Newsletter April 2012 v2 - Sunshine Coast Sportfishing Club · 73 cm cod while Rob Lawes is a study...

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Sunshine Coast Sport Fishing Club Inc

April 2012

NEWSLETTER

Big success at Glen Lyon for club members. Joan shows off her impressive 73 cm cod while Rob Lawes is a study in still life photography with his compostion of a nicely coloured cod. More pics and report following.

April: Fish of the month are cod and sweetlip

Calendar of Events March 2012

13th-14th-15th Fishing Comp- Mackerel.

Free Club BBQ and trophy presentation at Mooloolaba

13.00 weighin .

12th Members meeting 7pm for 7:30 start

Yacht Club Mooloolaba.

26th Committee meeting at Yacht Club Mooloolaba.

19.00



There are many fish (and not only fish) called sweet lip/s, here is one from DPI web site: Redthroat emperor (sweetlip emperor)

Adult redthroat emperor (sweetlip emperor)

Adult redthroat emperor under water

Scientific

name Lethrinus miniatus

Description bright red to orange colouration on spiny dorsal fin, base of pectoral fin, around eye and inside mouth

Family name Lethrinidae (emperors)

Family description

large eyes for feeding at night distinct scales and strong spines on their fins bottom-feeding carnivores highly valued food fish includes all species of the genera Lethrinus representative species of lethrinus have been illustrated in this guide but there are more

species you can catch the grass emperor or grass sweetlip Lethrinus laticaudis is not considered a coral reef fish

under the fishery plan. The grass emperor is, however, a regulated tidal species under the Fisheries Regulation 1995. Please check current rules and regulations for specific size and in-possession limits

Size and bag limits

minimum size 38 cm bag limit 8 in addition, total bag limit of 20 for all Coral Reef Fin Fish



Hi all, Our raffles of the meat and seafood trays at the Yacht Club on Friday nights have been a great hit, we will be looking for more members to sell the raffle tickets, so if you can help please give Anthony a ring. A few club members and some of their mates went to Glenlyon Dam for a weeks fishing. There were some nice cod caught and a few yellow belly as well. Joe was very unlucky being the only one not to catch any fish for the whole week, but lost 4 of his nice new spinner baits he had just purchased. I tried giving him a few pointers, but he just wasn't interested and paid the price for it. Cheers Vince.

Gday all. Well another month has passed with some very unusual weather patterns with it. Our comp last month was one of the best patronised comps I have been involved in, maybe it was the hundred dollar bill attached to the winning tuna. Well done to everybody who participated and congratulations to Chris Kelsey on winning the comp with a mac tuna 680 long. The fish was measured , photographed and released. There were about a dozen reef fish weighed in as well. Rossy B won the estuary section of the comp with a nice bream which was also released. Don’t forget we have our mackerel comp on the 13,14,15 of April. My crew of Col, Dave and myself intend to win that comp, I

hope you interpret that as a challenge, Tight lines Kirka.

• April Comp. Is proudly being sponsored by Tropical Iceboxes with a variety of quality Iceboxes on offer for prizes. Here's a pic of one of the iceboxes that will be given away at our fishing comp next month. With compliments of Tropical Iceboxes.

• Club raffles are up and running at the Yacht club.

(Volunteers needed) • Guest Speakers in up coming general meetings are,

April..... Teds Camera House, on new innovative video cameras, Under water photography etc. May...... Department of Fisheries and Boating. Covering all new rules and legalities relating to fishing and boating. Their roles etc. June.....The Executive Chef from the Yacht club will be giving a seafood cooking demo, with emphasis on the use of our bread and butter catches we at times, some times manage to get on board.

********************************************************************************************************* Thanks for all the photos and contributed items.. lots of really great pics…. keep the pics and

pieces coming…We even have some material over for the next newsletter which is great.

