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NSW Bowfishing update

Photo courtesy of Luke – Oz Fish and Game

The story so far…

On the 22nd of July 2022, I forwarded a written request to the Minister for Agriculture (NSW). This request outlined many of the concerns held by myself, and other members of the bowfishing community in relation to the new rules and restrictions which had been placed upon this activity. 

A response was received shortly thereafter which contained an acknowledgment of my concerns, and notification of the matter being forwarded to the Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council for further review.

While no further communication has been received from either party (in the Minister’s defence, he is no longer in that role), I recently found that the matter had been discussed during a meeting of the advisory council and that an outcome had been determined.

This information can be found below.

Bowfishing update

Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council minutes.

Meeting 26, 15, and 16 November 2022

17) Update on Bowfishing

NOTED:

• DPI advised Council that a community representative had recently written to the Minister regarding a proposal requesting a number of changes to bow fishing in NSW, including permitting bow fishing in coastal waters. The letter has been referred by the Minister to Council for consideration.

• New bowfishing rules were introduced in late 2021 which carefully manage how bowfishing can be undertaken in NSW. Currently, the activity is limited to targeting carp in selected inland waters.

• Council noted the current rules have only been in place for a short period of time and recognised that more time was needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the new rules prior to any changes being considered.

My reaction

While not the outcome that I was hoping for, it does provide some level of comfort knowing that my concerns had been forwarded to the advisory council and were later discussed in this forum. In terms of the desire to “evaluate the effectiveness of the new rules”, it would be interesting to get a hold of the metrics by which they plan to determine the overall benefits of this new legislation. Without any specific concerns being noted, I can’t help but feel like this may have been a throw-away statement designed to appease any bow fishing supporter who may find themselves reading through these minutes.

From my perspective, a period beyond 12 months should have been sufficient to evaluate the effectiveness of the new rules – noting the lack of recent (and historic) safety and compliance issues. The only conclusion I can draw is there was very little if any, support for bow fishing within the council’s list of members. This would have ultimately led to the group’s conservative decision to effectively “do nothing”.

Overall, I find this lack of support to be incredibly disappointing – to say the least. As we are all aware, our nation’s fishing access and rights have been slowly eroded over the past few decades. In many cases, such as this one, the justifications were not adequate enough to warrant the restrictions imposed upon these activities. On the basis of that alone, I would have hoped that my request for a review would have received a green light from the council – as it is made up of representatives of the fishing community, who know full well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of unjust and illogical restrictions.

On a more positive note, there is a very real opportunity for us to get involved in working groups such as this advisory council, with the goal of promoting bow fishing to the wider fishing community. I am hopeful that with the support of this larger network of anglers, we may be able to overturn some of these heavy restrictions and prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.

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