13-07-2005, 07:00 PM
Hi Ian,
Sorry this has been so long in coming, I hope its not too late to be of use.
Last summer's crayfish season we predominantly dived in 2-6m of water along the west coast of Victoria (west of Lorne), and found very few legal sized crays amongst many juveniles. This is in contrast to what we have observed in previous years, that is fewer crays but which were of a larger size. The waters we dive in are quite heavily pot-fished, and have been for many years, so I'm not sure if our observation reflects increased shallow-water potting by commercial fishers, or increased recreational fishing pressure (or another factor entirely). We do not encounter large numbers of fellow recreational SCUBA divers working from the shore, but we do see a few. We have never encountered fisheries officers in many years of diving this area of coastline, and I am convinced that should someone choose to exceed bag limits/take undersized crays, they could do so in relative safety since the presence of fisheries inspectors is non existent. Since we were diving from the shore, the areas we dive are prone to heavy seas, and I would estimate that on 30% of trips made we did not dive due to the swell/shore break being too large to dive safely. I would estimate that a further 10% of our trips were unproductive due to bad viz, likely due to heavy seas in the days/weeks preceding the calm days when we chose to dive. I would estimate that of the legal sized crayfish that we did encounter, approximately 30-40% were 'uncatchable' due to being unaccessible in deep caves, ledges etc.
This is probably not especially relevant to the cray fishing meeting, but we have also noticed a steady decline in the numbers of abalone, especially legal sized abalone, which we occasionally target as a bycatch to crayfish.
Good luck in the meeting and let us know how you fare
Regards
Jason
Sorry this has been so long in coming, I hope its not too late to be of use.
Last summer's crayfish season we predominantly dived in 2-6m of water along the west coast of Victoria (west of Lorne), and found very few legal sized crays amongst many juveniles. This is in contrast to what we have observed in previous years, that is fewer crays but which were of a larger size. The waters we dive in are quite heavily pot-fished, and have been for many years, so I'm not sure if our observation reflects increased shallow-water potting by commercial fishers, or increased recreational fishing pressure (or another factor entirely). We do not encounter large numbers of fellow recreational SCUBA divers working from the shore, but we do see a few. We have never encountered fisheries officers in many years of diving this area of coastline, and I am convinced that should someone choose to exceed bag limits/take undersized crays, they could do so in relative safety since the presence of fisheries inspectors is non existent. Since we were diving from the shore, the areas we dive are prone to heavy seas, and I would estimate that on 30% of trips made we did not dive due to the swell/shore break being too large to dive safely. I would estimate that a further 10% of our trips were unproductive due to bad viz, likely due to heavy seas in the days/weeks preceding the calm days when we chose to dive. I would estimate that of the legal sized crayfish that we did encounter, approximately 30-40% were 'uncatchable' due to being unaccessible in deep caves, ledges etc.
This is probably not especially relevant to the cray fishing meeting, but we have also noticed a steady decline in the numbers of abalone, especially legal sized abalone, which we occasionally target as a bycatch to crayfish.
Good luck in the meeting and let us know how you fare
Regards
Jason