President’s Report

Captain’s Report

Club message Board



Disclaimer in fine print: though based on tremendous thought and analysis, any correlation between these forecasts and actual weather events is coincidental. A forecast of good weather does not mean it is safe to go outdoors. Boater’s discretion is advised. The SCSFC accepts no liability for the following fortune telling.

Newsletter Bits & Pieces If you have any stories, pictures etc that could add to the reading enjoyment of our fellow members, please send to [email protected] Thanks, Wayne Knibb

Boat Insurance Members – boats entering ANSA or SCSC competition MUST have public liability insurance, together with all required current safety gear and equipment.

Office Bearers for 2010 – 2011 President Vince Kreis 5478 2526 Vice-President Joe Hardman 5445 8969 Treasurer Howard Morris 5477 7255 Secretary Dave Butler 5442 1192 Club Captain Mark Kirkpatrick 54561145 Club Recorder Paul Jensen 5448 5707 Raffles Joan Steele 5448 4946 Drinks officer Carl Jensen 54508240 Assistant secretary/ Sponsorships Anthony Lovett 54931132 Membership Officer Col Arena 54765034 Newsletter Editor Wayne Knibb 0438169882 Wayne’s email [email protected]

Club Info2011-2012 ANNUAL CLUB MEMBERSHIP FEES (July 1st to June 30) You need to complete an application form and pay the membership officer. If you are not financial, you are not covered by any ANSA insurance policy. 2010-2011 Annual Fees ANSA SCSC TOTAL SENIOR FEMALE $45.00 $25.00 $70.00 SENIOR MALE $45.00 $25.00 $70.00 FAMILY (2A+2J) $70.00 $30.00 $100.00 JUNIOR (With registered senior) $ 6.00 $ 4.00 $10.00 JUNIOR (no registered senior) $ 5.00 $15.00 $30.00 HALF YEAR FEES – from December for NEW members. Seniors – $35.00, Family – $45.00, Juniors – same as above

ANSA Visitor Membership For a visitor to be covered by the ANSA PLI Policy they must be registered as a temporary ANSA member before the event Costs is $10.00 per senior, $2.00 per junior, or $25.00 per family.

Watch out for possible good offshore weather between 15-20th April, 2012.



FISHING REPORT FOR APRIL, 2012. ESTUARY: Trevally chopping into bait in the deep channel from Twin Waters to Goat Island. Lures and live bait the go. Whiting and flathead from Maroochy Bar to Cotton Tree. Mud crabs throughout the river system. SURF: Bait moving in close to Pincushion with tailor and spotted mackeral rounding them up. Just follow the birds! Whiting and bream in gutters along Maroochy Beach. OFFSHORE: The Blinker is the hot spot for kingies using jigged lures and mixed reef fish at dusk. The Barwon Banks for snapper, pearl perch, rosy job fish and tiger flathead, when conditions allow. GAMEFISHING: The end of the season with everyone disappointed in the season. A few cobia and mahi mahi taking livies along the fifty meter line, due east. Water temp 24 degrees. FRESHWATER: Most impoundments firing for golden perch with Somerset leading the way. The humble saltwater yabby jigged around each Snag returning fish. Smaller dams such as Cooloolabin and Lake McDonald having a good run of bass, jew and Mary River cod. Borumba for saratoga on fly, bass on lures. WAYNE NILSSON. MAROOCHYDORE FISHING WORLD

MAROOCHYDORE FISHING WORLD,22 FIRST AVENUE, MAROOCHYDORE. Q. 4558. PHONE/FAX (07) 54432714 EMAIL: [email protected]

Wayne’s Fishing Report from Maroochydore Fishing World



noted


Sunshine Coast Sport Fishing Club Inc This is a report about possible future marine parks in Australia from the Australian newspaper… Extracted from Weekend Australian Cast out, BY:GRAHAM LLOYD, From:The Australian, March 17, 2012 12:00AM http://video.theaustralian.com.au/2210580538/Battle-for-the-Coral-Sea

…But the unstoppable environmental campaign to protect vast areas of Australia's Commonwealth waters will soon see the formation of the world's largest no-fishing reserve within the Coral Sea Marine Park. Half of the almost 1 million square kilometre park will be out of bounds to recreational and commercial fishing.

