Derny Driver Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 It was perfect conditions for outside fishing over Easter so on Good Friday I headed out solo from Murray's ramp before dawn to middle ground. Had no luck with squid or livies but I had plenty of frozen bait. It was pretty quiet out there but I was able to hook a good kingfish early. Measured it at exactly 65cm. Double checked it by flipping it the other way on the mat. Yep 65. My mate made me up some stickers with a CriCut machine, I have a 36cm flathead, a 30cm snapper and a 65cm kingfish stuck in vinyl inside my boat. I held the kingy up to the sticker and it matched. Cut it under the gills to bleed, brainspiked and into the fish bag with a full bag of ice and half a bucket of seawater. 2 hours later Fisheries arrive. There were about 15 boats out, they came straight to me and I handed the kingy over for official measuring. 64 What the actual!!! I was shocked. Embarrassed. Bewildered. They took the fish and threw it on the floor of their boat. Took my details and told me I would get a official warning. 2nd offence will be $500. They were polite enough. I apologised profusely as I am really careful about size and bag limits. They checked the other boats and then went out to the banks where they confiscated 12 more undersize Kingys. To say it spoiled my day would be an understatement. I spent all day wondering how I could have measured it wrong. I even have a photo and it appears to be 65 in the photo. Then I wondered.... if you bleed all the blood out of a big fish, put it in an ice bath for 2 hours, will it shrink? Im convinced it did. And from now on I will have to allow for that when I catch fish. No more " just legal" ones. They will need to be over from now on. Has anyone else noticed this? I never even thought about it. I spent Saturday at home moping about my kingfish, and on Sunday hit Greenwell Point Ramp to head out to the Banks solo for the first time. It was dead flat and calm. Caught 2 red rock cod, 2 wrasse, 1 leatherjacket, 1 brown cod which all went back. Not interested in rubbish fish. I had a surface livie out for a Mahi Mahi and a weighted livie out for kings as well as my snapper rig. Nothing. Tried trolling for a while then called it quits about 11.30. Only made it a short way in before my engine alarm went off. I shut it down and assumed it was overheated. But after an hour it was still going off. I spoke to marine rescue shoalhaven and after a while we decided to call for a tow. The guys were amazing. I was of course embarrassed but I made a generous donation to their service when I got home and will get the motor looked at. The alarm is still activated which might help them find the issue. All in all a pretty crappy 2 days for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little_Flatty Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Sorry to hear that @Derny Driver. Yes, vinyl stickers shrink, but also fish that have been on ice. Best to allow an additional cm or two. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derny Driver Posted April 1 Author Share Posted April 1 12 minutes ago, Little_Flatty said: Sorry to hear that @Derny Driver. Yes, vinyl stickers shrink, but also fish that have been on ice. Best to allow an additional cm or two. I will be from now on mate. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve0 Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Feel good about sharing your experience so others benefit from you misadventure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrsswordfisherman Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Important point made there for all raiders to take note. Sorry to hear about your experience. Good to see the enforcement is there at times. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Couta Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 This is not the first time a Raider has had that experience. A few years ago someone posted a very similar experience. That time they used one of those measuring tapes that fisheries used to give out. The person measured his king against that tape which was stuck to the side of his boat. It measured legal size but when the inspectors turned up it was undersize. The guy said he measured it legal against their tape but the response was "it's not an official measuring device". The fish obviously shrunk and yes they do so be careful if you catch a fish just on legal length. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derny Driver Posted April 2 Author Share Posted April 2 1 hour ago, Couta said: This is not the first time a Raider has had that experience. A few years ago someone posted a very similar experience. That time they used one of those measuring tapes that fisheries used to give out. The person measured his king against that tape which was stuck to the side of his boat. It measured legal size but when the inspectors turned up it was undersize. The guy said he measured it legal against their tape but the response was "it's not an official measuring device". The fish obviously shrunk and yes they do so be careful if you catch a fish just on legal length. Thank you for your response Couta. That's pretty much exactly what happened to me. Im new to fishing and still learning ... keen to learn all I can which is why I'm on this forum. And keen to do the right thing. I wont make the same mistake again. Thanks again for confirming what happened. I had no idea at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yowie Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 (edited) Fish do shrink with death. Larger fish like kingies and jewies, allow an extra 1 or 2 cms over legal to keep. Ice causes shrinkage (to just about everything or body part 🤣) It is best to go a little over the legal limit to be safe from the authorities. Keeping a fish alive will not be a problem - try keeping a legal kingie alive in an esky - not nice for the fish. Smaller species of fish will keep better. Edited April 2 by Yowie 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob81 Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 Yeah we always prefer at least couple cms over. Really depends, if the fish is bang on and you plan on going home straight away it should be fine, but if you plan on being out a while longer then expect the fish to shrink as it loses moisture/liquids/dehydrate. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larkin Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 I’m curious to know what everyone thinks about the pointing of tails to achieve minimum size in species like kingfish. ie “stretching” Do fisheries accept “squeezing” of the tail when measuring? anyone know the rule on this as there can be many centimetres difference from a fish measured natural and a fish that has their tail squeezed before laying on the mat. A lot of countries measure to the fork in these species. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob81 Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 If youre concerned about what fisheries how fisheries will measure, best to just look at the worse outcome you could think of. Each fishery officer is an individual human and may measure things differently from one another. Best to be safe than sorry IMO. If its more for PB, and you decide to push it a little more then youre only cheating yourself. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slothparade Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 (edited) Yeah I've had an issue like that, they measured the bream which was right on the legal dot, and they still took it and gave me a warning. I guess it depends on who you bump into. Do they have a quota to fill? Edited April 11 by slothparade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derny Driver Posted April 11 Author Share Posted April 11 54 minutes ago, Larkin said: I’m curious to know what everyone thinks about the pointing of tails to achieve minimum size in species like kingfish. ie “stretching” Do fisheries accept “squeezing” of the tail when measuring? anyone know the rule on this as there can be many centimetres difference from a fish measured natural and a fish that has their tail squeezed before laying on the mat. A lot of countries measure to the fork in these species. The fisheries officer did measure mine to the tip. Unfortunately due to 2 hours bleeding in the ice bath it still came up a centmetre short. The thing that annoys me is that these guys obviously know fish shrink when they are in an ice slurry - but he blamed me for having a dodgy measuring mat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bessell1955 Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 Thank you for the very welcome tip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackfish Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 (edited) 23 hours ago, Derny Driver said: The fisheries officer did measure mine to the tip. Unfortunately due to 2 hours bleeding in the ice bath it still came up a centmetre short. The thing that annoys me is that these guys obviously know fish shrink when they are in an ice slurry - but he blamed me for having a dodgy measuring mat. @Derny Driver have you measured you Measuring Mat with, say a good tape measure just to confirm was it the measuring mat or shrinkage. Edited April 12 by Blackfish 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derny Driver Posted April 12 Author Share Posted April 12 1 hour ago, Blackfish said: @Derny Driver have you measured you Measuring Mat with, say a good tape measure just to confirm was it the measuring mat or shrinkage. I havent Blacky but I probably should. I will do that this weekend. I used a mat and a sticker to triple check it but I will check everything with a tape measure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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