Anglers to have their say on fishing rules
The proposal to change WA’s recreational fishing rules, were discussed with local anglers, when the recfishwest CEO visited Dampier recently.
The draft strategy, released by the Department of Fisheries earlier this year, contains sweeping reforms that will affect all recreational fishermen.
Recfishwest urged each recreational fisherman who attended the discussion, to submit feedback on a draft strategy, developed by the Department, which contains significant changes to bag and possession limits across the State.
At the forefront of the review is a proposal to reduce the statewide fillet possession limit, from 20kg to 10kg, for demersal species.
Standardising the current highly complicated daily bag limits is another key objective of the draft strategy.
In some cases, individual species bag limits will increase and for others they will decrease.
The Department also proposes to standardise the bag limit of pelagic fish to three, which means bag limits for some pelagic species will increase in some parts of the State.
For instance, throughout the West Coast Bioregion, the daily bag limit for Spanish mackerel will increase from two to three per fisherman.
Recfishwest acting chief executive officer, Andrew Rowland, said the review was aimed at standardising and simplifying the rules from a statewide perspective.
“As with all strategies, there will be support for some of the propositions and opposition to others,” Dr Rowland said.
Dr Rowland urged recreational fishermen to submit feedback during the two-month public comment period.
Recfishwest has been assigned the task of facilitating the community consultation and collating feedback on the draft strategy, by the Department.
This is the first time the Department of Fisheries has asked the peak body to conduct the community consultation for a major strategy.
“It is crucial recreational fishers consider the proposed changes and submit their comments on the proposal,” he said.
“The basis of support or opposition for the proposals is important in ensuring the Department implements the most soundly based strategy.”
Dr Rowland stressed that the review is merely a set of proposals and Recfishwest will coordinate the community’s views to be presented to the State Government.
“This review provides fishers with a great opportunity to provide input into the management of recreational fishing over the next five years,” he said.
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