A series of marine reserves around the continent will follow, eventually covering an area roughly equal to Australia's land mass. The reserves will include large wilderness areas that are off-limits to all fishing, zones with a total ban on trawling and zones where only catch-and-release or low-impact tourism is permitted. They are designed to protect not only fish stocks but important breeding grounds and migration routes for some of the world's iconic species, including black marlin and humpback whales.

Australia is already considered a global leader in good ocean management despite recent controversy over the threat posed by mining and coal port development to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The Reef is, in fact, widely cited as proof of the economic value inherent in well maintained and protected marine assets - attracting two million visitors a year and generating $2.8 billion for the national economy. It has pioneered the use of extensive no-fishing zones to promote healthy fish stocks - areas where fish can breed up and spill over into surrounding waters.

The declaration of an integrated system of commonwealth marine reserves will reinforce Australia's position as a world leader, but the process is not without controversy. Mistrust of the science and the process runs deep, driven by suspicion over why Australia needs to go faster and further than any other country in protecting its oceans. Added to that is the fact that the main driver for change has been international organisations such as the Pew Environment Group, which has led the Coral Sea campaign coalition.

Many who earn their living off the Coral Sea believe Australia has been a soft touch and is giving away livelihoods for little in return. "I don't think Australians take kindly to international groups coming in and telling us how to run our bloody country," says Marine Queensland's North Queensland chairman Wayne Bayne. "If the thing is in pristine condition and is being looked after by the people who currently use it, why is it necessary to significantly change that?"

And he wonders whether Australia is getting ahead of itself. According to Bayne, if the government's proposed national marine park plan is implemented, Australia will have 33.9 per cent of its exclusive economic zone under marine protected areas, with 16 per cent zoned no-fishing. The US, in comparison, has set aside 40 per cent of its exclusive economic

zone but only stopped fishing in 3 per cent. "We will have exceeded the UN target by eight years and 400 per cent," Bayne says. "If we go ahead this year Australia will have 70.4 per cent of the world's protected marine areas. If any of these green groups went to any other country they would just tell them to piss off."

For Pew Environment Group campaigner Imogen Zethoven, the answer is simple. Australia has an obligation, she says, to make a determined effort to protect its oceans simply because it has the capacity to do so. She says the Coral Sea, with its coral reefs, remote islands, underwater mountains and deep-sea canyons, is one of a handful of places left in the world where a very large, highly protected oceanic park could be created, protected and monitored. Exactly how its waters will be protected from foreign fishing vessels is still unclear. The difficulty of monitoring what happens in vast, empty oceans devoid of local fishing boats has been one of the key arguments of opponents. They say the Commonwealth is wasting its biggest asset: local eyes on the horizon.

The sheer scale of the area to be protected is hard to imagine. The proposed commonwealth marine reserve system is broken down into six offshore regions. Only one area has been declared so far: the South-East Marine Region, stretching from the far south coast of NSW, around Tasmania and Victoria and west to Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Final consultations are under way to determine the boundaries and restrictions for the remaining five reserve areas, which federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is expected to declare in an announcement possibly coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea in May.

The five areas are: the South-West Marine Region, covering more than 1.3 million sq km of ocean from Kangaroo Island to waters off Shark Bay, WA; the North-West Marine Region, more than 1 million sq km from Kalbarri to the WA-NT border; the North Marine Region, more than 625,000 sq km from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the WA border; and the Temperate East Marine Region, 1.47 million sq km from the southern boundary of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to Bermagui in southern NSW. The proposed marine reserves are all located within Commonwealth waters between three and 200 nautical miles offshore and are in addition to existing state marine parks.

