2019-07-18 OM Agenda - Item 1 - Attachment 1 - Noosa Fishing Futures

This information will be used to inform the Fisheries Discussion Paper recently released by the Government as
the final step in the consultation process before proposed regulatory changes are implemented and completed
by the 1st September 2019. The current Fisheries Regulations 2008 are up for their ten-year review which was
extended in 2018 so it is unlikely that another extension will be provided – hence the requirement for Fisheries
Queensland to legislate by the 1st September.

                                                              THE N1 NET FISHERY IN THE RIVER AND LAKES




                                 N1 inshore net fishers haul in their catch

The net fishers operating in the rivers and lakes are using an N1 symbol. This is a separate fishery to the K8
fishery operating on the ocean beach, and the fishery operates all year. Fisheries Queensland record the ocean
beach catch as “Ocean Beach Netting” or haul netting. The N1 fishery is recorded by Fisheries Queensland as
“Net Complex” which is also mostly referred to in the data as ring netting. This is where mesh nets are
suspended in the water and used to encircle a school of fish. The N1 mullet component of the net fishery in the
lakes and rivers is the largest as indicated in the FQ data. However, this data also includes an offshore
component of the N1 fishery.

The issue with this data set is Site 16 also records some ocean beach catch by ring netting and there’s no way
of separating the ocean beach component of the N1 fishery from the rivers and lakes part of the N1 fishery.
This is not important for a description of the N1 fishery but it may be important if future fisheries management
options give consideration to limit the use of mesh nets in the rivers and lakes. The principle species caught is
mullet and is the largest net fishery in the Noosa region, larger than the K8 ocean beach fishery. This is
demonstrated by the Fisheries Queensland data by aggregated method and region in table 4.




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