might have to buy a kayak instead of land based fishing.

 !15 Herring is more than enough, plus you can still go on to catch some other species

 Good idea, who really needs more than 15 a day.

 I have no problem with the change.

There's nothing wrong with WA herring stocks. I've never seen so many herring around as I have this year so why the changes. While the marine heatwave was on it appeared numbers were down but boy haven't they showed up in big numbers this year.

Seriously.. who needs more than 15 herring a day

Any family that has any more than 4 members would consider 15 as not being enough to get a decent meal of herring. When you fillet them and take the wings off with all the bones like we do there's not whole lot of meat left.

If there's only one hunter gatherer in the family like a lot of families 15 wouldn't be enough.

Are you only allowed to take 15 frozen herring for your snapper fishing session in the boat? or the two days bag limit?

Personally I havent seen a shortage in the last 5 years. Still crap loads at the usual haunts.

 15 per person per day is ample for a fresh feed. They are shit frozen and only good for bait if they are. C'mon Howard how many do you want? There aren't many families out there that need more than 15 a day, they are more a fresh treat than anything else. Hopefully this might slow down the flogs like Crasny reported a while ago taking bucket fulls, maybe not. 

Since march I've fished the south coast, and the west coast as well as Geographe Bay and the herring have been thick every-where I went and if I thought for a second there was a problem in the fishery I'd be the first one out there screaming that something needs to be done but there's no evidence that even suggests there's a problem. I then ask myself why the proposed changes are on the agenda and the only reason I can come up with is fisheries has been infiltrated by greenies again. It wouldn't be the first time as we once had a finfish scientist who was asked to move on who simply made false statements regarding Dhufish. Her argument was that Dhufish don't travel more than a kilometre in their whole life and that's why we need large Sanctuary zones on established habitat. We know that's not correct and we know now that what's being said now is not correct and that's why I've chosen to speak up. So once again I ask why the changes?

Down in Myalup recently me and my old man caught 8 between us and that fed 4 adults and 3 kids. So in my opinion 15 is plenty. I don't see any harm in reducing catch limits. More fish for the future

 I think you guys are jumping the gun a little. It has not been decided that the rec bag limit will be halved. It's recomended that the total fishery catch of herring should be halved. That's rec and commerical fishers. There's a chance that the rec bag limit might only be reduced a little bit, say to 24 or 20, not halved.

20 or so herring as a daily bag limit is more than enough imo. Even 15 is plenty. If you want more fish for your family, you can still go catch another 15 low risk fish (i.e. gardies, school whiting). And if that's still not enough, try for some squid or something. People get to fixated targetting one species. Broaden your horizons a little.

 Yeah I reckon 15 is plenty, instead of filleting cook them whole, get a fair bit more meat out of them

All they want is to fine the average poor fisher

I know of one person who stocks up on herring to take up north, Is it possible your bait could be counted as your total catch limit?

 There definitely isn't any shortage of herring, there are thousands out there. Just in the metro I've fished everywhere from right in close to out  past 40m depth and each time if wanted could easily catch hundreds. I use them for bait as well as occasionally eating them. I see no reason to change the limits, especially for land based fisho's as that is one of the main staples. Like what has been said before a lot of families have four or more(Eg some blended families may have six kids) but only one who fishes. As the limit stands that would only equate to maybe two decent meals maybe three if generous. There is no shortage of herring from my experience what so ever and if you think so you don't know where or how to look/fish. Just to be clear it is rare for me to take my limit of herring but I definitely don't think it needs to be changed.

 Yeah I'm fine with it really and tadpole 8 herring fed 4 adults and 3 kids are u midgets or what

 Is on the bone, so 15 would be plenty for a family x4, that being if they are of midget height or standard stretch, haha

 I also believe 15 is enough but herring stocks are defs not low in my eyes. They're everywhere I go atm. Where do they get this shit lol

if their count is lower than previos years it may be the knock on effect of cutting back the salmon fishery? for every action theres a reaction . just a query i've had

The fisheries paper is here for all to read...  http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/research_reports/frr251.pdf

Glad that anecdotal evidence from rec fishers is not used to come up with scientific outcomes or fisheries decisions. While there might be plenty around at the moment it is certainly no indication that stocks are healthy! If there are no juveniles to take the place of the adults once they die off what happens to the stocks then?

Like the article says "Department director-general Stuart Smith said herring “certainly aren’t going extinct’’ but he said numbers were “significantly’’ down."

