New regulations are being drafted that will allow recreational fishers to share bag limits when fishing from boats.
This change recognises existing recreational fishing practices and is aimed at simplifying the rules.
Importantly, fishers will be able to legally share catch from rock lobster pots.
Under the existing legislation, a licensed recreational rock lobster fisher can only retain eight rock lobsters from the pot with their gear ID attached. The new arrangements will allow more than one bag limit of rock lobster to be retained from a single pot provided there are other licence holders on board.
Sharing bag limits also includes blue swimmer crabs and scalefish like whiting and herring – where the combined catch is placed in single icebox.
It is anticipated the new regulations will be gazetted by mid-2018. In the meantime, compliance officers will be taking the proposed change into account when they are checking fishing activity.