Haha would be hectic, dunno about pingers, the co-ords would be everywhere. Will probably take a while for the fish to accumulate.

Wouldn't mind seeing a reef out the back of 3 mile in the 'desert' accessible by smaller boats

 Heard Roumors they gona do one in Mandurah.

Will be great I reckon, should be putting in 50 of the suckers.

TWO exciting and innovative new metropolitan artificial reefs are set to be created using recreational fishing licence fees through the Recreational Fishing Initiatives Fund (RFIF). 

Recfishwest's artificial reef program has already seen two successful installations in the South-West, off Bunbury and Dunsborough, that are already producing great recreational fishing, with a third reef off Mandurah scheduled for 2015. The approvals for two more reefs are now being sought, which will be world first 'fish tower designs' set for Perth waters.

The two steel fish towers will be placed in metro waters and will weigh 50 tonnes each and measure 12m high, 10m long and 7m wide whilst providing great fishing for species such as Yellowtail Kingfish, Samson Fish, tuna and mackerel species.  As well as the pelagic species, specially designed crypts at the bottom of the structure will provide habitat for bottom dwelling fish such as Blue Groper, Baldchin Groper, Pink Snapper, Dhufish and cod species. 

In total, more than $1 million of licence money has been committed to five new projects through the RFIF.  There will also be a pilot snapper egg collection program. This project will trial the collection of fertilised eggs from Cockburn Sound Snapper spawning aggregations. The eggs will then be cultured through their most delicate life stages before being released in Cockburn Sound. This project may pave the way for future restocking opportunities around Pink Snapper.

Since the RFIF was established in 2011, more than $6.5 million of recreational fishing licence money has been invested into projects including artificial reefs, mapping of accessible fishing locations for disabled fishers and the stocking of over 750,000 prawns and 20,000 Mulloway in Perth metropolitan waters. To learn more about all previous RFIF projects

RFIF projects focus on improving knowledge about important recreational fishing species, enhancing fishing experiences, building capacity in the sector and overall making fishing better.

thats from there email

I reckon one will be near mandurah for sure, and one north side, somewhere between hillarys and two rocks.

Good work recfishwest.  

These steel towers are the go and there's a lot of evidence about the type of fish living around oil rigs.

All this hype when there has been a stripped out trawler waiting to be sunk off here for the last ten years and its still tied up. The trawler, Fitzroy, caught fire and was burnt out, they stripped her and its just the bare shell, all it needs is a tow out and an anchor fore and aft to hold it while it sinks

Seems they want a $10 grand deposit to guarantee the hulk doesn't move in the case of a cyclone.

I'd love to sneak it out one night, sink it and try to keep it secret for a couple of years to allow marine life to gather properly. It would have to be north of town so you either went there or to the Lady Joyce wreck to the south and not both on one trip.

 Recfishwest - love your work!

great that there is projects on the go, I just renewed my RFW family membership last week.

BUT-I cannot for the life of me understand why a deep water artificial reef needs to be made of multi million $ concrete or steel sculptures.

Car bodies with a tonne of concrete, old steel boats, just about anything heavy enough and with the oil etc cleaned out will do the same thing

Somebody is having a lend with some of these projects.

 I no a spot that has had heap an heaps of shopping trolley s chained together with wire cable s with floats on them  sum 1 has been building it for years an was on flat hard ground  have got dhus an pinks there 40m in geo bay  its a desert everywere an fish all over it 

 When I was in the NT we used to do it with old yacht hulls. Strip them and sink them. Was good fun.

tyres, steel droppers, fridges, car bodies. You name it it's been done. At least three of them hugely successful. The big difference is they are all protected by the Murray reef system and lie in 18m of water.  Areas are from  small house size to well over big block size, with heights to about two meter.

they are wonderful agerators of bait and young fish schools. Always expect small sharks, and in season snapper, small sambos, silver trevs etc.

plus one from me for more artificial reefs. With boat rego, trailer rego, licences and general equipment spend there is ample money from fishos to get these things done.

Was speaking to one of the guys at the recfish stall at the boat show and he said they were most likely to be installed on the south side of rotto in 50m of water.  He was also saying if they were successfull they were going to install more in various locations. 

that's all reefs isn't it, sounds like a wasted oppurunity to put one there

 John

reckon we could get 100 locals to throw in $100 each to make that happen easily enough...

or, perhaps our "esteemed" council could kick in some, it would probably only be the equivalent cost of one re-re-reworked roundabout that we seem to be so fixated on... or the latest cafe in town located at the base of a heritage structure that's going to fall down soon anyway due to lack of funding and TLC

or use the RFR cash to do something that actually benefits the working people of the town, probably a lot more desired by actual tax payers as a "dual purpose" facility (fishing and diving) than the latest abomination of the same names that cost 35 times more than that... 

I think putting one in 30 meters of water somewhere out of Ocean Reef or Hillaries would be a good spot. About the same distance that the Gemini wreck is out from Mindarie so the smaller boats could still reach it.

Putting one out in 50 meters seems like a waste because if your travelling out that far then there are already heaps of good fishing spots out there.

