I brought up the subject of over fishing whilst talking with a small group yesterday & everyone agreed that recreational fishing is severely impacting the ecology of the GBR.
We then walked to the local boat ramp where we watched boat after boat after boat being launched to head out to the reefs to fish. It was soul-destroying to watch, particularly the redneck bogan behaviour of the majority. Most of the boats were in the 70-100 Grand plus category so, these people weren’t low wage private enterprise. About two thirds were not local & they carried the largest ice boxes. Actual need for sea food didn’t appear to be the case. It was clearly mostly about showing off boats & cars & bringing in the biggest & most fish. Sad, very sad indeed !

As late as these past few months, there have been several “fishing competitions”. Remember we’re talking about 2023 not several decades ago. To still organise such bogan entertainment in modern times in the face of a massive & irreversible ecological disaster is nothing short of soul numbing !

It's hard to believe that recreational fishing is a problem, when huge foreign trawlers are scooping fish up by the thousands of tons.

It's not a subject dear to my heart. I eat fish once a week. I have no patience to catch them myself.

Perhaps Australia should be encouraging more fish farming if things are as bad as they are said to be.

Overfishing is a massive problem but the fact is not publicised for reasons to do with personal gain for people with no consideration for the ecology. Yes, huge ships are taking more than the reproduction process can handle but as per always, people won’t stop until there’s no more easy money to be made.
My particular concern is the ecology of the GBR. Tourism operators keep hyping up the “beauty of the Barrier Reef” but the reality is that overfishing has already had massive impacts & unbalanced marine life there. Those making money from the reef are not & will not admit the decline. Instead scientists are hired to blame farmers & other “factors” for the decline & of course climate change has been a very handy cash cow for years now. The real problem is the unbalancing of the marine ecology from recreational overfishing which of course is a huge industry. Until this fact is acknowledged, tourism will continue to decline here whilst in the smarter countries it is on the rise & without that dreadful “recreational fishing” !

The killing-off of the GBR by these utterly selfish bogans calling themselves recreational is sanctioned if not encouraged by the idiotic law & policy makers with no concept of the urgency to act.

A friend told me today that there are people on our local wharf deploying up to five & even six fishing rods each in full view of Govt officers frequenting the facilities & nothing is done to curb this utterly selfish practice.