kingfishbig

The quotas apply to 17 species, many popular ones aren't included. Only two of them are listed as over fished/ depleting. Nothing there about using dive surveys to determine them (good luck with that for deep water species like gemfish). Some of the quotas they talk about are actually effort quotas, ie trip and gear limits not an absolute allowable catch.

Beachworm 501.956 worms Cockle 5.187 kg Ghost nipper 840.336 nippers Pipi 50.085 kg Australian sardine 456.800 kg Blue mackerel 108.164 kg Yellowtail scad 858.847 kg Bass grouper 16.095 kg Bigeye ocean perch 13.834 kg Blue-eye trevalla 5.970 kg Ocean trap & line: Gemfish 5.707 kg Hapuku 13.648 kg Pink ling 13.491 kg Bluespotted flathead 10.664 kg Tiger flathead 10.957 kg Trawl whiting (Eastern school & Stout whiting) 117.234 kg Silver trevally 5.338 kg Ocean trawl: Gemfish 0 kg (50 kg trip limit will continue to apply)

It's already been pointed out that outboards are low compression engines so won't get any benefit from high octane fuels. Cars are another matter and some actually mandate high octane fuel. I haven't head anyone say high octane fuel will damage an outboard motor - the only downside is that you will be wasting money.

There is nothing wrong with 91 ULP so long as it is ethanol free. Outboards don't have high enough compression to get any benefit from high octane fuels.

That won't help if the fuel has degraded to the extent that gums and varnishes have formed. And remember the fuel is still sitting in the fuel system where deposits can form and cause problems with injectors and carbies.. If you use a preserver it's a good idea to run the engine for 10 min with the treated fuel.

The problem is more about gums, varnish clogging up fuel injectors or carbies. It's safer to use a fuel stabilizer if you think you might not use the boat for more than 3 months. Boating has more in common with aviation than automotive use in that the consequences can be much greater if something goes wrong. Also another reason to disregard John Cadogan's missive.

Cadogan seemed to have lost the plot with fuel stability. He says fuel can't oxidise in you fuel tank because that is 'combustion' and if that happpens then you fuel tank will blow up! He doesn't seem to understand that combustion is just a rapid form of oxidation and it can also happen slowly through air exposure. Fuel preservers contain anti oxidants or agents which ty up trace metal. Wiki explains some of the chemistry: Fuel stabilizers (antioxidants and metal deactivators)[edit] Substituted phenols and derivatives of phenylenediamine are common antioxidants used to inhibit gum formation in gasoline Gummy, sticky resin deposits result from oxidative degradation of gasoline during long-term storage. These harmful deposits arise from the oxidation of alkenes and other minor components in gasoline (see drying oils). Improvements in refinery techniques have generally reduced the susceptibility of gasolines to these problems. Previously, catalytically or thermally cracked gasolines were most susceptible to oxidation. The formation of gums is accelerated by copper salts, which can be neutralized by additives called metal deactivators. This degradation can be prevented through the addition of 5–100 ppm of antioxidants, such as phenylenediamines and other amines.[58] Hydrocarbons with a bromine number of 10 or above can be protected with the combination of unhindered or partially hindered phenols and oil-soluble strong amine bases, such as hindered phenols. "Stale" gasoline can be detected by a colorimetric enzymatic test for organic peroxides produced by oxidation of the gasoline.[80] Gasolines are also treated with metal deactivators, which are compounds that sequester (deactivate) metal salts that otherwise accelerate the formation of gummy residues. The metal impurities might arise from the engine itself or as contaminants in the fuel.

Cadogan seemed to have lost the plot with fuel stability. He says fuel can't oxidise in you fuel tank because that is 'combustion' and if that happpens then you fuel tank will blow up! He doesn't seem to understand that combustion is just a rapid form of oxidation and it can also happen slowly through air exposure.

Your reference doesn't say anything about the effectiveness of dive surveys for what you suggested, ie estimating the total stock and setting a quota. Also baited cameras don't involve divers as per your original suggestion. Both are going to be subject to location biases as well as behaviour biases, eg where are you going to put them and what about the vast number of other locations you don't survey? These methods are more used to compare locations I think you will find, eg rec havens or green zones verses fished areas. There are probably plenty of good reasons why Fisheries rely on other methods for estimating how the total stock is fairing. You might argue they are a bit slow to act or that rec fishers be given more of a say but I'm not sure of the merits of using different types of monitoring and making it the basis of a quota system.