Burke makes no apologies for the speed with which Australia is acting to deliver on the global call for a marine reserve system. He says the government wants to minimise the impact it will have on marine-based industries but does not hide the fact that some fishermen will be put out of business. They will be paid out under a fisheries adjustment scheme being negotiated between the federal environment department and the fishing industry. "Australia's vast oceans provide a source of food and resources, and are a place of recreation, but we cannot afford to be complacent," Burke says. "In the space of one lifetime, the world's oceans have gone from being relatively pristine to being under increasing pressure."

Started under the Howard government, the process is designed to deliver on a United Nations convention on biological diversity target to preserve at least 10 per cent of the world's coastal and marine areas by 2020. Today, less than two per cent of the world's oceans are under some form of protection, compared with 12 per cent of the Earth's land mass. The urgency to establish global marine reserves reflects a growing international focus on ocean health - it will be a key issue at this year's Rio+20 Earth Summit on sustainable

development, being held in Brazil in June to mark the 20th anniversary of the original Earth Summit.

But Australia's international standing at such events doesn't mean much to fishermen such as Bob Lamason, who is part of a rapidly shrinking industry. Some 681 shipping vessels were operating in Commonwealth waters in 2001. Last year, that figure had dropped to 326. "We watched them do the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and to be honest it [the marine reserves] will just happen," Lamason says. "In Canberra they have all got secure jobs and that is what they do, they just push it whether it makes sense or doesn't make sense - it doesn't worry them."

Lamason started catching tuna off the WA coast in the mid-1970s and has been working in the Coral Sea since 1989. He operates four boats, employs 18 people and has a quota of 600 tonnes a year of several species - yellowfin tuna, broad-billed swordfish, mahi-mahi and wahoo - which he catches on 20km longlines each with 500 hooks. On catch night, Lamason works until dawn in the shed grading tuna on a long stainless steel bench, like in a mortuary. A nick is taken from just above the tail of each fish to check fat content and condition of the flesh, and then they're packed into cardboard coffins lined with plastic sheets. From there more than half are sold domestically and the rest go to Japan.

High-value exports such as tuna and crayfish offset the cost of importing lower-cost fish which make up the bulk of Australian consumption. Sydney Fish Market managing director Grahame Turk says Australia's total catch is 240,000 tonnes, of which 40,000 tonnes is exported. About 400,000 tonnes of fish is imported in tins and frozen fillets.

By closing its fishing grounds, Australia is simply pushing the effort to less sustainable fisheries in the Third World, says leading US marine scientist Dr Ray Hilborn, who argues that - with the exception of bluefin tuna - Australia's commercial fish stocks are sustainable and in good shape.

But the global campaign now has its own momentum. World Bank president Robert Zoellick last month launched Global Partnership for Oceans, a coalition of governments, non-government organisations, scientists and businesses that aims to raise $1.5 billion to double the marine area under protection, mostly in Third World countries, and rebuild fish stocks. Australia is expected to be a foundation member of the group, which will hold its first meeting next month in Washington DC.

Fish farming is the boom industry of tomorrow. The global partnership wants to boost aquaculture to provide two-thirds of the world's table fish, up from half today, to relieve pressure on nature as the world's population continues to rise.

Zoellick says marine ecosystems, which cover more than 70 per cent of the surface of the planet, have deteriorated to "a perilous level". This makes the world's remaining pristine waters, such as the Coral Sea, a precious global asset. They are places where marine life is infinitely more valuable alive than dead.

THERE is a mermaid's wonderland in the Coral Sea where soft, finger-like filters reach out to caress clouds of neon reef fish. A mid-ocean playground between Cairns and Papua New Guinea, Osprey Reef rises in sheer cliffs through blue water almost two kilometres


Sunshine Coast Sport Fishing Club Inc deep. The reef is a magnet for travellers searching for a potent mix of fierce beauty and latent danger. This makes it the perfect pin-up for the campaign to promote ocean health.

