Fish Responsibly

Fished recently at my Herring spot and bagged 11 good size fish with number 12 being the biggest Herring I've ever caught.  Stupidly failed to measure it.  I noted as I filleted up the backbone that my very sharp filleting knife struggled to cut through the large thick scales compared to the smaller softer scales of the other 11 fish.  I imagine it was old for a Herring and must find out how to determine the age of one. Once again the water was alive with Herring and I had the statutory bag limit of 12 within an hour, fishing from 6.30 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. I say again how lucky am I to live close to the pristine Indian Ocean in Western Australia.  I thanked the Great Life Force for allowing me once again to partake of the fruits of the sea. I have started to keep a record of my catches and from time to time will report this data to the Department of Fisheries. On this latest occasion I noted that almost every fish contained roe.  It is sensible then to only t...

So lucky to go fishing at dawn on a pristine beach this morning.  A calm sea and the water alive with what we West Aussies call Herring : a medium sized fighting fish.  Our mandated bag limit is 12 and I had mine within 70 minutes.  It was a fish almost every cast. I thanked the Great Life Force for allowing me this day to have some of the fruits of the sea. A yummy dinner tonight of fresh crumbed fish fillets. By the way I don't toss live fish into a bucket of seawater and let them suffocate.  I take them off the hook and immediately dispatch them.  Trying to be humane in the context of the reality of catching fish.  As readers would know I don't believe in caching fish for sport and release.  That is downright cruel. May the Force be with us! GD

Can't support the practice of catch and release.  Of course I want the agonised fish to be released, but I don't want to it put through the agony in the first place.  I just can't put any sort of fish through this process just to satisfy my primeval urge to hunt. All those fishing TV programs drive me up the wall as grown men scream their delight as they sink the hook and fight the fish to the boat or the shore. How childish and inhumane is that! The fruits of the sea belong to the great life Force and are there for us to catch to eat, that is to satisfy one of the primary needs of we humans. Each time I leave the beach after catching my bag limit I pause to thank the great life Force for providing me with the experience of a pristine ocean beach and for the fruits of the sea on that day. May the Force be with you! GD

Local beach fishers in southern Western Australia are still banned from catching the Southern Gharfish (SG).  I support bans when needed and this one is needed, but continue to reiterate that the SG is difficult to release when caught as a by catch to our usual Herring fishing forays. I was told by a Fisheries Dept person that if I caught an SG and had to kill it to get the deeply embedded hook out that I should have just cut the line as close to the hook as possible and released the fish back into the water.  In my view the fish would soon have died with the hook in its throat, apart from the fact that in handling the SG it releases all its scales. On this occasion I did not put the dead fish into the water as people sometimes swim in that section of the beach and I am not in the business of encouraging dangerous predators to come into swimming areas for dead whole fish.  I placed the dead SG deep into the sandhill vegetation which is far from the waterline. I would no...

Over the years of beach fishing in my local area I have gradually simplified things to a minimalist state. In WA we use a burley blob (float) to attract the fish.  Flotation is necessary as we often fish over reefs. Over the years I have gone from using pollard mixed with fish oil and maybe a few drops of aniseed to dry bread crumbs mixed with a little olive or canola oil and a few drops of aniseed.  I graduated from there to bread crumbs with a few drops of olive or canola oil to bind and preserve the bread crumbs.  A bucket of this burley lasts for weeks without deteriorating. The bread crumbs was the least messy I could find.  I reduced additives to be environmentally responsible and to take out any risk of attracting sharks to nearby swimming beaches. I never clean fish at the beach as I don't want to put fishy remains into the ocean. One of my favourite beaches is also a beach for walking dogs free of leads.  I had a small raised table that carried my...

Nice quiet afternoon, wind okay, no seaweed.  I'm off after my dozen herring (bag limit).  Hope I don't catch any Southern Gharfish as it will be a banned bycatch that I will try to return with minimum trauma to the ocean. Still worried that they will be harmed as I try to return them.  Scales come off when handled and they often swallow the hook and have to be put down to retrieve the hook. I'm not throwing dead fish back into the water as there is a nearby swimming beach.  I will have to throw them in the bin as I leave the beach. Please support a raise of ban to 6 per fisher.  Still think this will allow stocks to replenish and stop returning harmed Gharfish to the ocean. I should add that I would rather eat Gharfish than herring.  I have worked out a way to fillet them that leaves a nice splayed fillet with no bones. I don't use the bottle rolling method.  Just need a sharp thin bladed filleting knife. Best to fillet after the have been gutte...