SAfisho

Trevs spend most of their lives in and around estuaries, I wouldn't be too keen on eating them around Iron Cove, especially with all the industrial/construction work with the new bridge that's been going on for the past few months/years (how long has it been?). There's been a noticeable change in water quality as all the sediments have been constantly stirred up.

It'd be clean enough to eat whatever in Port Hacking, Botany Bay, Lower Georges River (up to about the Captain Cook Bridge), Pittwater and the Hawkesbury. It'd be a bit sketchy, and I would avoid fish that don't move around that much like bream, flathead, whiting etc in the upper Georges River and in the main part of Sydney Harbour (between the bridge and the heads). More pelagic fish like Kingfish, Bonito and Salmon would be fine, though. For me it's strictly catch and release in and around the Parramatta River and the Cooks River, particularly with fish like bream and estuarine species that spend their whole lives consuming dioxins, and passing those dioxins down to the next generation. In the Cooks there was a botulism outbreak (not a dioxin, but still very nasty stuff) a few years ago, you do NOT want that in your body. Check the fisheries website for more info on Sydney Harbour, and if your keen there's heaps of info about the water quality of all of Sydney's waterways lying around the web. Google it.

Those kinds of tests have already been done and were what the Sydney Harbour commercial fishing closure was based on. Bream were one particularly bad species, no fish tested (caught from anywhere in the harbour) had dioxin levels low enough to go under the safe dioxin level. Check out the bream from homebush bay, the dioxin levels are through the roof. http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/consumers/keeping-food-safe/special-care-foods/sydney-harbour-seafood/#Test-results-for-Sydney-Harbour-/-Parramatta-River-seafood And some info about what dioxins can do to you (it's been politicised but the health info is there). http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/weve-been-abandoned-say-harbour-fishermen-20101031-178ya.html

the sooner the size limit is increased to at the very least 55-60cm the better. then we will actually see a decent jewie fishery, i mean they can grow to 40kg+ and we can keep them at less than a kilo? keeping soapies is legal, yes, but theyre definitely babies.

Using undersize bass as bait is illegal. It might pay to brush up on fisheries rules and regulations before fishing next time.

it has nothing to do with the water, the harbour is still just as filthy as ever. although a good amount of rain will drive them east (although that's mainly due to a drop in salinity more than anything else). the kings and other predators will just follow the baitfish, always following the baitfish.

It's a frigate (big too). Mack tuna have spots underneath their pectoral fins.

Yep looks like Yurulbin Pk to me haha

50% of male jews are mature at 51.26 ± 1.35 cm. 50% of female jews are mature at 67.86 ± 1.05 cm. (tried a link but the site won't let me as it links to another forums pdf upload, so search mulloway fecundity) its the females you have to look after as they're the ones with the eggs. if you know how spawning works its not one male to one female, its a whole bunch of fish releasing sperm and eggs simultaneously so its ultimately the number of eggs that determines the recruitment (there are so many more sperm cells than egg cells), so a limit of 75cm would see a large amount of jews able to grow to maturity and then have one or two breeding cycles before being able to be kept. it takes about 4-5 years for any certain jew to get to 75cm (give or take a few years for natural variation) so if a limit of 75cm in place it would only take a few years before we started seeing a lot more big jews. boohoo if you don't get to take a few jews home, there are a lot of other fish in the ocean to catch and keep.

it should be 75cm and a bag limit of 2, with only 1 over 110cm. per person makes it that your average group of two or three anglers can take home a decent feed. 2 75cm jews is a good 5kg of fillets at least. that will feed a lot of people, and that's the least you can come away with. the fact is that jews are overfished and the rec catch of jews is far higher than the pro catch. that doesn't take into account the bycatch from prawn/estuary trawls but a fisheries survey in 2001 estimated the yearly rec catch of jews to be about 200 tonnes greater than the pro catch. since then the pro catch has decreased by about 20 tonnes as well. seriously the fish can grow to 40kg and people think a jew thats just over 45cm is good enough to keep? there's a reason catching a legal jew is so hard, because people keep killing the babies. new limits like these means soon catching 75cm jews will become the norm, instead of around 45cm.

That's definitely an EP. The forehead isn't steep enough to be a bass, and the mouth is so far projected forward it must be an EP.

For MALE flathead: Earliest observed mature flathead was at 18.8cm. On average, 50% of flathead have been calculated to be mature at 31.72cm (± 1.08 cm). 100% observed mature flathead was at ~50cm. Following the same logistic model, it is calculated that 50% of flathead are mature at 1.22 years (± 0.44). For FEMALE flathead: Earliest observed mature flathead was at 22.3cm. On average, 50% of flathead have been calculated to be mature at 56.75 (± 0.6 cm). 100% observed mature flathead was at ~65-70cm. Following the same logistic model, it is calculated that 50% of flathead are mature at 4.55 years (± 0.13). Link here: Reproduction of Flathead Also should note that ALL flathead over around 60cm were female. Definitely release all the larger duskies over 60cm.

i wouldnt eat anything out of the Cooks River either. the waterway is disgusting. good fishery but strictly C&R.

It's funny how some people think just because there are a lot of a certain species of fish they are a pest and deserve to be treated as such. Leatheries aren't introduced and have been around our coasts for a long time. They have an important role to play in the environment, as does every endemic fish. If something did manage to magically wipe out the leatheries the consequences could only be bad. They would be the cleaners of the sea, eating every bit of decaying or dead fish. Fortunately I don't think anything will happen to them. If you don't like leatheries then don't go fishing, they have every right to be out there and if they're thick then fish somewhere else. As for the occy, well that's nature. If you can't handle that then you need to take a look at the real world. Only the fittest survive.

Depends on species. I'd stay away from bream for example, which are very slow growing (it takes 15 years for them to reach a mere 30cm, and as they get bigger the growth rate slows drastically) and eat a lot of food in the sediment and take up a lot of dioxins. They also tend to stay in one system for a long time. Continually eating fish like this from far up the Parra will hurt you later in life. It's all about bioaccumulation, once the dioxins are in the fish and then into you, your body does not know how to filter it out. It tries, but that will damage your organs. You won't drop dead, but your liver or kidneys will suffer as they try to filter out the dioxins and other nasties. Personally I would not eat anything that is not highly migratory from west of the Darling Harbour/Greenwich area.