Fishing News

It was forecast to back off a touch the next day and everyone had the same idea. I reckon 50 boats went out the Brunswick Heads Bar and mine was one of them. Pretty good bait was around in the form of big slimies and a few pike. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I just threw the anchor …

TWO recreational fishers found with a large catch of undersized fish and mud crabs in far north Queensland have been fined $19,000 in the Ayr Magistrates’ Court. Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol field officer Trevor Thomson said valuable information from a member of the public led fisheries officers to identifying the offenders. “QBFP officers searched a van during a patrol …

[Originally published by Andrew Rowland at thewest.com.au] THE anti-fishing brigade has once again rolled out the “fish feel pain” rhetoric in an effort to convince people that fishing is a bad thing to do. Any suggestion of equivalence between what fish and humans feel in relation to a hook lodged in the lip has been well and truly dismissed by science. …

WHITE spot disease is a highly contagious viral infection that affects crustaceans. The disease has been confirmed in five prawn farms. The five infected premises (owned by four prawn farms) are located on the Logan River. Biosecurity Queensland is treating affected ponds with chlorine and is preparing for disposal and decontamination work. Surveillance and sampling in all prawn farms and waterways in …

TOURNAMENT veteran Warren Carter has beaten the best bream fishers in Australia to win the 2016 Mercury Cup and collect a cheque for $1000. “I came second last year so it’s definitely nice to go one better, and it was a surprise because it was so close,” Warren said. The Mercury Cup is decided on performances in the ABT’s Costa …

THE Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources continues to work collaboratively with the Queensland Government to determine the origin of the outbreak of white spot disease in prawn farms in southeast Queensland. Deputy Secretary Lyn O’Connell said media commentary suggesting a definitive cause of the disease outbreak had been found was not correct. “The department continues to investigate …

  Current disease control activities BIOSECURITY Queensland has completed decontamination and destocking on one of the three confirmed properties infected with white spot disease. Work continues on the second and third property and is expected to be completed this week. To date, about 700,000 litres of chlorine have been used to decontaminate 34 ponds as well as other water channels and …

[First published on www.abc.net.au] RECREATIONAL fishers have renewed calls for a ban on the importation of uncooked prawns after the discovery of the devastating white spot disease in Queensland prawns. Australia had been the only major prawn-growing country free of the highly contagious white spot virus, until it was found earlier this month on prawn farms between Brisbane and the Gold …

FIGURES released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority show continued dedicated compliance patrols, a new patrol vessel and co-ordinated multi-agency surveillance operations detected more than 500 illegal recreational fishing offences in the marine park over the past year. In 2015-16, 532 illegal recreational fishing offences were detected among 1240 reported breaches of Commonwealth and state laws in the …

MARITIME Border Command within the Australian Border Force, together with the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, apprehended a Vietnamese fishing vessel on Thursday, November 3, 2016 near the Saumarez Reefs, about 180 nautical miles northeast of Gladstone. An MBC surveillance aircraft spotted the illegal foreign fishing vessel about 200 nautical miles inside the Australian exclusive economic zone. HMAS Maitland was tasked to …