Don't want to start a fight but... It is a sh*tload more complicated than (most) any of you realise to get approval for artificial reefs (these days). There is also a sh*tload more research etc that goes into the design and placement of ARs then you realise.



 

Go nuts. The Diplock references explain the process for the existing ARs down south.

A debate on responsible artificial reef development. (1989). Bulletin of Marine Science, 44(2), 1051-1051.

Addis, D. T., Patterson, W. F., Dance, M. A., & Ingram, G. W. (2013). Implications of reef fish movement from unreported artificial reef sites in the northern gulf of mexico. Fisheries Research, 147, 349. doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2013.07.011

Bernard, A. T. F., Gotz, A., Kerwath, S. E., & Wilke, C. G. (2013). Observer bias and detection probability in underwater visual census of fish assemblages measured with independent double-observers. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 443, 75-84. doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2013.02.039

Carr, M. H., & Hixon, M. A. (1997). Artificial reefs- The importance of comparisons with natural reefs. Fisheries, 22(4), 28-33. doi-10.1577/1548-8446(1997)022<0028-ARTIOC>2.0.CO;2

Darwall, W. R. T., & Dulvy, N. K. (1996). An evaluation of the suitability of non-specialist volunteer researchers for coral reef fish surveys. mafia island, tanzania — A case study. Biological Conservation, 78(3), 223-231. doi:10.1016/0006-3207(95)00147-6

Diplock, J. (2011a) Final report. Artificial reefs- Design and monitoring standards workshops.

Diplock, J. (2011b) Artificial reefs in Australia status report. (Appendix II).

Diplock, J. (2011c) Draft guidelines for artificial reefs. (Appendix III)

Prepared for Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. Summer Hill, NSW.

Edgar, G. J., Barrett, N. S., & Morton, A. J. (2004). Biases associated with the use of underwater visual census techniques to quantify the density and size-structure of fish populations. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 308(2), 269-290. doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2004.03.004

Fowler, A. M., & Booth, D. J. (2012). Evidence of sustained populations of a small reef fish on artificial structures. does depth affect production on artificial reefs? Journal of Fish Biology, 80(3), 613-629. doi-10.1111/j.1095-8649.2011.03201.x

Folpp, H., Lowry, M., Gregson, M., & Suthers, I.M. (2011). Colonization and community development of fish assemblages associated with estuarine artificial reefs. Brazilian Journal of Oceanography, 59(spe1), 55-67.

Folpp, H., Lowry, M.,Gregson, M., & Suthers, I.M. (2013). Fish assemblages on estuarine artificial reefs- Natural rocky-reef mimics or discrete assemblages? PLoS One, 8(6) doi-10.1371/journal.pone.0063505

Green, B. (2008) Artificial reefs with reference to marine parks and reserves background paper. Prepared for the Marine Parks and Reserves Authority and Department of Environment and Conservation. Fremantle, WA.

Hixon, M. A., & Beets, J. P. (1989). Shelter characteristics and caribbean fish assemblages- Experiments with artificial reefs. Bulletin of Marine Science, 44(2), 666-666.

Holmes, T., Wilson, S., Travers, M., Langlois, T., Evans, R., Moore, G., Douglas, R., Shedrawi, G., Harvey, E., & Hickey, K. (2013). A comparison of visual- and stereo-video based fish community assessment methods in tropical and temperate marine waters of Western Australia. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods. 11, 337-350.

Hueckel, G. J., Buckley, R. M., & Benson, B. L. (1989). Mitigating rocky habitat loss using artificial reefs. Bulletin of Marine Science, 44(2), 913-913.

Irigoyen, A. J., Galván, D. E., Venerus, L. A., & Parma, A. M. (2013). Variability in abundance of temperate reef fishes estimated by visual census. PloS One, 8(4), e61072. doi-10.1371/journal.pone.0061072

Kim, C., Lee, J., & Park, J.S. (1994). Artificial reef designs for korean coastal waters. Bulletin of Marine Science, 55(2-3), 858-858.

Lowry, M., Folpp, H., Gregson, M., & McKezie, R. (2010) Assessment of artificial reefs in Lake Macquarie NSW. Prepared for Industry and Investment NSW- Fisheries Final Report Series. No. 125 ISSN 1837-2112

Minte-Vera, C., de Moura, R., & Francini-Filho, R. (2008). Nested sampling: An improved visual-census technique for studying reef fish assemblages. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 367, 283-293. doi:10.3354/meps07511

USA. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. (date unknown) Decommissioning and Rigs to Reefs in the Gulf of Mexico FAQ. Retrieved from http://www.bsee.gov/Exploration-and-Production/Decomissioning/FAQ/

Walker, S. J., & Schlacher, T. A. (2014). Limited habitat and conservation value of a young artificial reef. Biodiversity and Conservation, 23(2), 433-447. doi:10.1007/s10531-013-0611-4

Watson, R.A., & Quinn, T.J. (1997). Performance of transect and point count underwater visual census methods. Ecological Modelling. 104, 103-112.

lol

gilly, good you asked hey , lol

for anyone interested have a read of this link below

http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Fishing-and-Aquaculture/Recreational-Fishing/Pages/Artificial-Reefs.aspx

when I was on the board at recfishwest we all pretty much looked at the science behind these specific built and located artificial reef structures as solid examples of how we could improve rec fishing in close for small boaties along the wa coast

we voted to send a delegation to korea/china to investigate them , there at the time they used them for commercial fishing , such is their capacity to increase fish populations

random blokes dumping all sorts of shite will aggregate fish , but these are the best custom built jobbys out there

id approach recfishwest carnarvonite an see if there able to help , or get the local community to set up a committee to get it happening locally

hezzy

 A lot of today's reefs are last century's ship wrecks......  seems so simple to me.  Obviously people are making way too much money out of this, and it probably all starts with the research grants paid to the so called academics.....

