Educational Kit Aims To Get Schoolkids Hooked On Angling
Sun Herald
Sunday January 12, 2003
BUDDING anglers may be allowed to hang a ``gone fishing" sign on the classroom door when school resumes.
The National Heritage Trust and Fisheries Management agencies around Australia have funded an educational fishing kit designed to promote recreational fishing in schools around the country.
The Get Hooked kit is centred on a junior fishing code of practice developed by Recfish Australia. The hands-on activities and games are designed for years 3/4 and 5/6 students.
Get Hooked also focuses on education, fishing safety, habitat protection, catch limits and responsible fishing practices.
Kids who participate in the course can learn more about subjects such as human society and its environment, science and technology, personal development, health and physical education.
NSW Fisheries is conducting a trial of the kit with 25 public and private schools around the state. The final package will be available statewide this year. For details, contact NSW project co-ordinator George Mannah on 8437 4917.
The relentless onshore winds that started out from the north-east and swung around to the south and south-east have made open-water fishing a challenge. But even kids confined to the harbour jetty have found something to crow about.
The estuaries have been fishing well and are likely to get even better after the recent flush.
Jewfish expert Greg Joyes wouldn't mind if conditions stayed the same. On Wednesday, after only 45 minutes, his charterer landed a 10 kilogram jewfish from a hot spot in the Hawkesbury.
Big flathead and some stud bream are also coming from the river system.
Pittwater has flathead and whiting on its drifting grounds and kingfish stationed around the moorings.
The water in Sydney Harbour is patchy but the fish are on the chew at certain times. Rat kingfish are swarming around some of the channel markers, with bigger kings upstream in Middle Harbour.
The big kingfish are following tailor that are schooling off Bantry Bay and Chinamans Beach. Some of the tailor range to 1.4kg. Flathead are taking lures around the harbour sandflats.
On the south side, Botany Bay has one fish biting one day and another the next. There are trevally in the deep holes, flathead and bream around the flats and blue swimmer crabs about. Port Hacking has been producing flathead, bream and an occasional small cobia for lure trollers. Legal-size snapper are coming from the deep spots.
The reef fishing off the Central Coast was great before the water cooled off. Loads of teraglin, morwong and snapper have come from the grounds off Norah Head.
But the big news is the whiting off the Entrance Beach. Bag-limit catches are being taken on live worms. Some nice jewfish fell for live mullet pitched out in The Run.
The whiting run on the Central Coast means the fish aren't too far away for Sydney beach fishers, who have been hampered by big waves, howling winds and rafts of seaweed.
At least one jewfish was landed off the northern beaches, and Narrabeen Lake has yielded prawns.
© 2003 Sun Herald
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