate a toxic seaweed infesting the waterway.

And there are fears caulerpa taxifolia could eventually spread to the rest of the Hawkesbury River without serious attempts to control the weed.

Caulerpa, an introduced species, effectively snuffs out native seagrasses, depriving fish of their natural habitat and breeding grounds.

Fishermen, boat owners, green groups and Pittwater Council have been demanding action since the fast-growing weed first appeared at Careel Bay in 2000.

From that initial 1ha infestation, caulerpa now covered at least 100ha, with outbreaks reported at Station Beach and Scotland Island.

Fishing bans at Careel Bay and Station Beach, no-boats mooring zones and warning signs at boat ramps have already been introduced to stop the weed from spreading further.

But Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald told State Parliament it was too hard to get rid of the weed.

``Due to the area of the current infestation and the presence of sensitive seagrasses in parts of the affected area, eradication of caulerpa from Pittwater is not practical,'' he said.

``Furthermore, the available scientific evidence regarding the impacts of caulerpa indicates that the effort and resources required to eradicate caulerpa from NSW is simply not warranted.''

Mr Macdonald said the Government's efforts were directed at limiting caulerpa's spread and it was regularly monitored in Pittwater. But he said scientific evidence had shown caulerpa was not as bad as first thought. ``Research to date has shown no negative impact of caulerpa on native seagrass beds.''

However experts say caulerpa destroys marine life and efforts to stop the weed from spreading are a case of too little too late. Commercial fisherman Keith Sewell, who has trawled Pittwater for more than 40 years, said caulerpa ``spread like cancer''. He blamed the Government for not doing enough to stop caulerpa in the first place.

``Nature has got a way of balancing itself but when you throw in something like caulerpa, it can't handle it,'' he said.

``We've got to watch it (lest it) destroys the whole of the Hawkesbury River system.''

He said Pittwater's fish stocks were under pressure because of the weed.

Stocks at Careel Bay had already been lost and the ban on fishing at Station Beach had forced fishermen to trawl elsewhere in Pittwater, leading to overfishing. This eventually would flow on to recreational angling, he said.

Mr Sewell said caulerpa's growth could reach the stage where boats were unable to navigate through Pittwater.

Fisherman Keith Sewell says caulerpa `spread like cancer'

[- Microwave- Whiting Fillets With Cucumber And Tarragon Sauce]

WHITING FILLETS WITH CUCUMBER AND TARRAGON SAUCE

- Microwave -

500g King George or silver whiting fillets

2 spring onions, finely sliced. Separate white from green.

1 tspn dill, finely chopped

1/2 cup white wine (or juice of 1/2 a lemon and water)

1 tblspn butter or olive oil

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

1 tblspn tarragon, chopped

7 tblspn plain yogurt

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a pan soften green part of spring onions in oil. Add cucumber and tarragon.

2. Simmer for 10 minutes. Cool and puree coarsely.

3. Stir in yoghurt, season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Place fillets, white part of spring onions and dill in microwave dish.

5. Pour wine over and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

6. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on medium high for 5 minutes.

7. Serve with cucumber and tarragon sauce.

Serves 2-3

Cooking Tips and Alternatives

Form a star shaped pattern putting thin end of fish in centre for even cooking.

Other Species that can be used for this recipe:

Cobbler, King Fish, Flathead, Perch, Hake, any other white fish fillet

[Pan-fried Flounder With Almonds, Brown Butter, Parsley And Lemon]

damn,

and i only just threw back a great size flounder the other day

great recipe

CFD

They have to be my favourite eating fish of all.

Their texture is excellent and full of flavour.

This recipe, although I haven't tried it sounds great.

Can't wait to get my next flounder to try it out.

Salivating just thinking about it

Pete.

[Grilled Kingfish With Slow Roasted Tomatoes Lemon And Bay Leaves]

Grilled Kingfish with Slow Roasted tomatoes lemon and bay leaves -

Ingredients

Tomatoes

1 kg. golf ball size ripe tomatoes preferably

Fresh oregano

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

Kingfish

4 x 150 gm fillets of Kingfish

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Fresh chervil or flat leaf parsley

Post Marinade (or Bath)

Lemon slices

Bay leaves

Fresh chervil

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Juice from roasted tomatoes

Method

Preheat oven to 140C

Slice tomatoes in half horizontally and place upside down on an oven rack. Season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and well drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

Slow cook for around an hour and a half till tomatoes collapse and begin to caramelise but are still moist.

Remove tomatoes from oven and place in a bowl with a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil, fresh chopped oregano.

Salt fillets of fish prior to putting into really hot grill/fry pan. Cook first side till golden before turning. The cooking time is as ever dependant on the thickness of the kingfish.

Kingfish needs to be cooked through though still kept moist. Check the fillet by prising the centre flesh away to make sure its cooked through.

Place fish from the grill/pan into resting marinade placing lemon slices on top.

