Marlborough Fishers Lay out Blueprint

Marlborough recreational sea anglers have laid out a blueprint to government to address some burning issues between government and the recreational fishing public after meeting at Parliament with the minister of fisheries Nathan Guy last month. In a letter to Mr Guy the Marlborough Recreational Fishers Association has called for changes to blue cod, moki and butterfish set netting and snapper regulations. In addition it wants "traditional public recreational scallop" areas protected from commercial over-exploitation.

The controversial blue cod rules such as restricting the recreational public to cod between 30 and 35 cm fish and the transit rules were unfair and only applied to recreational people said Laurie Stevenson, spokesman for the association.

"We have no argument with commercial. What they're doing is totally legal. Our beef is with the government's setup which unfairly discriminates against the public," he said.

Laurie Stevenson said ideally the bag limit should be four or five fish, the slot rule abolished and replaced with a minimum size limit of about 33 cms and a transit rule restriction on fish caught out in Cook Strait to be wiped.

The Marlborough Recreational Fishers' Association wants a healthy fishery, one which will benefit all sectors and with responsibility and regulation measures equally shared. However recreational fishers have born the brunt of restrictions which at the annual meeting of the association in July was termed discriminatory and unfair.

"We believe the blue cod fishery is healthy. That makes restrictions on recreational not only unfair but illogical too. We want proper management not guesswork that discriminates. For instance we'd like to see blue cod fishing closed for spawning perhaps August, September and that to apply to all fishing," said Laurie Stevenson. "It's stupid to kill the goose that lays the golden egg."

Currently government has closed the blue cod fishery to recreational from September to most of December inclusive.

The letter to government also called for government to restore fully set netting rights from the current four months to 12 months of the year, thus being the same as commercial. In addition,  the need for recreational fishers to remain with their nets should be abolished. 

The association also expressed fears about the future of the Queen Charlotte and Pelorus scallop beds should commercial over-exploitation occur

ENDS

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