Recreational fishers in Cairns are being urged to help strengthen local fish stock data by logging their catch in the Qld Fishing 2.0 app, as part of the Your Catch Counts campaign, helping build a clearer picture of local fish stocks.
The campaign, led by Fisheries Queensland, encourages fishers to record their trips using the app’s My Fishing tool so the information can contribute to better understanding of fish numbers, and more informed management decisions.
One local who already logs his trips is Garry Smith. Now based in Cairns, he gets out to fish around 100 times a year, with a recent highlight of his fishing career being a personal best 94cm golden snapper caught while drift fishing.
“These days, I love to fish off the rock headlands north of Cairns, when there’s calm weather for good fishing” he says.
A self-described ‘fishing-obsessive’, Garry has been documenting his catches using the Qld Fishing 2.0 app’s ‘My fishing’ tool since its launch in 2024, and has found that the additional features of the app have helped him learn more about his fishing habits.
“I was already keeping a log of my trips for about 10 years on calendars, just what fish I caught and where, but the app has allowed me to record them in even greater detail. I can add in weather conditions, time of day, depredation and other information that means I can see any patterns in my successful and unsuccessful fishing trips.”
When he’s out fishing, Garry says that the information available while offline about catch limits, closed seasons and bag limits helps him keep up to date with the latest fishing regulations.
He says that recording fishing trips through the app addresses a long-standing gap in fish stock data collection, as fishers who cast off from the coastline or freshwater banks can help contribute, even if they aren’t surveyed at a boat ramp.
“We need legitimate, good data to get a strong picture of the health of our waterways. Previously there’s not been researchers or surveyors on the headlands where I like to fish, which means that any fishers up there aren’t being surveyed, and there is less information about fish stocks in those areas. Having recreational fishers log their trips themselves would help fill in the blanks.”
As part of the Your Catch Counts campaign, Fisheries Queensland will run activations at Cairns tackle stores and boat ramps this weekend to show fishers how to use the Qld Fishing 2.0 app and explain why voluntary catch reporting improves understanding of Queensland’s fish stocks.
Your Catch Counts is a pilot funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) on behalf of the Australian Government. The pilot is part of Project 2023-150 (Normalising voluntary catch reporting on QLD Fishing 2.0 app).
Contact details:
For media enquiries, contact Eloise Lane at [email protected] and
0437 809 833.
