Thoughts on flathead — Craig Hedge

Thoughts on Flathead

by Craig Hedge

It may be time we valued flathead in a different way. Craig Hedge puts a robust argument for the recreational sector to take stronger ownership of the Tasmanian flathead resource. Read this article carefully and question what is real, what is science, what is the actual situation and what can be done. I believe without contradiction every Tasmanian fisher that has dropped a line in saltwater will have caught flathead. For most it will have been the first fish they ever caught. For many it is the only fish they chase. Ed

Flathead - ‘The peoples fishery’ - And the 100,000+ strong Tasmanians who have caught flathead for generations - not for ‘sport ’ - but for a feed, and as Guy Barnett recently stated himself, as an important “way of life” for Tasmanians.

The way of life and the value of a feed is often overlooked or not as strongly valued perhaps by some ‘recreationals’ - and recreational representatives - who are often more aptly defined perhaps as elite recreational ‘sports’ fishers who often share very different values and seek different outcomes from that of many average everyday Tasmanians who have historically, and presently, primarily caught flathead to feed their families and support their communities.

The common flathead is a fish for the common people – it’s the peoples fishery.

It’s the heart and soul of most Tasmanian fishers.

Even the shape of a flathead’s head is in the shape of Tasmania!

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” - Alexander Hamilton

Disclaimer

This is unapologetically long, but an important one for the most historically important Tasmanian recreational fish species that isn’t getting the discussion, the respect, or the airplay it should be getting at this time.

Central topic of discussion:

Tasmanian Government Brochure: Flathead Stocks What’s Happening?

My Thoughts:

The brochure mentioned above should seriously concern most noncommercial Tasmanian fishers - currently referred to collectively under the all-encompassing label of the ‘recreational fishers’ umbrella - as it lays blame and responsibility for the current state of the flathead fishery - the peoples fishery - squarely on the shoulders of recreational fishers.

Let’s look at why and how I have come to that conclusion by directly quoting from the brochure itself:

“Stock status = DEPLETING”

“Recreational fishers keep over 730,000 flathead (96% are sand flathead) every year in Tasmania.” (The brochure failed to mention that Tasmanian recreationals fish responsibly for these fish in a line fishery that has negligible impact on habitat, that doesn’t destroy or constantly upset habitat, and that recreational fishers release the flathead they catch ‘alive’ with a release rate well above 50% - and in a fishery where bag limits and increased size limits have been implemented over many years now).

Google says what?

And let’s just refer to Google for some information here - as a loose general guide - for some context/ perspective where currently there is very little:

Dear Google: ‘How many babies can a flathead fish have?’

“Under favourable conditions, this fish could have up to five spawning events a season, which could potentially result in the production of about 31.5 million eggs annually!”

If 0.1% of these survive year on year, this single flathead has the capacity to potentially produce 30,000plus flatties each year.”

I would surmise if flathead have the healthy habitat (aka ‘favourable conditions’ as mentioned above) to be able to reproduce, and if that habitat isn’t constantly destroyed and disrupted by heavy commercial netting, for generations, for example, then something is not quite adding up here.

Recreationals release hundreds of thousands of flathead every year (it has been stated that flathead have been proven to reproduce at around 280mm) that are each able to reproduce up to 30,000 plus ‘little flatties’ each year.

What if just 10% of those 700,000 flathead released each year by responsible recreational fishers had ‘favourable conditions’ to reproduce? That would be 70,000 reproductive fish.

Let’s halve that number again to 35,000 to be even more conservative and quell any possible gender debate. The result? - Over one billion flathead!

Every Tasmanian fisher that has dropped a line in saltwater will have caught flathead. For most it will have been the first fish they ever caught. For many it is the only fish they chase.

Or to put it another way, over 1400 times more than the current recreational kept catch rate of flathead each year!

Whilst a quick one minute Google reference is definitely not hard science, it certainly can be a guide at this time, and in the absence of better science data that hasn’t been considered to be important up to this point I might add, it’s the best we have for now.

Why are flathead stocks declining?

