Landbased Fishing Reports

With the presence of social media, the problems of reporting landbased catches aren’t going away in a hurry. In years gone by, landbased anglers would only tell close friends and family of their captures and keep their fishing spots to themselves. But now with Instagram, Facebook and numerous forums, many anglers like to post up their catches and along with that often come questions of “where did you catch that?” and if an angler doesn’t want to give out where the fish was caught an argument along the lines of “why post it then” and “you don’t own a spot” follow.

With the help of a few anglers who have spent many years fishing landbased, i would like to point out why it’s often a good idea to keep spots to yourself and why it’s not polite to pressure a person about not wanting to reveal their spot.

• Respect the locals
  Posting a report with a fishing spot might affect the locals that are fishing the spot all the time. The guys might have put in days or often weeks without a fish and put in the hard yards, so please consider if it’s fair to let often thousands of other people know the fish are on.
• Some spots are hard earned
  Some spots are hard earned and found out the hard way by hiking and looking around. Anglers often spend a lot of time to find out when and how the spot ticks. Why would you just give that info away?
• Overcrowding and rubbish
  Most good spots only hold a small amount of people to fish and anglers often travel hours to reach their spot. The last thing you want to find is the spot you treasure overcrowded. Also not everyone respects a spot the way you do and leave rubbish behind, which creates more problems and lockouts. If you can carry it in you can carry it out and it should go without saying but it still happens and gives green groups more amo.
• Other people’s fish
  Do not post other people’s fish, without their express permission. The angler might not want that fish to be posted on social media for a number of reasons. One recent example was a great capture was posted on a group and the angler wanted to write a magazine article about it
• How to take pictures
  A lot of anglers take photos and blurr the background out, which is effective but doesn’t look great. These posts often attract negative comments from people who want to know where the fish was caught. Another good way to take a photo is to point the camera back to water as background.
• Consider others
  Please consider the work of groups such as the Australian Landbased Anglers Association: www.albaa.com.au and the Recreational Fishing Alliance of NSW: www.rfansw.com.au for example, who work hard behind the scenes with govennment and other authorities to keep our sport of landbased fishing alive and well. Your report may attract people with less experience to your rock fishing spot and possibly will put them in danger, or attract the wrong crowd rubbishing your spot and therefore put all the hard work of these guys in jeopardy.
• End of season pics
  Many land based game fisho’s in particular post their catch at the end of the season. This is a great way to keep to yourself when there is a inshore run of game fish and enjoy the spoils of your hard work without a crowd.