good fish mate.

and well done on the realse.

seems lik a good day out.

cheers danno

well done Andy. looks to be no sign of baratrauma at all. would have been nice to see that one going back

But my deckie nearly had a coronary at the thought.

I stopped fishing for the next three drifts hoping my deckie would nail one for himself, but to no avail.

I then switched to trying a bozo soft plastic jig and managed a few hits but no firm takers.

The rest of the day was pretty baron apart from one big fish I dropped.

We managed 6 dhuies a pinky, two BB's a skippy and a few other odds and sods. Only kept the one dhuie and the skippy for sashimi and released all the others.

Next time you get a dhuie. try a decompression stop as soon as you see colour. Chances are the fish will continue to float upwards but will release a heap of gas in the last 5m. It makes a big difference in the condition of the fish before release i/m/o.

gotta get out there and catch a dhuie first . never have much luck with them , maybe 3 or 4  per year when we fish every other weekend. 3 trips in the last 7 months, suffering bad withdrawals but we will be back out there soon 

Top stuff Andy!

sounds like a great day out Andy and I can also vouch for the "deco" stop on the way up. We used to catch a lot of blue groper as bycatch and when we had colour (up to 20m down still) we'd just take it slowly and let them decompress naturally and never had another come up with signs of barotrauma. Worked on most fish that suffer from barotrauma including snapper.

We even had two Dhuies release themselves about 5m from the boat as I stop fully for a few minutes till I see air bubbles rising. These were smallish fish that would be size or just under and as they decompressed and released their air, they gave a big kick and somehow releaesd themselves underwater but in full view of Darryn and myself. Both dhuies kicked away and shot down much quicker than any fish I have released by hand without a release weight.

I think its because unless I feel significant weight I don't set the hooks quite as firmly, and by going slow there is much less resistance on the line/hook, so maybe the fish was constantly working its way free all the way up.

Deco stops. Have found by having a light drag(makes for a slow retrieve) and allowing the fish to "gas off" fish will release well without using a release weight. Sambos seem to be able to "gas off"a lot easier than dhuys which is problable why they release well.

in action there?

It accounted for both the dhuies.

Darryn, my deckie uses them regularly and catches plenty of dhuies, but decided to use a hand tied snell of circle hooks on heavy mono that day. Unfortunately he didnt get a bite.

Its not the snell that catches them perse, but I can't help thinking that that little bit of glow tube above the bait must get the bait noticed more than others, as I rarely catch fish on the other hook.... Who really knows... and who really cares....it works for me so I'm happy.

that your very valid and interesting point was fresh in my mind.

Fate had it that I caught two largish fish in succession (still very rare) and the video that will be up on youtube shortly will hopefully educate people what to do when they find themselves in this position.

You could argue, I should have kept it and pretended it was my deckie's then gone home before the wife got out of bed on Valentines day.   However I can argue with great confidence that we did everything possible to ensure this fish survived and its not rocket science.

I only wish we had three people on board so the whole process could have been filmed. As it was we needed two people to get the fish in the water safely and get it released because the leader on the release rod kept wrapping around the end eyelet. I stopped Darryn filming and got him to hold the rod while I released the fish. Maybe next time I will get a dedicated handline instead, as that is likely to have less issues and can be handled on your own if necessary.

By the time I stepped back to grab the camera again the fish was well and truly at the bottom and a quick tug on the line by Darryn had the fish released at depth.

the programmes are tightly controlled and they have to have a reason for wanting to put a foreign object in a fish. Keep tagging to professionals who know what they are doing and leave us amateurs out of it i/m/o.

Nothing wrong with recruiting us amateurs to assist provided we get the proper training on how to do it first.

who was encouraging catch and release of jewies mate?

fact is,some fish have to go back by law.

Can somebody actually put up a catch report without getting some sort of ridicule?? I'm sure there will come a time where nobody will be game enough to do so, because of the minority sitting on the sidelines wanting to have a crack at any opportunity!! 

definatly a good topic west coast,one i'm pretty passionate about just quietly.

this bit from your last post bothers me a bit though,

" I supposed my message is: If the fish is in tip top shape then give it another chance if you wish, but be aware of the facts and don't kid yourself by releasing anything but a perfect fish."

no kidding,i've tagged more than a couple of fish suffering badly,even written on the tag sheet that the fish had no chance of survival,only to have it recaptured 6 months,twelve months,2 years later.

thats a fact.

It seems as though fishing has become more of a political debate than fishing itself...Hey, I went fishing yesterday and winded up 40odd kms due west of Yanchep, but in case of ridicule, I won't say what happened!! 

Dhufish? Thats good to hear. Research says otherwise.

some jewies,some black arse out of 90+ metres,a few pinkies we thought never had a chance out deep,one even had a rusted out 8 or 9/0 circle hook composting in its gob.

the only research i believe is what i see with my own eyes pal...which research are you refering to?

C'mon man, my boat doesn't brake down, it got me safely out and back in as per usual, but unfortunately we ACCIDENTLY caught 3 dhufish that were undersize that had to be released. Before anybody jumps on the bandwagon, they were brought up very slowly and released to the best of our abilities. At the end of the day,  I am extremely passionate about the survival of the dhufish stocks, and I know full well how hard it can be to find them at times. I don't fish all the time and I only drag the boat out when the moon and winds are conducive, which as most would know doesn't happen all that often...(I think I've covered all the bases??!!)

Quote - "the only research i believe is what i see with my own eyes pal...which research are you refering to?"

Google 'barotrauma in fish'. At last count their were 15,500 articles related to the subject so I think you could say it is a fairly researched topic. Your name happens to pop up on a few of them so no doubt you are more than versed in the subject.

I know it makes for a pretty boring forum topic but in my opinion barotrauma is probably one of the single biggest issues facing our west coast fishery. Successfully address that issue (if we can) and I think you will go a long way to preventing longer closures!!

No doubt your release weight (i take it you are the 'Garry Lilley') and Andy Mac's passion and video and fellow anglers advice and passion is helping. As a fishing group we have come a long way.