As far as people saying there are heaps around, sure there might be but certainly nothing like the absolute black clouds that used to surround boats with an oil slick out in the late 70's and early 80's. Quite litterally tonnes of herring and gardies around rec boats at these times, was certainly no issue with stocks back then.

I would think precautionary action is far better than reactionary action when the fishery has already collapsed. Even for a fish that lives to about ten years this would be a good couple of years of potentially a zero bag limit to get them back on track again. At least with precautionary action if the stock levels prove to be fine or become healthy again in the next couple of years there is no reason why bag limits could not go up again.

Commercially taking a majotity of pre spawn herring is not a great benefit to the fishery either, which is about 80-90% of the commercial catch.... (its in the paper FRR 251, link above)

 If you need more than 15 herring to feed a average family take another person with you. 

it's all about the low numbers of juveniles not the adult stock. Similar thing happened with dhufish  - it's all about fishing for the future.

On local radio. . . must be gospel

 Used to get a good feed of herring all year round, now certain times of the year they hav'nt been as plentiful. I think 15 - 20 herring is plenty per person, unless your a Gannet.

 I think 20 would be a fair number,i take a few to smke and the rest are bait. 10 or 15 is ok if you can fish every day.Once they (fisheries ) set a limit rarely is it given back.Dhuies for example should be 1 per licence but i dont think we will ever see that.Maybe in the metro area these limits may be ok but outside metro waters where there are less people different quotas should apply.

Yes the WAFIC research will certainly be interesting... If it ever happens.... Why they would waste money on independant research for a fishery with a value of approx $150,000* a year? Surely they would have better issues to spend their money on?

*Based on roughly 150 tonnes being caught and sold for $1-00/kilo (South coast 2012/13, 135 tonnes. West coast 28.3 tonnes)

Why wait until there's a shortage like other fish species If they are proactive now then harsher bag limits won't apply in future years.

Did any of you guys even read the article ? Quote :

"Mr Smith said recreational anglers would likely have catch limits cut by a quarter while commercial fishermen on WA’s south coast who target herring for bait sales could be shut down for a season, but paid compensation."

That equals 23 herring per rec angler.

If past incidents are anything to go by then the Fisheries are expecting the herring numbers to crash significantly.
You only have to look at the Cockburn sound crab fishery, Shark Bay crab fishery, the one I was involved in, the northern shark fishery, they ignored all the warnings from the pros that the numbers were dropping and said its a seasonal thing then bingo the whole thing collapsed and got shut down, the northern shark fishery is still down after over ten years. The crab fishery here is only recently been reopened after 2 years shut down.
I think they are for once looking to the future and trying to do something right for once and 15 herring each is still s good feed in my opinion

Most of the times when l go fishing for herring with my dad and we get our qoute of 60 herring easly off bunbury so l dont see the problem to reduce the herring bag limit 

 23 sounds ok Jetty Rat,where have you been miss your reports mate as i am off face ache.

Sulo,your right re crays,but they arent a fish so i dont rate them and the Shark Bay pinkies dont rate either as that was pertinent to 1 particular area in the gulf and they banned any take so left them no option but to increase(couldnt decrease anymore) and it was only 1 fish anyway.

Its a bit like the marine park debate,i dont know how they work it out but as i said before why change the rule for the whole state if the decrease is in the metro area?

Dont get me wrong i am all for the preservation of fish stocks just not into blanket bans for no reason.

Carnarvonite, i thought by reading the reports lately that there doesnt seem to be any lack of sharks up north at the moment.

Extract from Fisheries study of herring stocks,
Spawning occurs in coastal waters of WA, potentially between the Abrolhos Islands and Bremer
Bay (Fairclough et al. 2000b) but mainly north of Cape Leeuwin (WFRC 1973, Smith et al.
2013a). A high proportion of adults migrate to this area prior to spawning and so, in this sense,
they form a broad aggregation in this region. At a smaller scale, schools of fish probably form
multiple, small aggregations that spawn simultaneously throughout this area. Rottnest Island
appears to be a key spawning area (Lenanton 1978). Pollard (1969) stated that “Rottnest is
famous as the spawning ground for herring. For as long as fisherman can remember, big herring
schools that swim around from the Bight each autumn gather at Rottnest at the start of May in
such numbers that the sea is often black over large areas.” Such historical reports suggest that
the density of A. georgianus aggregating around Rottnest Island during the spawning period
was much higher than current levels.
10.0

 40 years from now i can see my self telling the great grandkids all about the ( Great Herring shortage of 2013 / 14 ) and how it created a massive shortage of rollmops that the world had never witnessed before. 