To serve

Bed of slow roasted tomatoes

Grilled fish on top

Garnish with green olive tapenade

[Salmon Fish Cakes With Yoghurt & Cucumber Salad]

Salmon fish cakes with yoghurt & cucumber salad

Prep: 30 mins

Cooking: 20 mins

Serves 4

400g sweet potato, peeled, chopped

415g can red salmon, drained, flaked (or fresh salmon finely chopped)

2 shallots, sliced

1 garlic clove, crushed

Salt & freshly ground pepper

2 tbs olive oil

Salad

1/4 cup (70g) natural yoghurt

1 tbs fresh lemon juice

1 tbs chopped fresh dill

4 Lebanese cucumbers, peeled into ribbons

1 Place the sweet potato in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and cook until tender. Drain and mash well. Allow to cool slightly.

2 Combine the sweet potato, salmon, shallots and garlic in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate.

3 To make the salad, combine the yoghurt, lemon juice and dill. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cucumber ribbons and toss gently to combine.

4 Divide the salmon mixture into eight portions, shaping each into a patty. Heat half the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Cook half the fish cakes until golden. Carefully transfer to a plate. Repeat with remaining oil and fish cakes. Serve with the yoghurt and cucumber salad.

[Pan-fried Flounder With Almonds, Brown Butter, Parsley And Lemon]

Pan-fried flounder with almonds, brown butter, parsley and lemon

This is something of a classic; the nutty brown butter, lemon and parsley are great together, and the almonds give it an interesting texture and flavour.

2 whole flounder (about 400g-500g each)

1 tbsp olive oil

Flour for dusting

Salt

1 tbsp butter

3 tbsp almond flakes

1 tbsp parsley, chopped

Juice of half a lemon

To skin flounder Make an incision through to the flesh close to the tail on the top, darker side of the fish. Peel some of the skin away from the flesh and, when you have sufficient to grip, place one hand firmly on the fish and, with the other hand, pull towards the head. The skin should come away quite easily in one large piece (especially if very fresh). Cut the skin where the body joins the head and discard.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Lightly dust the first flounder in flour on both sides and shake off any excess. Cook the fish for about five minutes on both sides, seasoning with salt. Remove to a dish, cover with foil and keep warm while you cook the other fish.

Add the butter and almonds to the pan and cook for a few minutes, stirring, until the almonds turn golden and the butter turns brown. Add the chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon and pour over the fish. Serve immediately.

Serves 2.

[Sportsman Shares Whopper Of A Fish Story]

Sportsman shares whopper of a fish story

Appleton, N.Y. — The biggest king salmon Maury Clark ever caught was a 35-pounder.

On Friday, the sportsman almost topped that, catching a king salmon, by hand, in the ditch in front of his house, about 8 miles from Lake Ontario.

His wife, Darlene, saw the determined, but misguided creature when she went out for the mail. “That was something. I wasn’t going to go in there,” she said. “I went hysterical in the house.”

“She was shocked,” Maury said. “She couldn’t believe there was that big of fish in your yard. It was amazing.”

Maury was wearing camouflaged sweat pants and slippers when he rushed outside.

“Being a license holder, I caught it by hand, jumped in the ditch and grabbed it,” Maury said. “When you catch them in a boat you tire them out. I’m 6-foot tall and weigh 230 pounds and that fish jerked me around pretty good. People stopped and couldn’t believe I was getting a salmon out of the ditch.”

Darlene took a picture on a camera phone and Maury released the fish back into the ditch. “I practice catch-and-release. Then it headed south (away from the lake) toward Ridge Road. It went upstream to spawn. He had quite an ambition to find a female friend.”

According to longtime outdoor writer Joe Ognibene, the rain fooled the fish. The Chinook likely entered Red Creek and found the ditch and decided to go upstream.

“It was so confused after being caught by hand, people talking about him and taking a picture of him with a cell phone, that he didn’t know where he was,” Ognibene joked.

Clark noted that the ditch in front of his house had been cleaned out last summer and now flows cleanly. “It’s fairly deep, deeper than normal, but water is running.”

Other kings went up the creek and into ditches, Clark said. He spotted three more salmon on Bishop Road on Monday. “With all the rain, they’re all over up here,” he said. “They’re thinking there’s more water than there really is.”

[Teen Choked By Fish While Swimming]

Teen choked by fish while swimming

AN Egyptian teenager choked to death after a fish entered his mouth as he was swimming, Egyptian daily al-Wafd reported.

Eighteen-year-old Yasser Ahmad Hussein was swimming in lake Qaroun, southwest of Cairo, when the freak accident occurred.

Yasser was celebrating the three-day feast marking the end of the religious fasting month of Ramadan by swimming with his friends in the lake in al-Faiyoum.

Medics at the scene failed to resuscitate the youth who died before he reached hospital, the paper said.

[Fines Increased For Illegal Fishing (south Aust.)]

