The Massacre of 100's of Tiger Fish

C

Cpt. Hook

Sealiner
Every year at the Annual Jozini Tiger Fishing competition 100's of Tiger fish are killed in the name of sport.

We want to address a letter to the Sodwana Angling Club who hosts the competition to change the format of the competition to Catch & Release and that the prizes are only given for released fish.

Please put your name down below with your number or PM me if you support this so you name can be included.

Thanks

FA
 
M

Mike C

New member
Hi Guys

Having skippered the winning boat in both 2005 and 2007 I feel qualified to respond. Absolulety I agree, there is no need to kill Tigers.

I  fish a smaller comp. in March each year and we use a simple template marked out as a ruler. One simply places the fish on the template, snap a quick pic. with a cell phone and return the fish to the water. Immeadiatly upon release, a mms is sent to the comp. organisers which provides a record of the date and time of the catch. the winning fish is the longest one. Simple!

Weighing them only prolongs their time out of the water, and reduces their chances of survival.
 
W

woerman

Senior Member
Mike C wrote:
Hi Guys

Having skippered the winning boat in both 2005 and 2007 I feel qualified to respond. Absolulety I agree, there is no need to kill Tigers.

I  fish a smaller comp. in March each year and we use a simple template marked out as a ruler. One simply places the fish on the template, snap a quick pic. with a cell phone and return the fish to the water. Immeadiatly upon release, a mms is sent to the comp. organisers which provides a record of the date and time of the catch. the winning fish is the longest one. Simple!

Weighing them only prolongs their time out of the water, and reduces their chances of survival.
Click to expand...

This is the way to go

Francois Scholtz
0834470679
 
M

Mike C

New member
Just as an afterthought, The Organisers of the comp do award substantial prizes for C & R. Please don't for a moment belive that they are uncaring or unaware of the situation. There also has to be a long hard look taken at the huge numbers of Gill Nets laid on a daily basis. Trust me they do more harm to fish stocks than recreational angling will ever do!
 
B

bastion

Senior Member
Hi Guys,

I fish a trout competition every year that also requires trout to be killed. Fair enough, trout are farmed and are able to be restocked easily, so this is not as critical as the case for tigerfish, yet they still promote catch and release for the competition by only allowing trout over 55cm to be weighed. This makes sense because nothing under that will win the competition and there is nothing worse than seeing fish being kept that have no chance of winning.

This has reduced the number of fish kept significantly at this competition, with most of "next year's trophys" alive and well for the next year.  If it is required to bring fish in to the weigh in, then perhaps this sort of compromise could be reached by asking the organisers to have a higher minimum size for the weigh in.

The one thing with Tigerfish is that they are not widely popular for eating, so guys won't keep them if they can't weigh them in for a bit of glory.

Those that are kept, as sad as it may be, could possibly be donated to local populations that would use the food.

Cheers
Grant.
 
C

Cam Mundy

Sealiner
I'm all for catch and release but are the tigers in Jozini really under that much pressure? The only people who fish there are recreational fishermen and everybody release's tigers as they are crap to eat as bastion says. I've been to Jozini many times over the years and have never seen the camp site full to the brim except during the main competition I think a minimum weight would be a better idea the last time I fished the compo was a few years back and on day two the committee had already said no fish under 3kgs would be weighed and the next day it was 4 which I think was reasonable
 
C

Cpt. Hook

Sealiner
Cam Mundy wrote:
I'm all for catch and release but are the tigers in Jozini really under that much pressure? The only people who fish there are recreational fishermen and everybody release's tigers as they are crap to eat as bastion says. I've been to Jozini many times over the years and have never seen the camp site full to the brim except during the main competition I think a minimum weight would be a better idea the last time I fished the compo was a few years back and on day two the committee had already said no fish under 3kgs would be weighed and the next day it was 4 which I think was reasonable
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Almost everyone kills their Tiger catch, I want it full C&R and will not rest till it is.
 
M

Mike C

New member
Sorry, gotta disagree with you there. In my experience the contrary is true, and very few anglers keep anything but trophy fish. Isn't that true of any form af angling? As I said before, rather direct your energies to motivating the powers that be, to control and monitor gill netting. Remember that Tigers are shoal fish, so when the shoal runs into a net, there is carnage.
 
C

Cpt. Hook

Sealiner
Mike C wrote:
Sorry, gotta disagree with you there. In my experience the contrary is true, and very few anglers keep anything but trophy fish. Isn't that true of any form af angling? As I said before, rather direct your energies to motivating the powers that be, to control and monitor gill netting. Remember that Tigers are shoal fish, so when the shoal runs into a net, there is carnage.
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I agree gillnets are a problem, but I see many fish killed at Jozini, I fish about 60 days a year there in total.
 
C

Cpt. Hook

Sealiner
Here is the letter that has been sent with your names attached

Subject: Catch and Release at the Annual Jozini Tiger Fish Bonanza[/b]

 

Dear Sir,

 

I write this letter with good intentions.

 

I run a fishing charter/guide business; one of the places that I operate from is Lake Jozini specifically targeting Tiger Fish.

 

Many anglers are concerned about the slaughter of 100’s of Tiger Fish at the Annual Jozini Tiger Fish Bonanza, and we are concerned about this and so I write this letter on behalf of them and myself.

 

The purpose of this letter is to start a communication with your club who organises this competition in order to convince you to convert this annual competition to purely Catch & Release, whilst I understand that it is too late to do anything about the 2010 Bonanza, we would like to see these changes happen from the 2011 Bonanza.

 

Personally I would like to fish this competition, but refuse until it becomes only a Catch & Release competition and there are also several anglers that used to fish this competition who now feel the same.

 

There are methods that can be used and that have already been used like colour boards measuring the length of fish and so on which have already successfully been used at other Tiger Fish competitions at Lake Jozini recently.

 

I look forward to your response.

 

 

Kind Regards

 
 
S

Shearwater

New member
Cam Mundy wrote:
I'm all for catch and release but are the tigers in Jozini really under that much pressure? The only people who fish there are recreational fishermen and everybody release's tigers as they are crap to eat as bastion says. I've been to Jozini many times over the years and have never seen the camp site full to the brim except during the main competition I think a minimum weight would be a better idea the last time I fished the compo was a few years back and on day two the committee had already said no fish under 3kgs would be weighed and the next day it was 4 which I think was reasonable
Click to expand...

And kill all the big ones? No sustainable (and note I said "sustainable") fishery in the world works like that. Remove the large ones and you are removing the breeding stock. Put it like this, a fish population will produce more young - and therefore sustain greater fishing pressure - if it is made up of big, old fish. And the nice thing is that there is no real reason to keep the small ones either. A blanket catch and release should be enforced for tigers.
 
S

Samspaul

New member
I am definitely for CpR, why do people insist on putting a trophy up on their wall, its the same with trophy animals, I am all for eating what you kill, but for no other  reason that to brag to your friends with your latest trophy hanging on the wall i really dont agree with.

Nikao the letter you have sent through looks great, I am definitely in the same boat as you there mate...
 
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