“Comparing recreational and commercial catch”

Sand flathead:

Recreationals = 98% or 184 tonnes.

Commercials = 2% (approx 3.7 tonnes)

So recreationals catch 98% of the fish then?

Are we counting all fish caught - or recovered and accounted for over decades and generations? Can that be effectively measured now, let alone over generations of commercial net fishing?

Are we taking into consideration decade after decade and generations of habitat destroying and biomass destroying commercial catches using heavy commercial grade nets and gear that rip up and drag the ocean floor every single time they are used?

What about the importance of these habitats for nurseries, and breeding and feeding critical for biomass to rebuild?

The heavily netted and dragged ocean floor would be unrecognisable decades and generations ago in comparison to what it is now.

Are the numbers presented in the brochure representative of data that supports - or punishes - recreational fishers for unsustainable and habitat destroying commercial operations?

“Flathead are targeted by most of the 100,000 Tasmanians who fish each year. 70% of all recreational fish caught are flathead.”

Sounds like an all-important and predominantly recreational fishery - the peoples fishery - doesn’t it?

Is a commercial catch of just 2% (note that catch is a final outcome result that doesn’t measure the process involved to catch them and the biomass multi species damage of the commercial practices used over decades where the cumulative impact on flathead (and other species) habitat and the biomass is a great big black hole).

Sounds like the recreational importance of this fishery, potentially, has a lot of votes and weight attached to it in a political climate where major parties, like the sand flathead themselves perhaps, are also declining and losing ground to nimble independent politicians in tune with the people who get things done and who don’t navigate around structural issues or dance around the tough questions to avoid getting their hands dirty - or upsetting the status quo they are very much a part of.

Politicians with integrity and real understanding of the needs of the common people - the ordinary everyday Tasmanians - comes to mind.

Someone who demonstrates results in achieving great outcomes against the odds and against the flow of mainstream politics maybe?

Perhaps there is a politician who might see the importance of the flathead fishery to Tasmanians here and step up and do something to protect it where others haven’t?

“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.” - Thomas Jefferson

Heavy fishing environmental damage:

“Stocks are under heavy fishing pressure.

Over 50% of flathead are caught in the south east. Heavy fishing and environmental changes are influencing flathead biology and stock levels.”

The environmental changes are about what exactly - Heavy fishing?

Done ‘when’ and by whom exactly?

Generations of unsustainable heavy commercial habitat destroying netting that destroy the environment and the ecosystems the fish live in perhaps?

Heavy fishing influencing flathead biology and stock levels via permanently and consistently destroyed habitat perhaps?

Wouldn’t commercially netting areas over and over again for generations remove the very environments and symbiotic relationships that flathead depend on for a healthy biology to reproduce?

The cumulative impact on habitat of using heavy commercial nets for decades over and over again wasn’t even mentioned in the brochure.

Research:

“What research is being done?”

“Better monitoring of sand flathead populations and expanding research to include more areas.”

Is that monitoring what’s left in the recreational fishery, or monitoring what’s left of the commercial destruction to habitat and biomass where by catch is DOA - dead on arrival catch and not required for accountability or measurement post catch?

Is expanding research and buying time with 10 year plans for unsustainable practices required for what is blatantly obvious to many recreational fishers?

Is that research time - and money - better spent elsewhere ‘after’ the important structural change of the fishery has been achieved?

“More frequent recreational catch surveys.”

So the answer is to monitor the recreational catch more to manage a fishery that is structurally in decline due to habitat destruction and commercial fishing practices?

Is that the response recreational fishers want - let alone need - in ensuring the fishery is healthy and long term abundant?

Is there evidence of mutual responsibility here...?

Climate:

“Investigating whether flathead biology is influenced by climate?”

We can answer the climate issue right now. The flathead are impacted by the climate. That is why they are in the declining state they are.

It’s called the ‘economic climate’. A highly prized commercial fish - the people of Tasmania’s bread and butter fish - was enabled by government to be commercially fished historically for generations within and around sensitive estuaries, the mouth of estuaries, and offshore.

