There have been a lot of shark sightings up and down the East Coast of Australia over the past couple of weeks and this can probably be attributed to a couple of things – there are more sharks around due to the decrease of commercial fishing in and around the areas of the sighting, there is more food available due to the increase in no fishing zones all along the coastal areas, the water quality on the East Coast is much better than it used to be or just because.
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I am by no means an aquaculturist by any stretch of the imagination; I do have a very healthy respect for these majestic creatures.
Twelve months ago calling a shark a majestic creature would never have happened but after having the opportunity to swim with them (and yes I know it was in a reasonably controlled environment and they were Grey Nurse Sharks, but it was free swimming with fish with big bloody teeth that were bigger than me and not by a little bit, by a lot) my nervousness has changed to respect.
Getting back to the point at hand, there have been calls for the culling of sharks.
I have said it before and I will say it again, the ocean is their home, we are just visitors. We are not top of the food chain in their environment, we are a fair way down the list and we have no right to try and change that so I am dead set against any such action.
Yes sharks do kill humans (a total of 232 people in Australian waters since 1791), but so do drunk drivers (approximately 1500 people in Australia since 1987) and I am yet to see a call for the culling of these creatures.
I have never had to deal with someone attacked by a shark – thankfully – but I have had to deal with what drunk drivers have done in my job as a fireman so I can say with experience that it couldn’t be much worse.
Why is it we live in a reactive society instead of a proactive one, commonsense used to be the norm, but now it is like there is no such thing.
On another note and closer to home, Wagga and surrounding districts now has a Wagga-based maritime officer so the chances of getting your vessel checked in our local waters is more of a when not if.
If you aren’t compliant, and there is no reason not to be except stupidity, then you should give yourself an uppercut and get compliant, I am sure Maritime would be the first people you would want to see if you were in trouble on the water, so you should also be happy to see them on any occasion, the rules aren’t put there for them, they are put there for us and our safety.
Burrinjuck is still a bit slow on the cod front with only a couple being caught, the yellas have been a little more on the chew taking trolled hard bodies and casted spinner baits. The reddies are getting more plentiful, the size isn’t overly huge but the numbers are there to get a good feed (bit of flour, egg, on the barby, one of the sweetest tasting fresh water fish you can find) and as per usual plenty of carp in the shallows on bread and corn
Blowering is also still only fair, a couple of cod but nothing huge. A couple of half decent yellas up to 52cm, a few reddies starting to be caught, not a great deal but still worth a trip as it’s not that far away and the moon is starting to get a bit bigger
The alpine waters, well the weather has been cold, pretty damn cold, with fog and almost a frost – well that might be a bit of an embellishment but I suppose almost can have a wide variance – not to many fish landed. Tumut River is fishing well with some nice fish being caught, Talbingo isn’t fishing that well or not many people are fishing it, Tantangara is cold and a lot of water between fish, Eucumbene is only fair, very picturesque but only fair on the fishing front, a couple of nice browns but a lot of washing of the lures, Jindabyne is quiet with not a great deal of fish caught or just no reports.
Hume Weir saw a few blokes head there and do a pre-fish for the upcoming first leg of the Australian Yellowbelly Championships in a couple of weeks, there were a few fish caught but most blokes said they caught nothing and were keeping their cards very close to their chests – there is a bit of money involved in these tournaments.
Mulwala, I still haven’t had any reports of fish caught down there, not saying that there are no fish down there, just not many locals heading that way.
The Murrumbidgee River is fishing good, drove over it on Wednesday and it is looking good, nice and clean and not flowing to fast. A few boat trailers in the car park so there are obviously people on the river, a few cod (and a couple of nice ones) being caught, a couple of yellas and a few trout cod in the faster water.
The South Coast, well they are saying it has been the best bite for the last 20 years on the marlin especially at Bermagui and below with one boat hooking up four at once on lures. Wagga local Cain Gawne hooked and landed two out of two an excellent result. No tuna around, just marlin – bugger. Flathead are still hanging around in the estuaries as well.
Eucumbene 52.2%
Hume Weir 48.9%
Blowering 32.1%
Burrinjuck 55%
Jindabyne 71.9%
Tantangara 22.6%
Talbingo 76.9%
Mulwala 91.6%
Dartmouth 81.2%
Send your pictures to craig@waggamarine.com.au or 0419 493 313