There is an application currently in bullshit castle (Canberra) seeking approval to place a substantial ATR midway between the opening of the estuary and the cut in about 27 odd metres of water on a sand base.

A huge amount of work has been to get this project in place by mid next year, RECFISHWEST together with a sub committee of locals have surveyed the proposed area for the ATR, the proposed site has been filmed and placed on a chart and there is about 7, yes seven government departments that have to be consulted to get the tick in the box to proceed.

A Korean company has made the technology available for the design of the concrete modules that will be used, the design is based on designs and effectiveness of ATRs used for commercial fishing in Korea, it works and works well the modules are to be the same as those in place of Bunbury and have been manufactured by a Bunbury company.

I am afraid the "good old days " of lashing some tires together or sinking a wreck at sea to make a reef have long gone. Officially that is.

One of the modules to be used was on display at the recent boat show.

The Mandurah ATR is in an area that will be accessible, to the Mums and Dads in the tinnie and not just for the floating gin palaces all (repeat) the fishing/boating community will be able to access it, and traffic will not be a problem I can tell you.

For up to date info please contact RECFISHWEST and give them a big thumbs up also for what they are doing to improve the fishing for us.

 just ring a supervisor at barrow island and they will give you all the unused precast concrete you can handle, this is surely a piss take along with a whale removal, this is just my opinion 

 iam thinking a cray boat by the name of moonlight bay out of greenhead would be a good start 

I was a member of the group who lobbied Govts. to deploy artificial structures into Geographe Bay and it took us 10 YEARS of constant pressure before it happened. There is just so much red and GREEN tape that needs to be negotiated through before approvals are given that most projects don't get off the ground and even today we are constantly being asked to prove whether or not they actually produce fish or act purely as aggregation devices that make it easier for fishermen to catch fish. There's no doubt in my mind that at the beginning they attract fish from surrounding reefs because we had fish on them within 1/2 an hour of being deployed and a lot of the cost is used doing the necessary research over a 5 year period to prove one way or the other aggregation versus production which is still not proven. Having been a Busso. jetty fisherman for over 50 years I'm confident within my own mind that they'll produce fish but it has to be proven to the doubters conclusively their benefits to the marine environment and at any time the environment groups who disagree with artificial reefs can put a blocking action on them that makes it impossible to proceed so things are not that easy as some people might think. I've sat through meetings and listened to arguments that concrete and steel is toxic to the marine environment and being expected at the time to prove one way or the other whether or not they have a valid argument. You get a bit sick and tired of all the armchair environmentalist that google all the time looking for any little thing they can seize on to stop projects.

Hopefully this means there will be more people chasing ghosts at the artificial reefs and less people fishing where I like to fish :)

 Hopefully, it's the beginning of something big that grows fish stocks substantially.

all I hear about is sustainable fishing for the future, well lets assist with cheap reefs

 Ok.  What about this.......  artificial reef (El cheapo)....  encompassed by a sanctuary zone where the rules are catch and release (for demersals) only.  Pelagics can be kept within normal bag limits. Line weight restrictions apply (prevent skull dragging), perhaps lures and jigs only?.  Have tagging programs in place and use those to study release success of demersals?????

For those of you that have the ability to get out 100kms from Karatha, I have the coord's of around 850 12m lengths of concrete encased 20" Gas pipeline that didn't quite make the destination...

All I ask is a ticket to ride... Paying my share of the fuel of course...

I've seen ROV shots and it looks like giant pick up sticks jammed in every which way in the mud... Reds Galore by now I'm guessing... Sitting in 80m

I'm not sure how to upload a pic here but it was deemed a write off so BHP left it there and waited for cyclone season to pass before bringing another 10kms worth down and completing the Macedon pipelay...

A bit of a pissa, they never did tell us who left the bungs out of the transport barge...

Well and accurately explained Howard George, it's a great pity that not all the knockers of these projects ( and those who put in a lot of time and effort on behalf of all the boating fishing fraternity) come from the green groups.

At times you ask yourself just what is the agenda of those who don't belong to the green brigade, yet throw a lot of uninformed criticism at those who try to do something that will be of benefit to fishing.

Some people just can't seem to understand that the regulations regarding putting things in the ocean have changed dramatically.

If anyone thinks they can do a better job, go ahead and try. Let us know how you go, I'm all ears.

I think the comments are aimed not at those who work so hard at jumping thru the hoops, as those who make all the hoops that need jumping thru.