Fines increased for illegal fishing

FINES for illegal fishing in South Australia will double to a maximum of $120,000 under new laws introduced into state parliament.

Fisheries Minister Rory McEwen said the rise reflected the increased value of SA's fish resources and would act as a deterrent to organised crime.

"The bill addressed the current imbalance between the penalties and the economic impact and damage to fish stocks caused by illegal fishing activities," Mr McEwen said.

"There's also a new offence of trafficking priority species, such as abalone and rock lobster, which aims to combat organised criminal activity."

The new laws also allow for a system of demerit points for persistent offenders.

An individual who reaches 200 points over a five-year period would be disqualified from holding any fishing permit for 10 years.

South Australia's 320,000 recreational fishers also face new bag limits which will be set after a period of further public consultation.

Mr McEwen said the new limits would reduce the level of illegal fishing and sales as well as allow fish resources to be more evenly shared within the recreational sector.

[Whale Freed After 4000km Ordeal]

Whale freed after 4000km ordeal

A WHALE that swam thousands of kilometres from Victoria entangled in fishing ropes has been freed in Gold Coast waters.

A team of Sea World divers today freed the juvenile humpback whale of the fishing ropes and floats believed to be from Portland, Victoria.

The Sea World research and rescue team learned of the distressed whale yesterday afternoon after a member of the public sighted it off Narrowneck.

Aerial and water searches located the animal and monitored it overnight until first light this morning when it was freed just off Burleigh.

Sea World marine sciences director Trevor Long said today the whale would probably have died of fatigue from carrying the heavy load if it had not been freed in time.

[Little Shark Helps Pierce Great White Mystery]

Little shark helps pierce great white mystery

The great white shark is one of the oceans' greatest predators, an animal feared by man and fish alike, an object of public fascination even before that campy hit movie Jaws. Yet only recently have we begun acquiring the skimpiest of knowledge about the species.

A little guy in a 1.3-million-gallon tank here at Monterey Bay Aquarium is crucial to that effort. An instant celebrity when he went on display Sept. 1, already the second-longest great white shark to survive in captivity, the juvenile is doing more than drawing visitors to one of the world's top aquariums.

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS: Keep track of sharks via this website

Swimming with huge tunas, Pacific barracudas, a giant green sea turtle and other denizens of deep offshore waters, the shark is bringing in revenue that goes back into research. He's helping to educate the public about the plight of sharks — many species are depleted by overfishing — and he's beefing up a growing body of work on white shark habits.

"There's no doubt we'll learn a lot about white shark behavior, biology and physiology from captive animals," says Chris Lowe, a marine biology professor and director of SharkLab at California State University, Long Beach. "But the biggest value is these little sharks are ambassadors. The aquarium's ability to keep them will be a key turning point in getting people to look at white sharks not just as a threat."

Great whites are king of their natural environment but become delicate creatures when confined. A few dozen attempts have been made since the 1950s. None was successful until two years ago when the aquarium here kept a young female for 198 days, releasing it only after it killed two soupfin sharks in the big tank.

The aquarium's first try, in 1984, ended badly when a 5-foot great white, caught by a fisherman in Bodega Bay north of here, refused to eat and died after 11 days. In 2000, curators decided to try again, but only after careful study of what would put a great white at ease.

By then other aquariums, including SeaWorld in San Diego, had learned that a great white needs a big space because it must swim constantly to breathe. A tank had to have rounded sides, so a shark wouldn't bump into a corner and injure its nose.

Starting small

Tanks had to be cleared of pumps because electrical currents disorient sharks. A key step, copied from a world-class facility in Okinawa that keeps whale sharks, was building a 4-million-gallon pen in Monterey Bay outside the aquarium to mimic open-ocean conditions. That provided a sea-to-tank transition where curators could observe a shark and make sure it was healthy and eating food they offered.

The aquarium sought small whites after early attempts with large ones failed at SeaWorld and San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium. The new resident is 5 feet, 8 inches long, weighs 100 pounds and is about a year old.

"We're not trying to display a large 18-foot animal," curator Jon Hoech says. "We believe starting small gives us our best chances."

The unnamed male appears to be as big a hit as his female predecessor. She attracted 1 million visitors and $3 million in revenue during the winter 2004-05 tourist offseason. The aquarium has spent nearly $4 million since 2000 on its white shark project; $840,000 of that went back into field conservation research, spokesman Ken Peterson says. The young male, a resident for 53 days as of today, has brought in 250,000 extra visitors.

The aquarium's success has won over critics such the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz, Calif., group that opposes confining certain deep-ocean animals.

"Their program has evolved," director Sean Van Sommeran says. "We stick to our policy, but we're supportive of the project, and it's bringing in a lot of money that can be used on behalf of the shark."

Visitors linger in front of the tank's 15-foot-tall, 13-inch-thick acrylic viewing wall, startled by 500-pound bluefin tuna but mostly waiting for the star to cruise by. He'll swim high and low, glide along the walls, keep to himself. The big tuna ignore him, but a school of sardines stays out of his way.

