It_is_the_Darkness wrote on Mar 21
st, 2012 at 4:22pm:
So true FriYaY. My apologies.
It was in the paper yesterday of how they have caught hundreds of POACHERS fishing in NSW both Coastal and Inland. Good Stuff
I get a bit excited when it comes to the MDB and the protection of our native species.
You are in red neck central up there (I worked in Griffith for 3 years) and the amount of “kill and grill”, lack of respect and little concern of impact is huge. I guess the problem with rules and regulation is that they only affect those that abide by them. I wish the penalties for illegal fishing were much harsher.
Our upland species such as Blue Nose Cod and Macquarie Perch need to have some streams and rivers classified as native only, so their stocks and natural distribution can be improved/restored away from the competition of introduced trout.
In the MDB some 90% of man made impediments to water flows (weirs/locks etc) are still without fish ways or fish ladders, to allow fish movement, especially during spawning.
Murray Cod (especially wild river stock) need to have a slot size of 60-70cm. All fish bigger or smaller should be returned. Large fish are too valuable to eat.
Fishing needs to be banned 100 meters either side of weirs and locks. The legal slaughter of aggregations of spawning Golden Perch, trapped at weirs, is a blight. People line up one after another to take home their “bag”, often returning for yet another “bag”.
Work on re-snagging of the Murray (many snags were removed to allow navigation passage for steam boats) is woefully slow and under funded.
I better stop…..