KEY POINTS:
If, like me, you regularly snapper fish on the Hauraki Gulf, then the chances are you've been asked to take a survey board with you on a recent trip.
It has happened to me on half a dozen occasions over the past year and I've been happy to oblige, filling out the details of my day's catch.
The information I've supplied has been on the size of fish, both kept and released; and how and where they were caught. The survey also called for information on whether fish were lip or gut-hooked and whether released fish swam away or died on the surface.
Until recently, I'd not given the survey much thought. There didn't seem to be any downside to helping out and the upside was that I got to find out how my fellow fishos were doing. Returning a board brimming with details of good-sized fish I'd caught, while hearing that others had struggled, added a nice ego-boosted glow to the odd successful day - just as catching sod all and returning to the boatramp to hear that everyone else had carved up was a real kick in the teeth.
I'd asked a couple of half-hearted questions of the surveyors on the ramp but never really got to the bottom of what the survey was about. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me, so I phoned the bloke behind it all, John Holdsworth of Blue Water Marine Research.
The survey, John told me, had been commissioned by the Ministry of Fisheries and was designed to "determine the size and condition of snapper released by recreational fishers" in the Snapper 1 region, which includes East Northland, the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Plenty. When combined with the size of fish kept this helps estimate total removals of snapper by recreational fishers.
The information will be one of many tools used by the Ministry to create a stock assessment model (SAM) for the region.
The SAM will tell the ministry just what state the region's snapper stocks are in and, from that, it will make decisions on commercial quota levels and recreational bag limits.
The region's last SAM, completed in 2000, showed that the Gulf's stocks were below the level that could support the maximum sustainable yield but were on the improve, so no action was taken.
On the North Island's west coast, however, it was a different story. The 2005 SAM found that snapper were still in trouble and the previous rebuild plan had failed. The minister made the decision to reduce commercial quota and reduce the bag limit for recreational fishers to 10 per fisher per day.
So the completion of the next SAM for Snapper 1 in 2009 could have ramifications for recreational and commercial fishers alike.
Bluewater's 2005-06 survey results won't become public information until they have been signed off by the Ministry, but Holdsworth was able to part with a few snippets that will be of interest to weekend warriors.
"What this survey has shown, and the same with the commercial data, is that there have been a large number of small fish in the fishery over the last few years," said Holdsworth.
"These fish are all eight-year-old fish now. 1999 had a particularly warm summer and a good survival rate among juveniles and that is feeding through now."
With the class of 99 set to increase in size over coming years "there is a bit of a boost coming through for the fishery".
"There should be some better years ahead.
"But this year the Hauraki Gulf has suffered a bit from cooler water temperatures and the fish just haven't been where people expected them to be or as hungry as people expected them to be."
Cool seasons like this year may reduce spawning success and lead to a downturn in the future but the effect is minimalised because snapper are such long-living fish, he said.
The snapper targeted by fishers in the Gulf have an age range of about 30 years, so one down-year won't adversely affect the fishing. Two or three bad years in a row, however, would have a more noticeable impact.
If you thought you were alone in being plagued by under-sized fish, you're wrong.
"Over half of the snapper caught by recreational fishers in Snapper 1 in 2005-06 were released, most of these are less than 30cm," says Holdsworth.
As well as the info provided by boat owners, Bluewater also has trained observers collecting data from charter boats.
"We get a very similar pattern. It means that recreational fishers have done a really good job of recording information on the forms."
While it's good to hear that recreational fishos are doing their part to help assess the level of snapper stocks, I doubt I'm alone in hoping that information isn't used against us down the road.
The increasingly bitter debate over the rights of recreational fishers versus commercial fishers is really another issue.
A scientific analysis of fish stock levels can only be a good thing. But what the government chooses to do with information is another matter altogether.