Twice-daily feedings are a big draw. From above, a worker lowers a pole and chunk of black cod, albacore tuna, salmon or other delicacy into the water. Another handler shoos away other fish.

Soon the shark, as he would in the wild, moves swiftly up from below toward the food, grabs it in his jaws, pivots and swims away.

Most of what had been known about white sharks came from fishermen. The sharks' migratory movements were mysterious, though it was assumed they hung out mostly in coastal waters.

"We don't even begin to understand how animals use the 'blue' part of the planet," says Barbara Block, a professor at Stanford University's marine station here.

In recent years, a lot of effort went into tagging whites and tracking them by satellite. Findings, still limited in scope, were surprising. Whites had long been found in the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco, in the Marin Headlands to the north and at the rocky coastal point Año Nuevo to the south, gorging on seals and sea lions.

Tracking by satellite

Whites also were known to be around Mexico's Guadalupe Island, on the Chilean coast, in Spencer Bay in southern Australia and off South Africa. They like chilly waters associated with Mediterranean climates, says Peter Klimley, a marine biology professor at the University of California, Davis.

Satellite tracking showed adults traveling much farther: from coastal California to the Hawaiian Islands, from Northern California to Baja, from South Africa to Australia. Scientists don't know why. Block says whites may swim to Hawaii in winter for its marine mammal buffet, including baby humpback whales.

"Are there populations at these places" so you can calculate a total, Klimley says, "or are they moving between these sites so there may be even fewer, which is perhaps the likely scenario?"

A graduate student of Klimley's is working on what's hoped is the first reliable estimate of the global white shark population. "There aren't going to be a lot of them," Klimley says, because the top-of-the-food-chain predator reaches sexual maturity late in life and bears a single pup every other year. One hypothesis is that no more than 5,000 exist, he says.

Knowing the population and whether it's going up or down helps predict effects on other marine life, Klimley says. If the white shark is depressing the seal population, that could increase the population of a fish humans eat.

Scientists were perplexed when tracking found white sharks going to a place about halfway between California and Hawaii. It's the ocean equivalent of a desert — no mountains, no valleys, no food, just an aquatic wasteland. Yet the sharks were showing up. Researchers called it the Shark Cafe.

At first they thought that if the cafe had nothing to do with food, it must be about reproduction. "Adult males and females were showing up, so that would sound like sex," Block says. "But then young ones showed up, too, which makes everybody wonder what's going on."

[Putting Illegally Caught Fish To Good Use]

Putting illegally caught fish to good use

For two decades New London's community meal center has been run with the help of volunteers and on donations.

So when the state's conservation police arrested two men for illegally fishing, folks here were happy to accept their illegal catch and make it the soup kitchen's catch of the day.

S. Rose Baranowski says,"I think it's wonderful. It's better than wasting it."

In all, 23 bluefish and 26 striped bass arrived on ice.

The DEP police did not just drop off the fish whole, they actually took the time to fillet the nearly one hundred pounds of it.

Now the fish will be cooked up for a much anticipated meal.

Baranowski says,"I love fish anyways, so I'm gonna be here."

And so will Charlie Duffy. He and his wife volunteer here each week.

Duffy says,"We don't usually get striped bass here for diner. This is fish that would cost, I know we were talking earlier, six or eight bucks a pound."

So it is quite a catch...

Kris Merritt says,"They're putting it to a good use and people who can't afford to eat are going to have something nice for themselves tonight."

A true Monday night special.

Duffy says,"You just help people immensely and I'll tell ya the feelings that you get because of it are just not quantifiable."

For Duffy this fish is food for the soul.

New London's community meal center is celebrating 20 years of service.

[Big Money In This Fish Story]

Big money in this fish story

(October 22, 2006) — Fishing used to be an escape. The thing people left work to go do.

Now some — a lucky few perhaps — have made fishing their business.

"I look at it more for the competition," says Ken Strimple, 37, of Fairport, who is on the ESPN Bassmaster Northern Tour, a tournament trail that leads to the Super Bowl of bass fishing — the $2 million CITGO Bassmaster Classic. Strimple is close to qualifying for that ESPN2-televised event.

"It's not just going out fishing. I know this is what I need to do to be successful."

Kevin Bishop, 39, of Hilton has fished competitively for bass since the early 1990s, back when the game was considered to be more contemplative than competitive, according to Bass Madness author and Field & Stream fishing authority Ken Schultz.

Now, Bishop says, bass fishing is "huge."

"The last five years, it's gotten so much more money in it, it's unbelievable," says Bishop, who competes on the Stren Series, which — despite being the Triple-A level of the Wal-Mart FLW Tour — will have anglers competing for $1 million at the season-ending championship Nov. 1 to 4. Bishop, who was second in the Angler-of-the-Year race, will fish for the $140,000 first prize.

"They brought so many big-name companies that have nothing to do with fishing. It's like NASCAR.

