i still believe there should be a few shark licences issued throuought the state to help keep the shark numbers under control. 

control the sharks and save the fish. less sharks = less fish taken 

"Shark depredation has significant economic and social impact on states fishers" It sure does, I lost $70 worth of jigs in 2 drops last time I was out. Tackle stores probably love hearing a good bite off story as they help the fisho replenish their tackle. The social impact is when the wife checks the bank account :)

Shark numbers must be increasing at a fierce rate. Constantly getting chomped fishing out of metro area. So real big ones too busting off 200lb leaders with 90lb braid 

I have had unstoppables that have taken a little fish or just the bait.  Follow them in the boat for half an hour and either bust off or lose the hooks, on 80lb braid with max drag and locking the reel down.

 Fisheries shut down the demersal fisheries from The Harvey drain south of Mnadurah through to Lancelin and the one I used to fish in from NW Cape through to the 120 deg line between Port Hedland and Broome over 15 years ago.

Before these were shut down anglers had very little worry about getting bitten off  but since then it has been a gradual build up over the years. The restriction on rec and pro fishers taking sharks over the 700mm size limit allows  more larger breeders to learn the trick of following boats to their next spot and an easy feed. Surprisingly we had a problem with this with dolphins south of Nanga with a mother and calf plus two others chasing us in moves of over 3nm at 25knots.

Opening up these fisheries will not be an immediate fix but will be a start  towards fixing the problem. The shark protection zone from Steep point through to NW Cape should be opened  BUT this comes with a problem as there is a very severe restriction on pros in the Shark Bay area snapper fishery which is also affected by the bottom fish trawlers working outside the 100 metre line.

Also affecting the re opening would be where to sell the larger sharks caught as the processors don't want them,  ours were bone out, plastics wrapped and snap frozen then exported overseas and again I don't know if this market is still open or would accept them. Finning is not and will never be an option.

 In kalbarri atm

We used to love our boys trips going to Exmouth, Coral Bay and Shelter bay demersal fishing but stopped going for the last couple of years cause of the sharks. Ive been asked to join a trip to camp/fish shelter bay in May and would love to go but the sharks piss me right off . To bag out on your 5 keepers for the day you end up feeding 5 - 10 really good fish to the sharks and lose a shit load of gear then on top of that theres the anger and frustration that goes with it. We used to come back to camp f%$kin pissed off, next morning go out, same shit with the sharks and wonder why your there with all these friggin sharks circling the boat and showing on the sounder. Really hope some solution to the problem comes of this, not just cause I wanna start fishing up in those places again - it must be affecting their economies also when people stop going (just my 2cents worth) cheers Dave

 For sharks.

shark carcasses into toilet paper they will become an instant billionaire ha ha

SURELY.... they realise since the majority of the shark fishery has closed, shark max size limits imposed, some shark species protection, etc, that shark numbers have HAD to have increased?? they have PROTECTED the sharks, ie: they have stopped the number of sharks being taken. quick maths would have to concur that if they are not decreasing, then they are increasing??

I cant for the life of me see how sharks can't be sustainably professionaly fished cheaply?? they seem a perfect candidate to harvest, as they seem plentiful, large size for good yield of fillets per animal, and (in my opinion) taste a lot better than some of the frozen basa and thai mud fish you get at supermarkets. I understand some of the larger ones get a bit tangy with the mercury, but we have eaten them up to 2.5m long (pre shark size ban years), and they were fantastic table fish. mako shark (although they are a very different shark, as they have no mercury), are seriously one of my favourie eating fish.

perhaps a reduced license fee would encourage pro-fishers back into shark harvesting? keep it cheap to harvest/fish, prohibit export of it, and keep west australian fish in australia and western australia?

 Commercial cray guys didn't give a flying fuck about locals until the shit has hit the fan, now they want our support to survive until China's market improves, when they will not give a fuck again about the local market.

 Sharks on the other hand are rampant and need sorting. 22 years sailfishing in Broome and over the last 5 years it is rediculous the amount of sharks taking sails even after what you think is a good recovery of the sail..Doing less sailfishing now as over the carnage.

We have demersal and other fish limits but how many fish are sharked in the process? Are fisheries collecting this data? If a fisher loses 4 fish for one take home surely this would have a huge effect on stocks 

 They started last night. I got a call from the research mob due to having done previous surveys.with them . Told them to politely go away.

I'm willing to bet Jackfrost's left nut that the Edith Cowan University will not come to any conclusion that proposes or suggests any cull or resumption of commercial fishing for sharks.  The $350k grant from the Recreational Fishing Licences is imo a total waste of our funds.  Scientists will tell you that shark numbers are in decline wordwide.  The government is simply spending our money in a feel good exercise that will have no benefit to us.     

 Summed it up well Alan.

 Seriously. . . . .  . ???

Shark mitigation methods using deterrent devices ? We don't want to deter the buggers, we want to reduce the number of them.

What's the point in deterring when they will either develop a resistance to the deterrent methods or move on to someone who can't afford, doesn't have the effective deterrent device. They will still continue to breed and the problem will continue to get worse.

It seems pretty simple to me but then I find that simple plans usually work best. 

