Thread: Possible changes to snapper limits for Area SNA1

Originally Posted by Maca49

Agree but it must be amazing to new comers to NZ the abundance of fish and species, we need a one way policy. I was in Greek Island once and commented on the lack of boats fishing. Guy said commercial fishing had gutted it and the fish had never come back. Last thing we need in NZ. Should extend their limits and set up more reserves

If fish stock were depleted beyond recovery in New Zealand under the quota management system then it would be at the hands of the minister of fisheries not setting the correct limits. you are all quick to blame commercial guys for the decline, and many of you are making great choices when selecting what to keep. but other then 9 fish per person per day and a 26cm size limit. anyone can go out and catch their limit everyday of the week and catch more fish in a year then some commercial guys can. these guys have lively hoods that solely depend on fish stocks replenishing or else they have no job so just watch the blame game. not all commercial guys are innocent and same goes for the recreational guys. but blaming each other will not let the fish recover. by the way does anyone know the annual quota limit for snapper in all areas?. i remember about 10-15 years ago the rec guys got all upset about the purse seiner guys catching Kahawai the MOF reduced the annual quota to some thing like 400ton many flights where done out of Tauranga the home of New Zealands Purses seiners that had meant to have depleted the stocks beyond all else and low and behold on more the one flight there was nothing but kahawai estimated in the 1000's of tons. the moral of the story just because your not catching fish doesnt mean they are all gone. some times there just somewhere else.

I agree with you also, but I rember not long ago Kahawai were just a bait fish you swore when you caught one,as there were plenty of other species, now people actually eat them haha, I fished the sounds when there were plenty of blue cod and hapuku. Time to get heads out of rectums and address the issue if it ain't tightened the guys with the fishing jobs will become another burden on the tax payer, and recreational fishermen will just have memerories.

Iv been commercial fishing and watched the decline and recovery of deep sea species, quota limits is managed by the major company's rather than the govt.

Snapper (SNA) - Catch have a look at the link the rece get 492000kgs a year to catch agument: avg fish weight 2kgs 492000/2 = 246000 fish 246000/9 = 27333 thats 27333 bag limits per year. thats 54666 people a year at six months fishing. without fishing licences and receational boat regos how can they know how many hooks are in the water per year catching a bag limit. THEY CANT KNOW IT IS ALL GUESS WORK. MOF need to get better data to be realistic

yep, we know more about space than our oceans

Things that change as you get older and can reflect. The first time I every went out in a boat fishing was from Foxton beach, leaving from a CLEAR running Manuwatu river that you could see the fish swimming in! Went out off the coast til the deth sounder ( not fish finder ) said 100 ft. I didn't even know how to bait a hook, guy does it for me and says, throw it over, let it go down til it hits the bottom. About half way down I said think I've got one. I hauled up 13 snapper before he even got his line in the water, fished for an hour for about 20 fish and came home. This isn't like global warming, it's actually happening

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

Iv been commercial fishing and watched the decline and recovery of deep sea species, quota limits is managed by the major company's rather than the govt.

Same here have been out to the Louisville ridge and most of nz coastline for roughie and oreo Scampi cardinal, was cheif engineer on a scampi trawler and i to have seen that decline, i cant help but feel that alot of the shit that happened before the QMS was brought in gets dragged into todays arguments. we forget Fletchers used to pull 300ton bags of roughie thats everytime they hauled their nets. we were lucky to do that a trip. the big three all have legislators that provide information to the minister of fisheries and try to get increases to their catch limits to the maximuim it is solely the decision of the Minister of Fisheries as to the quota limit imposed per species

And there's much lobbying from those companies to MPs without balls. Off subject but untreated, kiln dried timer is just unbelievable. Someone got paid for sure

My 2 cents worth. I am a keen fisher and as VC knows, my employment is directly related to the commercial fishing industry, so I do have a foot in both camps!!

Last year we had a good snapper season in the bay. There was no issue with catching a feed. Commercial boys were not fishing the bay very much as they did not have enough quota to risk over catching and having it "deemed". Most were keeping their Snapper quota aside to cover Snapper caught as accidental "bycatch".

We usually only took between 3-5 fish each and we set the boat limit at fish over 40cm could be kept UNLESS we had kids on board.
If they caught a fish and it was legal size they could decide for themselves what to do with it. We did use a longline from time to time with 30 min soak time and did very well.

My point is after sitting watching at the ramp and talking with other rec fishers. They were mostly keeping their snapper limits. One boat had 5 guys on board and they "all got their limits" I saw the fish and most were 30-35cms.

Now that is their right BUT I don't think Rec fishers appreciate nor consider how much they catch between all of them collectively as a group.

On this day I reckoned 5-10 ton of snapper when over the ramp. Now that might be a small commercial guys quota for the entire season and once its caught he must target something else but "they" (rec guys) could all go out tomorrow and do it all again, and again

We fished last winter at Stephens and one group all took their limits on both Kingfish and grouper then we heard later they were trying to give the fish away at their camp as they had too much!!!

5-10 tonne rec in a day one boat ramp! Stop it!

Originally Posted by Gibo

5-10 tonne rec in a day one boat ramp! Stop it!

To give ya some idea what season was like on the same day we went for a jaunt in the boat with friends, no rods but put down a long line to get some fish for lunch.
30 minutes soak.

Result on pickup was 13 Snaps, 4 over 20lb and 1 over 25. Kept 6 smaller ones, big boys and all the others went back

Shit thats some serious fish!! But based on only 5 tonne in one day, thats 277 bag limits of 9 fish at 2 kg each. That is one productive bit of ocean if this is correct Mikee.

I agree that something needs to be done to protect our snapper stocks. I think the commercial catch limit should be reduced. As for the recreational fisherman, the size limit should be increased to 32cm and the limit to remain for surfcasters as they dont often catch there limit. This one is probably more contravershal but the limit on a recreational boat fisherman should be reduced to 5 per fisherman. I fish regularly along the coast between Papamoa and Whakatane and only take enough for a feed ,which is usualy 2 or 3 and mnothing under 32cm. Its definatly getting harder to get 2 or 3. Every man and this dog has a kontiki down there and there cleaning the place out. There needs to be a limit to this as well.
Just my 2 cents worth.

While certainly not the normal amount of pressure on a nice weather weekend round Christmas there is at a very conservative estimate way over 500 people fishing tasman bay at any one time, probably more like thousands.

Last time I ever caught a snapper at Papamoa beach was new years day 1998 at the papamoa domain and was the only one I caught all day, last time I went to Pukehina and pikowai two years ago caught nothing apart from a couple of small kahawai. Last time I ever got some good snapper action was straylining off the rocks along the Taiharuru coast in whangarei first time I have ever used a gimbal and spent more than 5 minutes while fighting a snapper only for the bugger to bite me off as we were bringing it to the landing net and was a club competition weekend too.