Catch, Effort and CPUE

Commercial landings over the last few years have been low, with only 9.5 t landed in 2020/21 (Figure below). The low catch in recent years has been due to a substantial decline in landings by beach seine fishers, who have historically landed most of the catch (Figure below). The majority of catch in 2020/21 was taken by gillnet (4.6 t) and small mesh net (4.1 t), with beach seine landings comprising only 0.1 t.

Recent catches came from the north coast, and from the east and southeast coasts; however, in 2020/21 all catch was from the northeast coast. Both effort and CPUE remain low compared with historic peaks (Figure above). However, CPUE do not reveal clear trends and are unlikely to reflect biomass, which is a common problem for schooling species such as Eastern Australian Salmon.