108 INLETS AND OFFING FISHERIES — THEIR COERELATION. 



their resources ; but, unless those adjacent inlets are saved from the 

 annihilating, ceaseless net — not at present I confess, a very serious trouble 

 — certainly their capabilities of supplying the offing grounds in their vicinity 

 will be diminished, until those grounds, at present almost virgin, are reduced 

 to the pitiable condition of Long Eeef, Coogee, and other grounds in the 

 vicinity of Port Jackson. 



It must be within the knowledge of all fishermen, professional or amateur, 

 of middle age, that less than twenty years ago they could easily take from 

 (5 to 20 dozen large red bream in such fisheries as Port Hacking, Botany, 

 our own harbour, Pitt Water, or Brisbane Water in a morning's fishing. The 

 catch would now be at most one or two fish for the dozen of that time. Of 

 course the reason of this decadence is that the destruction of the younger 

 generations is so large and so persistent that the offing fisheries have long 

 ceased to receive their regular succession of two and three year old bream. 

 The number of spawning fish on the outside grounds is therefore continually 

 being diminished, while their enemies for the like reason increase. The 

 leather-jacket — the worst enemy to the ova, and young fry of the schnapper 

 — fills up the void caused by this systematic destruction and very largely 

 augments it. Off any of the depths from Pelican and Belmont up to Cockle 

 Creek in Lake Macquarie there might be caught Avithout much trouble from 

 10 to 20 dozen of fine squires during a morning's fishing. I have frequently 

 caught that number myself in years gone by. The result of persistent 

 netting by seines, and the sunken nets or trawls, of the beaches and even 

 the deep waters of that lake, is that one can now hardly procure a good mess 

 of line fish during a whole day's fishing. And the offing fisheries of the lake 

 from off Kedhead to Catherine Hill Bay have proportionately suffered. The 

 destruction in the lake has reacted on the supply outside Tuggarah Lake, 

 and its. outside schnapper grounds, from Bird Island to Terrigal high land, 

 (Point Upright) have suffered in an exactly similar way. 



Schnapper are still to be obtained in boatloads at the Sir John Young Banks 

 because Jervis Bay and the waters of the Shoalhaven are comparatively free 

 from netters. But it is said that the netting in Lake Illawarra has already 

 told on the schnapper grounds off the Pive Islands and their vicinity. 



Enough, perhaps, has been said to make it obvious to any person, though 

 but very moderately acquainted with the habits of the schnapper family, 

 that the true schnapper nurseries for the school grounds off the coast of 

 this Colony are the deepwater inlets in their vicinity, and that a permanent 

 succession of fish can only be ensured in cases where the annual catch is 

 balanced by the arrivals of young stock. The apparent exceptions to this 

 conclusion, as I have hinted at, are derived from fishing grounds that have 

 never been subjected to the constant drain of the Sydney market. The 

 question then arises, is it, or is it not, too late to restock our exhausted 

 schnapper fisheries within the home division by closing for a sufficient period 

 the neighbouring deepwater inlets, which " are known" to be nurseries of 

 the young schnapper. Por example : Cowan and perhaps a portion of Pitt 

 Water for the Broken Bay grounds ; Middle Harbour for the Port Jackson 

 grounds ; Tuggarah Lake for the Tuggarah grounds ; and by vigorously 

 enforcing the closure of Port Hacking for the Botany grounds. At present 

 we close the upper waters of our river and inlet fisheries, and, as a rule, open 

 the lower or deep portions. I think the converse experiment is certainly 

 also worth trying ; for if the grounds within 80 miles of the Heads were 

 restored even to their condition of ten or fifteen years ago, it would be a 

 great boon both to schnapper fishers and schnapper eaters — that is to say, 

 to the entire community. 