"What it's done is make it a viable option as a career. You can make a good, good living doing it."

Hooked on B.A.S.S.

Strimple made the plunge into the big-time, big-money world of bass fishing this year. He and his wife, Lori, had talked about his trying his hand at pro fishing for a few years. "I contacted B.A.S.S. and asked, 'What do you recommend that I do?'" Strimple says. "They suggested, 'Try it as a co-angler to see how you do and if you can handle it.'"

As the co-angler, Strimple is at the mercy of the boater he draws each day during the five three-day tournaments on the tour.

"One boater might be a great fisherman and the next one might be terrible," he says. "You never know who you're going to be fishing with or what style they'll be fishing.

"If I was a boater, I'd go out and fish to my strength. As the non-boater, I'm at the mercy of where they want to go. If that's not my strength, I better figure out how to make it my strength."

That's what Strimple did after his B.A.S.S. tournament debut in June on Kentucky Lake in Kentucky Dam Village, Ky.

"On day one I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I outfished my boater," he says, recalling how he brought one bass to the weigh-in. "The second day, I was with a boater who spent the day fishing the weeds."

Strimple did not catch any keepers, and placed 92nd. (The top 50 advance to the money round — the third round.)

"I came home and practiced in my back yard," says Strimple, who has three children. "The next tournament was on the Mississippi River. I practiced for the Mississippi on the Erie Canal."

He worked the weeds along the canal until he felt prepared for whatever awaited.

"I missed the cut by 14 ounces in my second pro tournament," says Strimple, who was 58th.

He followed those first two events with a pair of top-50 finishes: 48th on Lake Champlain in August and 19th on Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio, two weeks ago. That puts him in 23rd place in the tour standings going into the season finale Thursday on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.

If he leaves Smith Mountain Lake still among the top 30, he will qualify for the 2007 Classic in February in Alabama.

Catching the fever

Schultz, author of Bass Madness: Bigmouths, Big Money, and Big Dreams at the Bassmaster Classic (Wiley, $24.95), covered the 2005 and 2006 Classics for his book. He writes that he "could not relate to competitive fishing because competition is not what drew me to sport fishing or fed my passion for catching fish."

But Bishop, a high school wrestling star at Greece Athena, found competitive fishing a match made in angling heaven.

"Fishing was the favorite thing I've ever done," he says. "In high school, you wrote that I liked fishing more than I liked wrestling."

He confirms now that I was correct then.

"Competition put together with the fishing was perfect for me," Bishop says.

Still, he keeps his perspective.

"For me, because of my family and business, (fishing professionally full-time) would take too much time," says Bishop, who is married to wife Valerie, has a 10-year-old daughter, Courtney, and owns New York State Painting. "My long-term goal is to work my way up to that level and still have everything else working.

"I don't want to travel all the time. I want to be with my wife and watch my daughter growing up. I don't want to lose my painting company."

But even fishing in the sport's Triple-A can pay. Bishop refers to it as "supplemental income."

Bishop had 22nd-, 7th-, 25th- and 9th-place finishes in four Northeast Division events to collect $13,150. It was his best season in four years in the Stren Series. Dave LeFebre, a Pennsylvanian who has won more than $500,000 on the bass circuit, was the only angler to finish ahead of Bishop in the series standings.

The Stren Series is part of FLW Outdoors, which is owned by Wal-Mart and is the largest competitive tournament organization in the world (surpassing the ESPN-owned B.A.S.S.). There are three levels of tournaments in the FLW, starting with the Bass Fishing League, moving up to Stren, and then culminating in the FLW Tour and FLW Series.

To qualify for the FLW Tour and Series, an angler needs to finish among the top 10 in the Stren Series. Bishop, who was 11th in 2004 and 15th in 2003, will fish FLW Tour and Series events next year.

But he won't give up his day job. Nor will Strimple, who is a senior salesman at John Holtz Honda and so far has won only $622 from B.A.S.S.

Gone fishin'

Both men say they would be out fishing whether or not there were promising paydays on the horizon.

"The last two winters, because it's been so mild, we've fished every month," says Bishop, who keeps his boat ready to go in his garage.

Says Strimple: "I fish like most people golf. I'm out every day before work."

He fly fishes streams until lake fishing heats up. In the fall, he greets the salmon and steelhead runs. But his eye is still out for bass.

"The best time for bass is in the fall and spring," Strimple says. "In Virginia, it'll be fall conditions. It's fall fishing for me."

Before going into work or going about the business of tournament bass fishing.

[Special Project Nets Rare Fish]

Special project nets rare fish

PIERRE, S.D. - Five endangered pallid sturgeon were caught in Lake Sharpe as part of an effort to broaden the genetic pool of sturgeon being raised at a federal fish hatchery.

One of the five sturgeon caught in nets in the Pierre area died before it could be removed.

The captured fish are estimated to be 40 to 50 years old. Pallid sturgeon haven't reproduced naturally in Lake Sharpe since the completion of the Oahe Dam more than 40 years ago.

