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Sharing recreational bag limits on boats – it just makes sense

Fisheries Minister Dave Kelly has approved the drafting of regulations to allow recreational fishers to share bag limits when fishing from boats.

This coming change to Western Australia’s fishing rules represents a common sense approach that recognises existing recreational fishing practices and is aimed at simplifying the rules.

Importantly, this change will enable fishers to legally share catch from rock lobster pots.

Under the existing legislation for example, a licensed recreational rock lobster fisher can only retain eight rock lobsters from the pot with their gear ID attached. No further lobster can be retained from that pot. The new arrangements will allow more than one bag limit of rock lobster to be retained from a single pot provided there are other licence holders onboard.

Other examples of sharing bag limits include fishing for blue swimmer crabs or line fishing for scalefish such as whiting and herring – where the combined catch is placed in a single icebox.

The formal process required to change the rules will need to take place. It is anticipated the new regulations will be gazetted by mid-2018. In the meantime, compliance officers will be taking the proposed change into account when they are checking fishing activity.