There is poetic irony in the fact that Osprey Reef is best known for its sharks. Scuba divers pay big money to mingle with apex predators whipped into a feeding frenzy by ringmaster Nick Buttenshaw, who conducts his shark-viewing performance wearing boardshorts, twin scuba tanks and a full-sleeve chainmail gauntlet. Underwater, Buttenshaw uses a garbage tin stuffed with tuna heads to entice marauding sharks to brush within centimetres of hyperventilating scuba spectators seated in a natural amphitheatre 15m below the surface. I take a front-row seat, hooking myself to a clump of coral, uncertain of what to expect as dozens of whitetip and blacktip reef sharks, each measuring up to 2.5m in length, swirl in a fin-fanned ball with larger grey reef sharks. The sharks fight to take the tethered heads whole and attempt to thrash them free. But they are no match for a true undersea giant that always joins the party. "My money is on the potato cod," Buttenshaw said before the dive. And, sure enough, while the sharks fail to dislodge the tuna heads, an unhurried cod manages to take the prize in a single bite.

And this is only a taste of Osprey's rich bounty. Small-headed sea snakes twist their way to the surface for air; oblivious to human company, giant turtles 2m wide glide lazily through the caves and craggy channels. Venomous lionfish can be easily provoked into an aggressive display; great schools of barracuda and trevally shimmer in the tidal current; lung-like soft fan corals blaze red under torchlight.

Buttenshaw wants more marine protection, not less. He is incensed that while commercial fishing will be banned at Osprey Reef under the draft Coral Sea plan, recreational fishing will not. "It would still be possible for someone to run spearfishing tours and have a huge impact," he says. As it is, Osprey Reef's shark population has survived largely on the good grace of fishermen who have left the area alone as part of an unwritten understanding with tourism businesses that operate in the Coral Sea.

Dive operator Mike Ball supports more protection but he won't criticise the fishing industry that has left the sharks here alone to terrify the tourists. Ball is a scuba diving legend who ranks alongside Jacques Cousteau, Ben Cropp and Ron and Valerie Taylor in the Scuba Hall of Fame. A larger-than-life character, Ball knows how fickle nature-based tourism can be. After building a successful business in Townsville, he was almost wiped out by the 1989 pilots' dispute and again by coral bleaching on Flinders Reef in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 2002.

Today, with clients mainly from the US and Europe, it's the GFC and the strong Australian dollar that are giving him financial grief. Ball's business is down to one boat from two but it is still considered the pinnacle of live-aboard diving tours. Over the past five years in Cairns, the competition has halved. Ball wants more reef area included in the Coral Sea as an insurance policy against anything happening at Osprey. A marine park won't stop coral bleaching, but because bleaching happens over a relatively small area, multiple parks would provide fall-back locations.

"The coral bleaching that happened on Flinders Reef and almost sent me bankrupt could happen on Osprey Reef," Ball says. "If it did we could dive Bougainville or Holmes Reef out of Cairns but they are not afforded any protection right now." One reason they are not

is the valuable trade in live marine creatures for the global aquarium market.

Not surprisingly, game fishing charter operator Daniel McCarthy's blood boils at the thought of greater restrictions. Chair of the Cairns Professional Game Fishing Association, McCarthy says the Coral Sea's commercial catch is 192 grams per year per square kilometre. "That's not even a cup of water," he says. "How can they then justify kicking everyone out?"

On paper, the proposed marine park should have little impact on McCarthy's business, however. Catch-and-release fishing, which McCarthy practises, will still be allowed in the Coral Sea except in a designated green zone which makes up the eastern half of the proposed marine park. But this is not good enough for him. "Our clients come from overseas and spend between $3000 and $5000 a day for a game boat and sometimes $10,000 for a mother ship," he says. "There are not too many who will put up with not being allowed to go where the fish are but hope instead the fish come into a fishing zone."