"We are pretty satisfied with our efforts," said Gregg Wanner, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Pierre.

Nets were placed Oct. 16 and removed five days later in a cooperative effort of the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks; the Army Corps of Engineers and Fish & Wildlife Service.

The fish varied in weight from 13 to 20 pounds and in length from 3 feet to 5 feet.

"What's interesting about the pallid sturgeon is that they've been around since the dinosaurs were here," said Aaron Leingang of the state Game, Fish & Parks Department. "They survived everything from dinosaurs to ice ages and are one of the oldest living creatures on the earth. And they are unchanged since that time. It's pretty impressive."

The fish were taken to a federal fish hatchery near Yankton and will help expand the genetic pool and brood stock of pallid sturgeon already there.

"These fish are endangered," said Wayne Nelson Stastny, Missouri River Natural Resource Committee Coordinator for the Fish & Wildlife Service. "Populations don't recover by simply stocking them. We want a self-sustaining population out there so being able to bring new diversity to the (hatchery) is pretty invaluable."

The pallid sturgeon that died was quite old and became too stressed when it was caught in the net, Wanner said.

Officials will check the fish's age, diet, biology and genetics so as to get a better idea on how to help the pallid sturgeon.

"We accept that there will be some mortality, but we go above and beyond the call and do everything we can to avoid it. It isn't a total loss. We will gain a lot of information from the fish," Wanner said.

[Fish Hooked Once, Twice, Three Times]

They look like this

Muskies are some of the well known breeds of sport fishes, which inhabit the waters of Canada and United States. You can find two main varieties of Muskies; there is the indigenous Muskellunge and the Tiger Muskie. A natural Muskellunge can reach great sizes, and in some instances, fishes reaching 48 inches have been recorded. Many Muskellunge in the 40 to 50 pound range are caught every year by anglers. Tiger Muskie is a highbred between a Muskellunge and a Northern Pike.

Muskie are more like Pike, more often they like to ambush their prey. They are known to be more aggressive too. Muskie will hang and loiter around rocky shoals, weedy lines, river current or deep holes and near large shoal of smaller fishes. You can catch Muskie by trolling fast with heavy line and big lures, but you can also catch many more, if you refine and retune your strategy.

[Recipes For The Dreaded Carp]

Yes, I know...you'll howl me down about putting up a recipe for those

horrible crap fish, the carp.

But remember, if people start eating these pests, there will be fewer and fewer

carp in our waterways.

But apparently they ARE very edible and especially in Asian cooking.

While prized as a good eating fish in China, Carp are not generally part of the Aussies diet. In a bid to encourage people to eat Carp, in 1997 the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation, in partnership with the Department of Fisheries, released "A Mouthful of Ideas for Better Rivers" - "The Carp Cookbook." This has some interesting recipes but I am certain you can add to it such as fish stews, fish pies, fish soups, fish in burgundy sauce, dried fish, fish pate etc. A large number of Australian wines (especially reds) are useful to use in Carp recipes.

Here's a few recipes I found for Carp.

Carp Burgers

2 kilos of Carp

Half-teaspoon sage, powdered

One-teaspoon celery salt

Quarter-cup onion, minced

Quarter-teaspoon black pepper

One-teaspoon baking soda

Tsp Cajun paste optional

Fillet Carp, skin and remove rib sections. Mix baking soda with enough water to cover fillets and soak overnight. Rinse fillets under cold water and dry with paper towels. Run fillets through meat grinder with fine blade twice. Mix onion, sage, celery salt, pepper and Carp well in a large bowl. Form into patties, roll in dry pancake flour and drop into hot oil. Fry about two minutes on each side until brown, drain on paper towels and serve with horseradish, mustard, or shrimp cocktail sauce.

Pressure Cooked Carp.

Skinned Carp fillets cut into pieces

Two-tablespoons salad oil

One teaspoon pickling salt

Herbs and spices if desired

Pack Carp into pint canning jars and add salad oil, salt, herbs and spices. Pressure cook Carp for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. For a taste variation, add 2 tablespoons catsup, or 1 tablespoon of dry mustard. note if you do not have suitable canning jars you can just pressure cook the fish and put in preserving jars later, but it is a bit like tins of salmon it is better to have it fit properly first and cook in own juices before you seal. Once it cools in a sealed container, it creates a vacuum that helps preservation.

Barbecued Carp

One Carp skinned, with tail removed

Half-cup chopped onions

Quarter-cup margarine

One-cup barbecue sauce

(Cajun seasoning if desired)

Spread cavity with margarine then sprinkle onions, salt and pepper inside cavity. Spread Half-a-cup of barbecue sauce on piece of heavy aluminium foil large enough to wrap fish, put fish on top of sauce, and cover with the remainder of the sauce. Wrap fish tightly in foil. Place in baking pan and bake in a moderately slow oven at 350f (180- Celsius) degrees for one and a half hours. Turn two or three times during baking. When done place on platter and pour sauce from foil package onto fish to serve.

