Fishing News

ANGLERS are putting their safety on the line by fishing in restricted areas within Seqwater’s dam catchments. Seqwater senior field ranger Craig Hine, who works at Somerset Dam, said fishers were regularly ignoring restricted access signs and fences in pursuit of a good catch. Mr Hine said there were good reasons why some areas were restricted to public access and …

IT’S the fishing platform vision that the Rocky community has been angling for. The same people that brought the city a second boat ramp have spoken up about the need for more fishing vantage points along the Fiztroy River. Rockhampton Regional Council is now investigating drafts for six land based fishing platforms. North and South Rockhampton will be covered with …

ANOTHER Northern Territorian is thousands of dollars richer after catching a tagged barramundi in the NT Government’s second season of the Million Dollar Fish competition. The 72cm barra was hooked on the Daly River by Howard Springs man Craig ‘Curly’ Saxelby. Mr Saxelby used live bait to hook the winner, which was the eighth prize-tagged fish and the fifth from …

A NEW by-catch device has delivered impressive results that will improve the sustainability of fishing operations of wild catch prawns in Australia’s Northern Prawn Fishery. Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Anne Ruston recently met with the developer, Mr Kon Triantopoulos, and representatives of the NPF industry to hear how this device works. “The trial results indicated a statistically …

NEW research shows there are two genetically different snapper stocks off the Australian east coast, where it was previously believed all snapper were part of a single stock. Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries scientist Dr Jess Morgan said this was the first project to use fine-scale sampling and highly variable genetic markers to measure the number of genetically distinct …

FISHERIES Queensland has successfully prosecuted two licensed fishers in separate cases of interfering with crab pots that belonged to other commercial operators. Ingham A fisher from Ingham pleaded guilty in the Tully Magistrates’ Court to four charges of unlawfully interfering with fishing apparatus. Surveillance cameras set up by another commercial fisher photographed the defendant removing crab apparatus from the water …

  POSITIVE test results for the virus that causes white spot disease (WSD) in prawns have been received for a sixth aquaculture farm south of the Logan River. Prawn stock on the sixth infected property has been harvested. Treatment of the ponds will now occur. There are eight farms in this area. Six have now been confirmed with the virus, …

QUEENSLAND anglers can get their rods and lines back out for the barramundi season which reopened at midday yesterday, February 1. The barramundi season closure had been in force in the Gulf of Carpentaria since October 7 last year and November 1 for the east coast. Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol district officer Robert Ibell said the closed seasons aimed …

Federal Government providing $1.74 million to help respond to prawn disease in Queensland, including up to $400,000 in direct support to farmers White spot disease has infected five properties in southeast Queensland Leading aquatic disease group still asserts eradication is possible THE response to the outbreak of white spot disease in Queensland’s southeast will be boosted by up to $1.74 million …

CONSUMERS of Australian seafood can have renewed confidence in the sustainability of buying fish from Australian stocks with the release of the latest edition of the ‘Status of Australian Fish Stocks’ reports from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. In total, the reports look at 83 of the most important species and species complexes, representing about 90 percent of both …