The Petition!
So why a petition? Why bother! Give it a rest, your a keyboard warrior! It wont do anything, your good for nothing! I have heard it all before and I will hear it all again. Unfortunately for the lads netting the Salmon in Castlemaine Harbour this kinda goes deep! It really does and I ain't going nowhere. So let me lay out for all of ye why the commercial fishery in Castlemaine Harbour should and will be closed. I had a great conversation last night with John Sullivan of the River Maine Anglers and I have been on the phone lately to a lot of the other committee members of various rivers in the catchment. People might not be aware of this but the most important river in Castlemaine Harbour is the river Maine. The river Maine is the only river in the area with a fish-counter. That fish counter has given data over the last few years that would make the river Maine one of the best spring Salmon rivers in the country. Here is a chart that shows this.
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| Fish Counter Results 2015 - 2019, River Maine. |
So as you can see from the chart in 2018 the river Maine fish counter recorded nearly 1500 spring Salmon. In 2017 the fish counter recorded well over 1000 spring Salmon. The reality is these are wrong and the state body in charge of protecting our Salmon knew this. These are impossible figures and the fishery in Castlemaine harbour was left continue. The damage that has been caused to the river Maine is an environmental crime and the crime was committed by the state body in charge of trying to protect it. So let me explain what the fish counter is and why its in place. The fish counter was put in place to protect the stocks of the River Maine. It counts the fish that go up the river, if the data that is recorded is under a specific conservation limit then the river closes to angling to protect the stock of salmon that is in the river. Now the netting that goes on in Castlemaine harbour affects the salmon returning to the river Maine so that has to stop as well. I got a phone call last year at a very late time of the night from some fella who nets Salmon in Cromane, he told me the nets do not affect Salmon returning to the Maine but that is not entirely true. I will get to that at a later stage.
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| Nets operating in Castlemaine Harbour Legal and Illegally |
So let me explain the image above. Firstly the lines do not give an accurate representation of the nets in Cromane, the nets in fairness are small in comparison to the lines, they do not go all the way out into the middle of the harbour. The lines in the mouth of the Laune do because them nets block almost the whole river. The red lines are illegal nets that are operated every year. Where there is legal nets there is also illegal ones. I am sure that in and around the black lines illegal nets operate also. Also the legal nets are not operating all year around these nets are allocated to a certain time. In fairness to the fishery board they have been seizing more nets in the last few years than previous. So look our problem is with the law and how the law has been broken through either falsifying the fish counter results or through scientific data been recorded wrong. Either way the data should not be used to allow nets continue in Castlemaine harbour. This is big business to a few. In the overall picture the money being made here from selling wild Salmon is nothing compared to the money angling could bring to the area. Although we believe that the Maine has been drastically affected by all this, in my opinion the river Laune is on its knees and netting needs to stop. Also it must be said that I believe anglers do add to the problem but in fairness a lot of the anglers now are returning fish so we can make a difference but when you have a net blocking the river all bets are off.