ANOTHER large school of mulloway has been landed by commercial haul net fishers in Port Stephens, with about 1000kg of large mature adult mulloway caught in a single haul after using drones to locate the school. Similar large catches on the Mid North Coast just a few months ago, including one from the same area, sparked widespread concern among fishers.
While large catches of beach hauled mulloway have long been contentious, modern drone technology has compounded those concerns by making schools of mulloway far easier to locate. What once relied on years of experience from highly skilled fish spotters now comes second to a drone and a screen.
This is particularly concerning for a species that NSW Fisheries classified as depleted for over 20 years. While the latest Status of Australian Fish Stocks assessment in 2024 reclassified mulloway as a recovering stock, the definition of a recovering stock is still very depressing:
“Biomass is depleted and recruitment is impaired, but management measures are in place to promote stock recovery, and recovery is occurring.”
The latest management measures introduced by NSW Fisheries in 2023 included boat limits for recreational and charter boats, and a 200kg catch limit across all commercial mulloway fisheries, including the ocean haul fishery.
According to NSW DPI, the interim measures were: “designed, using the best available data, to achieve reductions in retained annual catch across all stakeholder groups.” However, concerns soon emerged about how the 200kg catch limit was operating in the ocean haul fishery. Under the current endorsement arrangements, one ocean haul crew can combine the 200kg catch limits of every ocean haul fishery endorsement holder participating in the same operation. As a result, stacking their catch limits and greatly exceeding the intended 200kg limit.
The questions for NSW Fisheries are simple. How does allowing catches to exceed 200kg under the current endorsement arrangements align with the stated purpose of the interim measures?
– What is the purpose of a 200kg catch limit that doesn’t limit your catch to 200kg?
NSW Fisheries also stated the aim of the interim measures was to “provide greater protection to adult fish in order to support the recovery of the currently depleted Mulloway population.”
– How does taking entire schools of adult fish using technology that didn’t exist a decade ago and at the same time exploiting the 200kg catch limit provide protection to adult fish exactly?
– Will thease concerns finally be rectified now or at the very least in the harvest strategy?
It’s time for NSW Fisheries to wake up and recognise the true value of mulloway. For many recreational fishos, this size of mulloway are once-in-a-lifetime catches. Dollar-for-dollar, these fish generate far greater value for local communities, tourism and recreational fishing than an entire school being instantly wiped from your local waterways in a single haul.
Recovering stocks deserve recovering management, not loopholes that allow entire schools of large adult fish to be removed in a single operation.
