This Workshop entitled 'Recreational fishing: what's the catch?' continues the series, commenced in 1985 by the Australian Society for Fish Biology. The major objective of the Workshops has been to promote the opportunity, during the Society's Annual Conference, for the national fish and fisheries expertise to focus on an issue or issues of regional or national significance. The Workshop proceedings are now widely regarded as the benchmark document of current knowledge in the Workshop subject area.
The 1995 Workshop was extremely timely. Recreational fishing is a multi-million dollar industry, with over 4.5 million Australians estimated to participate each year. A number of recent State inquiries into recreational fishing and the draft National Policy for Recreational Fishing all highlight the dearth of information on major recreational fisheries. At the same time there has been an increased and more rigorous research effort.
This was the first extensive national Workshop held in Australia focusing on aspects of assessing recreational fisheries and some of the crucial issues concerning the management of these fisheries. It dealt with methods of estimating the catch, to the thornier issues of estimating value and resource allocation.
The Workshop commenced informally with a stimulating and provocative speech by well known fishing identity Rex Hunt. Dr Bob Kearney, Director of the New South Wales Fisheries Research Institute ' set the scene for the two-day meeting by courageously attempting to estimate the total Australian recreational catch for his keynote address. His summing-up was also of the highest quality. The Society would also like to acknowledge the contribution of international guest speakers, Laurel Teirney (MAFFisheries NZ), Rudy van der Elst (Oceanographic Research Institute, Durban, South Africa), and Stephen Malvestuto (US).
These proceedings follow the format of recent years with papers delivered by panel members and followed by rapporteurs' reports of the ensuing discussions. Not surprisingly, for issues concerning recreational fishing, the latter were lively and thought provoking.
The Workshop was a great success as evidenced by the Society releasing its first ever Media Release on key outcomes of the meeting. As always many people contributed to its smooth running. Martine Kinloch and Julian Pepperell had the difficult job of actually putting the whole thing together, as convenors of the Workshop. John Glaister was responsible for successful applications to funding bodies. Gina Newton chaired the local organising committee and Phil Stewart was the Workshop Facilitator.