Sorry to say , but i think it is a lot off bullcrap. Yes i read the study, and no i didn't understand half of it. The main thing i got from the article was , it all relied on data from 2009 to 2011. Hardly current information to base a claim of low Herring numbers or the average size of fish being caught.

Probaly not going to be popular for saying this but 30 Herring in my house don't last very long at all. They are also part of a combined bag limit of 30 . Are they going to introduce another confussing mixed bag category. ie: mixed bag of 30 with only 15 of those being Herring, and only 4 of those Herring being over 25cm, unless you have 8 Gardies as well then your herring limit is 9, with only 5 being longer than 25cm but no more than 31cm, unless you have 3 gardies shorter than 20cm , scratch all of that if you have 15 Sand Whiting then you can have 15 Herring as long as none are longer than 23cm etc etc etc .

I understand that we need bag limits and size restrictions , I have no problem with that. What i have a problem with, is the decision making behind these old studies and the restrictions that are put into affect so quickly. They continue to take revenue from rec fishers but are still using old data to make decisions for today. 

Personaly I have seen no shortage of them , and in fact have had one of the best seasons for years , with big fat fish being caught one after the other, At many different locations.

In saying all of the above rant, If fisheries realy think a limit reduction is required, I would rather see the whole mixed bag category dropped to 20 fish combined, per fisher. Rather than a reduction on just Herring, this would eliminate the need for seperate bag limits within the mixed bag category. They may as well protect the Sandies and Gardies too, and i would be happy to accept a 20 mixed bag limit rather than the proposed 15 Herring bag.

Anyway my two cents worth. 

Fark me, who gives a fuck if theres heaps or they will get wiped out, its herring, not even a good bait imo, go catch some dhu and get over it fellas

nice one tim-o

I beach fish tim-o and so herring and tailor are the main targets for me in Perth not dhu. I would rather eat herring over tailor any day.

 Yeah well thats your opinion tim,glad not many have the same one,by the way the Dhuie in my avatar was caught on a lowly herring .I rate them both as a bait and to enjoy as a feed.

Rather see less GW's than herring lol.

GRANTARTIC ,good post agree 100%

here is the link fact sheet for herring below
http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/species/australian-herring/Pages/default.aspx

first off the idea is only aproposal to reduce the catch by half , however i dont think it is required just yet ,

the fisheries dept are working off 2009-2011 info ,this is a bit outdated imho ,
be interesting to see how these years correlate to the weak or strong leeuwin current trends ??

given the life cycle of herring , they are mature to breed at 2-3 years old or 25cm approx ,
we are now in 2014
each female herring can spawn 100 000 eggs so who knows how many juveniles are out there now ?
with theri own fact sheets saying herring are vulnerable to the fluctuations of the leeuwin current

they could be hit short term by key changes , but they could also bounce back with highly favourable conditions in quick time

im inclined to think we have seen a temporary reduction in their numbers due to fluctuating weather patterns , more research is needed before id advocate changes honestly

im not in agreement with the call to change anything yet ,30 is not over the top at present AND if there is to be a change , let the commercial guys take the hit on this one , herring are a key recreational species , it should be recognised as such ,

fishereis are not infallible with their data collection of its bias in presentation

years ago they gave us statistical info on the peel harvey recreational crab catch at one of our meetings in mandurah , theri numbers seemed unbelievable , so we asked for more data and scrutiny , after two more meetings it was revealed the data was flawed and they reduced the rec stats by more than 100tons of crabs being caught in the peel harvey , this represented about a 30% shift or reduction in total catch stats by recs, huge amount to make bag limit changeson

that is just one example ,
thay do agreat job generally , but their stats should be examined and scrutinesed/debated before any changes are accepted imho

hezzy

I love a feed of fresh herring, my whole family woofs it down, and the dogs get whats left, does great things to their coats.

Cheers

Dale

They were thick on the Busso jetty in the warmer season this year, fished for them on the west coast as well they were very thick over that way.

Here they are apparently 20 tonnes worth on the Norway coast .. 

Aaaarh I think you will find that they are a different species of fish

 For mine I wouldn't have a problem if they reduced the herring/daily mixed bag limit. 30 imo is too many. 15 or 20 would be more than enough.