A declining biomass means more effort and expense required to get the fish doesn’t it?

More ground is fished for longer, the habitat is further upset, destroyed and disrupted, and so too is what’s left of the fish populations of multiples of codependent species.

Is that sustainable or even logical in 2021 and beyond?

“What do size and bag limits do?”

In isolation, they penalise and focus in on recreational fishers for a problem that is commercially historical and structural.

They fail to acknowledge or understand the bigger picture and the contrast of biomass responsibility and management between recreational fishers and commercial fishers.

What might be the result of not acknowledging all users and their impact when creating brochures and initiatives that work within existing failing structures?

Credibility? Integrity? Trust? Transparency maybe?

“Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don’t want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.” - Jim Butcher

Facts and figures and dollars:

And something else to think about here:

If the recreational catch is 98% and the final market ready commercial catch is 2%, then the total commercial catch of sand flathead = 3.7 tonnes.

What is 3.7 tonnes - or 3700 kilos of flathead worth?

Let’s be generous and say the beach price is $40 a kilogram That comes in at just under $150,000 annually.

Is the future of a 100,000+ strong - and growing - and voting – non-commercial recreational fishery where 70% of all fish caught are flathead where the dollar spend is more than $160 million annually, worth risking for 3.7 tonnes or little more than $150,000 of flathead fished by habitat destroying gear?

Or more accurately, reduce the above figure to around $80 million by removing the freshwater fishers (25%) and the other 30% of recreationals who may not catch or target flathead.

Whatever way you want to calculate this, the numbers speak for themselves:

Unsustainable habitat destroying commercial netting operations are a zero sum game - Tasmanians and flathead lose.

Commercial fishers:

Commercial fishers are not the problem here - they never have been the problem here.

Commercial fishers fish legally by the privilege of obtaining a government issued fishing licence because the government support those commercial fishing practices - just like the government wanted to support Super Trawlers in Tasmanian waters several years back.

The gear the commercials use is legal. They operate within the rules and regulations they are given.

Remember the Super Trawlers folks?

And finally your thoughts here?

The government was happy to bring in the big boats to fish what was a depleted Jack Mackerel fishery just 30 years prior - without strong science or evidence to support it.

Commercial fishers are not the problem here - governments who issue the licences without accountability to the people and the natural resources that belong to the people are the problem.

Commercial fishers just do their job, and declining fisheries tell you it’s getting harder for them to do it.

More effort and less return.

When commercial netting licences are abolished in the south east region in particular - and they will be - the number one priority would be to reimburse commercial fishers well above any value attributed to their licences and livelihoods by a considerable margin.

They need to be looked after and respected throughout the process.

In fact remunerating commercial fishers should be the first priority in all of this.

All Tasmanians need to win on this one to ensure a better future for all concerned and to protect the sand flathead - the people’s fishery - for future Tasmanian generations.

Government responsibility:

in ‘talking about’ climate issues and sustainability, but are not prepared to act decisively, transparently or congruently, to stop these unsustainable fishing practices.

It’s time for government to acknowledge the environmental and biological damage to the flathead fishery and restore this fishery and return it to the Tasmanian people as a recreational only fishery.

The decline of the flathead fishery is a long term structural issue that requires long term solutions - not short term fixes or diversionary reframes recommending catches of other species (some already considerably depleted themselves - see Tas Gov “Five Underrated Fish Too Good To Throw Back” brochure for info on that) or promises of shiny objects (ie: the aptly named ‘FADS’, and more infrastructure etc to access declining fish populations as discussed in the draft plan) to non-commercial recreational fishers.

That approach is not sustainable - it merely works within limited existing structures that do not effect real change.

Less filler, shiny objects, and distractions required by representative bodies, and more substance to ensure healthy fish populations for current and future generations of Tasmanians.

“The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.” - Harry S. Truman

I have had my say on this - just as importantly, what do you think about the flathead fishery and what can or should be done?

Do you agree – or disagree?

Have your say - email the Minister, Guy Barnett <guy.barnett@tas.liberal.org.au>