[I Want A Jew]

G'day

I've been reading the info on the site for a while now and it's great to see a fishing site with such knowlegable and friendly members!!!

I've just quit my job and was hoping to get into targeting a jew. Any tips or info on what type of bait, where to get it (buy or catch), rigs that are used, or locations would be greatly appreciated. All my fishing is landbased - and will be for a while now that I've joined the unemployed list (no better time than a monthn out from the Ashes to join that list!!!!!)

Cheers

Tim.

G'day Battler..A good place to start is in the index on the site, targeting Jewfish.

http://www.fishraider.com.au/articles/jewfish/

At least that will give you the nitty gritty on the best rig,location, baits etc.

I'm sure plenty of our resident Jewie experts will add some more but at least it's a

good place to begin.

I'm still to nail my first Jew, so I'm no help in that regard.

Congrats on quitting, ( I think). At least you will now have plenty of time to find that

elusive monster Jew.

Cheers,

Pete.

[Oceans Harbor 200 "dead Zones"]

Oceans harbor 200 "dead zones"

WASHINGTON — Scientists have found 200 "dead zones" — places where pollution threatens fish, other marine life and the people who depend on them — in the world's oceans .

The United Nations report yesterday showed a 34 percent jump in the number of such zones from just two years ago.

Pollution-fed algae, which deprives other marine life of oxygen, is the cause of most dead zones. Scientists chiefly blame fertilizer and other farm run-off, sewage and fossil-fuel burning.

Those contain an excess of nutrients, particularly phosphorous and nitrogen, that cause explosive blooms of tiny plants known as phytoplankton. When they die, they sink to the bottom and are eaten by bacteria that use up the water's oxygen.

U.N. officials said, "These areas are fast becoming major threats to fish stocks and thus to the people who depend upon fisheries for food and livelihoods."

[Rare Fish Captured]

Rare fish captured

PIERRE (AP) -- It was an unusual catch, but one that fisheries officials were hoping to make in the Missouri River at Pierre.

Caught Tuesday in a huge net were two rare pallid sturgeon, a fish that is classified as an endangered species.

The two fish are believed to be more than 40 years old and may have been trapped in Lake Sharpe since Oahe Dam and Big Bend Dam were built. They'll be taken to a federal fish hatchery at Yankton to help with an ongoing program to restore the species.

The state Game, Fish and Parks Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are cooperating on the weeklong netting operation.

[Drink-driver: It Was The Pate]

DRINK-DRIVER: IT WAS THE PATE

A KEEN amateur cook tried to dodge a drink-drive ban - by blaming his recipe for home-made fish pate.

Max Hallas claimed he was tipped over the drink limit when he sampled mackerel pate spiced up with sloe gin.

Police arrested Max, 74, after spotting him driving his Ford Fiesta erratically near his home in Pwllheli, North Wales.

Elen Owen, prosecuting, told the court it was clear Max had been drinking - but he told officers he had been sampling food with drink in it.

Blood tests showed Max was just over the legal driving limit. His lawyer Michael Strain told Pwllheli magistrates: "On that day he had family and friends around.

"He was making a home-made mackerel pate with sloe gin - also home-made. The dish is something of a family tradition.

"He does partake of the sloe gin when he makes it and that was the reason for the alcohol registered."

Max changed a plea of not guilty to guilty after taking expert advice. He was banned for three years, fined £300 and ordered to pay £80 costs.

[Fish Hooked Once, Twice, Three Times]

Fish hooked once, twice, three times

Catching a 483/4-inch muskie in a lifetime is a great achievement, probably a personal best.

Catching the same muskie the next day is truly amazing.

Catching the same muskie three consecutive days is, well, somewhere beyond amazing.

Two Rockford anglers accomplished that feat this month at Lake Namakagon, located 25 miles northeast of Hayward, Wis.

Franz Olson boated the fish Oct. 12, while Gale Ekern caught it both Oct. 13 and Oct. 14.

“It’s phenomenal,” Olson said of the triple. “I would say it is extremely unusual.”

They were participating in the Worm Soakers fishing club’s fall muskie outing at Namakagon, a 3,395-acre lake.

Olson caught the fish during a practice day. Ekern boated it during the two days of competition, which he won.

Olson, fishing with Brian Johnson, caught the 27-pound muskie Thursday on a 5/8-ounce lead stand-up jighead with a plastic creature tail dressing.

They photographed the fish and released it.

On Friday, Olson and Johnson were about 300 yards from the spot where they caught the muskie when they noticed Ekern fishing there.

“I kidded Brian, saying ‘Wouldn’t that be something if they catch that fish we released yesterday,’ ” Olson said. “We kind of chuckled about it. Pretty soon I noticed they had just caught a fish.”

He told Johnson, “I bet they caught that same fish.”