There is a mulloway stocking program for the Georges River. Also they have released kingfish into Botany Bay.

1. There is no political will to remove all marine parks - even the LNP government wanted to create a new one for Sydney. Fisheries have very little say in it. 2. Probably a good idea for snapper. 3. Sometimes it's only practical to catch fish commercially when they are spawning. And if a long lived species is caught when spawning or when not it does I not reproduce again so it's debatable whether there is much difference. 4. Quotas can still lead to overfishing. They rely on an overall estimate of the stock which can be inaccurate and hard to measure when you have a multi species fishery and limited resources. There is nothing wrong with using imput reductions (limiting the ability of fishermen to catch fish) and monitoring things like catch rates, average sizes and ages. Mulloway have seen increased restrictions. If that doesn't work then the next step would be to make then rec only like we did with blue groper. Also you can have yearly bag limits for recs using a tag system. Dive surveys are of limited use and prone to bias. Eg fish will avoid divers. Monitoring catches as I outlined is the usual method. Why do you think NSW fisheries are so incometent compared to Vic? Much of the commercial effort has been removed from NSW. We now import 92% of the seafood we consume.

They seem to be getting bigger in the Georges. The stocking might have something to do with that.

But I think the claims were about Batemans Bay. not Narooma.

Well it was a government survey (as reported in Fishing World Magazine). Dismissing it out of hand is not exactly showing rigor. I'd certainly think twice about going to a town which hosted a marine park when there are others to choose from. The problem is knowing where these so called green zones are without a GPS chartplotter and a map insert showing the zoning. And I go fishing to relax and not to worry about being nabbed and facing heavy fines. PS: Sydney fishing is fine - any improvement would just be icing on the cake and could be done just using fisheries management.

There was a government survey that showed an 80% drop in fishing participation in the Jervis Bay area after the park was declared. Also if 'anything that helps fish stock is a good thing' then what about better fisheries management which can be done at very little cost?

Do you have any evdence that the marine parks down there will be removed? It's certainly news to me. The Coalition even tried to declare one for Sydney. And the only wind back they have done was opening up a handlful of landbased areas. It's doubful they do much anyway in NSW waters where we have fisheries management in place. It is more cost effective just to build on the existing restrictions. Also a rise in tourism in a popular sea change destination not far from Sydney is not startling (especially given the latters population has risen by 1 million in 10 years). Also for what it's worth I was down at Narooma one Nov a few years ago and on weekdays saw no more than a half dozen fishing boats around Monatgue Island and hardly any in the Inlet.

The phrase was the 'species is threatened'. No saltwater fish species has ever been made extinct by fishing. And like I mentioned they are doing well in Victoria and part of the SA snapper stocks are shared with Victoria. The Gulf snapper are a different stock.

Well that's fairly recent and JohnD did mention the last 3 years.

The charter boats seem to be catching them and there are reports of good catches in the Narooma News and other sources: https://www.montagueislandadventures.com.au/snapper-and-kingfish/

The species is 'not threatened' it's just depleted in St Vincents Gulf. The snapper no's are healthy in other parts of SA and neighbouring Victoria. There might be environmental factors which makes the job harder for fisheries managers.

It's a renewable resource and much of the effort has already been removed in NSW waters.

Well that seems odd given that a lot of commercial effort has been removed from NSW with the no of commercial fisherment down to 1000 from over 5000 in the 1990's (NSW now imports 92% of it's seafood). Also I am catching snapper on every trip off Sydney and there are plenty of good reports from other fishermen. And the rec pressure is much greater around Sydney due to the population size. One person's anecdotes much be treated with caution.

Well don't make it easy for anti fishing groups by offereng such draconian measures to non existant problems.

Bag limits are generally well accepted and understood by anglers. I'm still not sure why a fisherman would want a complete fishing ban for the whole of Tuggerah and the other two lakes. Even marine parks don't go that far - usually making only 20% no fishing.

When we have marine parks and other anti fishing agendas such animal rights people to worry about why would you countenence such an idea?