The Pew Environment Group does not believe the marine reserve will have a large impact on game fishing. It has catch figures from Queensland Fisheries showing only one reef in the proposed Coral Sea reserve has five or more charter fishing vessels each year. The records show that over 20 years (1989 to 2009) more than 99 per cent of the game fish were caught, tagged and released in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and less than one per cent in the Coral Sea.

More pointedly, conservationists accuse the game fishing industry of targeting the world's only known spawning site for black marlin, an area that transects the Coral Sea and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

It is the chance of catching a giant black marlin, weighing more than 450kg, that gives the Coral Sea the edge in a tourism business McCarthy says brings

$60 million a year to Cairns. McCarthy has been running game boats into the Coral Sea for 25 years and believes the industry has not received the recognition it deserves for its own environmental good works.

"About 20 years ago our industry spent a lot of time lobbying the government and getting all foreign vessels kicked out of the Coral Sea," he says. McCarthy claims this has saved the Coral Sea from what is now happening in Papua New Guinea, where factory ships have moved in and are "killing it".

"The Russians, American, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Japanese, it is open slather," McCarthy says. "It is the same in the Bismarck Sea [north of PNG]; they are opening canning factories in Madang [on the north coast of PNG] like they are going out of fashion. The reason it is not happening here is because our guys kicked them out more than 20 years ago. That is what really gets up our neck when these tree-huggers call us a bunch of murdering fishermen."

RENOWNED US oceanographer Sylvia Earle sees an economic opportunity in leaving fish in the ocean, both for aquaculture and as a store of carbon. On a recent visit to Australia to promote the Coral Sea marine sanctuary, Earle - a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence and former chief scientist of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration - was enthusiastic about the prospects of "blue carbon".

"We have forests on the land and you get carbon credits for leaving trees standing; in the ocean every fish is a carbon-based unit," Earle says. "If you establish no-fishing areas you can get credits. That's the idea."

The carbon is pulled from the atmosphere by phytoplankton, then locked up in the food chain through bigger and bigger fish. "We have been hauling them out," Earle says. "It's like cutting the trees and taking them out of the system."

Earle can foresee the end of commercial fishing. "Commercial extraction of birds was still going on over much of the world in the early 20th century," she says. "I have an uncle who was a market hunter early in the 20th century but he couldn't do it as a middle-aged man because they were gone. Fish now are at that point."

Earle's views infuriate Ray Hilborn, professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. "Sylvia Earle knows nothing about fisheries management and is one of the most ill-informed people I have ever heard speak on the subject," is his blunt assessment. "She was once given an award and refused to eat a lobster and instead ordered a beef steak. The environmental impact of producing beef is much worse than catching fish," he says.

Hilborn, who recently visited Australia on behalf of the fishing industry, argues the way to protect ocean biodiversity is not by setting up marine parks but by "having good fisheries management systems". "With the Coral Sea, all you are really doing is precluding the opportunity to catch fish there in the future because there is not really any fishing going on there now."

Despite this, most ocean scientists want the federal government to go further. More than 300 scientists from Australia and 21 other countries have called for the proposed Coral Sea no-take zone to be expanded to cover the whole area. They argue the Coral Sea is one of only a handful of places in the world where a very large oceanic no-take park could be created within a single national jurisdiction. "A reserve of this scale and level of protection would provide an unprecedented refuge for top ocean predators that are fast disappearing elsewhere in the world," says Professor Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville.

As the scientists argue over boundaries and definitions, career fishermen such as Bob Lamason have come to recognise that they are the ocean predators on the verge of extinction. Lamason has been caught out as the rules have changed around him. It started with shrinking quotas and will end with marine parks. All he wants now is the opportunity to exit with dignity.

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Newsletter April 2012 v2 - Sunshine Coast Sportfishing Club · 73 cm cod while Rob Lawes is a study...

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