Ekern took measurements and photos, which are required for the outing. He and Olson compared their photos that night, noting the fish’s scars and a distinctive notch in its dorsal fin.

“It was certainly the same fish,” Olson said.

Ekern, who used a quick-strike sucker rig, said his back-to-back catches were in the stars, or at least the moon.

He first hooked the muskie at 2:24 p.m., just minutes before Friday’s moonset. He and his boat partner Dale Engberg returned to the location Saturday for the moonset.

“We hadn’t had any luck at any other areas on the lake so I wanted to be in a spot where I knew there were fish for moonset,” Ekern said.

And, minutes before moonset, the fish hit again.

“We were virtually speechless when we pulled it into the boat,” he said.

Ekern also believed the weather was a factor. The water temperature had dipped 5 degrees in 24 hours when a wintry front stalled over the area. Air temperatures reached only the mid-30s while the lows were in the 20s.

The sudden cooldown sparked the muskie’s appetite, he said.

“For that huge body of water to drop (its temperature) that dramatically, it affected the fishing. And it had everything to do with catching this fish,” Ekern said.

[What Are We All Doing This Weekend?]

Saturday sure looks doubtful for anyone venturing offshore as they are predicting

winds 20+ knots and 3 metre seas.

It doesn't look too promising.

Pete.

http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/nsw.asp

[Pop Up Advertising]

I just wanted to re-iterate what Ken has said - Ad Aware and Spybot are essential tools. As for browsers, Mozilla Firefox absolutely blows Internet Explorer out of the water for speed and functionality (pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, heaps of handy extensions, inline (ie non pop-up) ad blocking):

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

try it and see.

Mozilla Thunderbird is Mozillas mail client, and is also excellent - it is also much more secure than Outlook:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

I''''''''m pretty evangelical abuot Mozillas products, cause I''''''''m a web developer, and am sick to death of having to work around Explorers multitude of bugs. The more people I can convert to Firefox the better! And aside from that, the much better security on Firefox/Thunderbird saves me from having to fix all my friends machines when they get compromised by malware/virii.

Wakd.

For those Fishraiders that are using Firefox as their browser, Mozilla today released their

new 2.0 version of Firefox.

I just downloaded it and it is better.

Here's today's story on it in the S.M.H.:

Pete.

_____________________________________________________

Improved security for new browser

Mozilla today released a new version of its Firefox web browser that has gained popularity as a free alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer software.

In the two years since its release by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, the Firefox browser has won millions of devotees worldwide.

The Firefox 2 browser made available for download today was heralded by the organisation in Mountain View, California, as a "major update" developed by an "an international community of contributors".

"Firefox 2 delivers the best possible online experience for people today," said Mozilla chief executive Mitchell Baker.

"The improvements Mozilla has made to the ease of use, performance, and security in Firefox 2 reflect our ongoing, singular focus on meeting the needs of web users all over the world."

Localised versions of the browser were available in 35 languages and tailored to work with Windows, Macintosh or Linux computer operating systems, Mozilla said.

The browsers can be downloaded at the website http://www.getfirefox.com.

Firefox has 11 per cent of the web browser market, compared with the 86 per cent commanded by Internet Explorer and 1 per cent for Opera software, according to recent figures from Onestat web analytics firm.

Firefox simplified working in browsers, the boxes that show website pages on computer screens.

A strong advantage of Firefox has been a design that enables users to keep a set of browser windows open simultaneously and click easily between them with index tabs.

Microsoft built that coveted feature into its new Internet Explorer 7 software, the first Internet Explorer update in five years.

Upon hearing of Firefox 2's launch, Microsoft sent a congratulatory cake to Mozilla's Mountain View offices. One Mozilla employee took a photograph of the cake and published it on his personal blog.

"The cake was delivered by a bakery from Palo Alto, CA, USA and came with a delivery slip mentioning it was paid for by Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA," said the employee.

Both Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 allow updated online feeds of news headlines or other information by means of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and boast improved security against online hackers and scammers.

They were also designed with functions to check word spellings.

Particular safeguards were installed to thwart "phishing", tricking people into entering personal data such as credit card numbers on bogus websites designed to appear legitimate.

Mozilla was originally a web navigator code name at defunct internet firm Netscape when it dominated the internet browser world more than a decade ago.

Netscape fell from glory, its browser eclipsed by Internet Explorer, its company bought in 1998 by America Online and reduced to brand status.

The Mozilla Organisation was established in 1998 to complete the free, open-source software project and it registered as a nonprofit foundation in July 2003.

[Does Any One Know]

I'm wondering if Geoff"s picture of the fish is just a little overexposed and it is actually a blue colour

all over.

if Geoff is reading this..was it's colour predominately blue overall or a light yellowish colour overall?

If blueish, I'd have to say Steephead Parrotfish for sure.

Pete.

[Big Red]

Nice reddie there Stringa and a big to the Fishraider website.

Where did you manage to get that snapper?

Pete.