- Reduce the shark numbers by catching not deterring

- Process the shark catch in some way so as to gain an economic benefit

- pressure comes off the demersal/pelagic fishery as not as many "bite-offs"

- Win win situation.

There's the plan headlines, now it just needs some of these bright young people at the Uni to fill in the details as to how we effectively get from step 1 to the conclusion. Seems to me that there is a massive opportunity for a new business out there that can only benefit the people by providing a cheaper "domestic" product and possibly develop a new export as well.

Common sense unfortunately not so common any more (just look at the current toilet roll fiasco) just about everyone who chases good size fish these days is experiencing a large percentage of bite offs by sharks, thus a large percentage of good fish are lost.
If nothing is changed then nothing will change except the "sharked" problem will be progressively worse and move south because of their numbers increasing then what.

We have so called "academics" sitting in an office at Curtin University saying that Sharks need protecting. They really need to get out of their office and visit the real world to see how bad the problem is. 

Hi guys I don't post too often on this site but wanted to give my 2 cents on this topic as it's pretty close to my heart

I was part of some field testing that was done using one of the deterrent devices mentioned in the media release up in Exmouth back in December (magnetic device) and even got a glimpse of my ugly mug on the Channel 9 news piece that talked a bit about it a few weeks ago

mate of mine is super smart with a brain that never stops thinking and I reckon he's nailed it with this deterrent device 

I was telling him about my Exmouth trips and losing so many fish to sharks and how me and my young bloke who makes the trips with me were questioning do we even make the effort to make the trip again based on the bloody sharks taking so many good fish

not to mention how frustating it is to know that while you've come back with some tasty fillets from that days trip it always nags me how many quality fish the tax man takes. 

yes you can move spots when the tax man arrives but how much fuel and time are you burning ? We're only there for a week normally and of course it's not often you can get out every day because of the weather so when we do I need to make every second count

Our testing involved 5 guys on the boat. One using the stop watches timing and recording data from "fish on" to fish either taxed or landed, one changing over and maintaining cameras (we connected cameras above the rigs to record every drop), one on the laptop collating all video footage as we'd replace SD cards regularly and 2 just fishing

one fisher would use a rig with no device and the other would use a rig using a device. My smart mate had designed multiple prototypes that we used throughout the week so we could determine if one design worked better than another. We also changed fishers using and not using the device. My role for the week was as one of the fishers. Yeah I know what you're thinking, the things we do to help to help out a mate

Hi guys I don't post too often on this site but wanted to give my 2 cents on this topic as it's pretty close to my heart

I was part of some field testing that was done using one of the deterrent devices mentioned in the media release up in Exmouth back in December (magnetic device) and even got a glimpse of my ugly mug on the Channel 9 news piece that talked a bit about it a few weeks ago

mate of mine is super smart with a brain that never stops thinking and I reckon he's nailed it with this deterrent device 

I was telling him about my Exmouth trips and losing so many fish to sharks and how me and my young bloke who makes the trips with me were questioning do we even make the effort to make the trip again based on the bloody sharks taking so many good fish

not to mention how frustating it is to know that while you've come back with some tasty fillets from that days trip it always nags me how many quality fish the tax man takes. 

yes you can move spots when the tax man arrives but how much fuel and time are you burning ? We're only there for a week normally and of course it's not often you can get out every day because of the weather so when we do I need to make every second count

Our testing involved 5 guys on the boat. One using the stop watches timing and recording data from "fish on" to fish either taxed or landed, one changing over and maintaining cameras (we connected cameras above the rigs to record every drop), one on the laptop collating all video footage as we'd replace SD cards regularly and 2 just fishing

one fisher would use a rig with no device and the other would use a rig using a device. My smart mate had designed multiple prototypes that we used throughout the week so we could determine if one design worked better than another. We also changed fishers using and not using the device. My role for the week was as one of the fishers. Yeah I know what you're thinking, the things we do to help to help out a mate

we purposely fished areas we knew had high levels of shark activity as no point fishing remote spots with none around and depths fished were between 20 and 60 metres. Plus when the sharks moved in we didn't move but kept fishing the same spot as wanted to fire them up anyway upshot was that at the end of the week the average time for a fish to be sharked was between 3-8 seconds (bearing in mind we had them revved up) when not using the device on the rig. Using the device on a rig we only lost 2-3 fish for the week The video footage is insane. When using the device the footage shows the sharks fly in to take the fish like they normally do but then literally bounce off when they hit the area the device is protecting. Best way I can describe is its like a force field you see in the movies Using a rig with the device on a big spango I landed in 55 metres you see the shark come in time and time again at different angles trying to get at the fish until we land it. At the same spot on the rig not using the device we get the spango up a few metres off the bottom and a shark glides up off the bottom and swallows it whole in one easy movement. These spangoes were all in the 55-65cm range I understand they need to do some independent testing on the device my mate has designed but it's pretty exciting to think there is something that will be available hopefully soon to help our northern fish stocks avoid the taxman. Maybe they can call the new device the accountant as it helps you avoid tax ?

I am sure a few of us on this site would like to see the video of upsetting the taxman.

Thanks for the update Simon.

Couple of questions.

1. Does the "device" affect the bite rate of the target fish?
2. When can we get our hands on one? I'm a month away from going to Shelter Bay, so would love to do another trial for you.

Cheers