The RAP Report
May 2021
RAP wrap up
Welcome to the latest NSW Research Angler Program (RAP) newsletter. In this edition, we are looking back at the 2019/20 season of the program – all the interesting catches, program trends, and records, and celebrating all our top donors. Also check out our latest monthly winners, how you can be in it to win it, as well as a first look at the new species being added to the program in 2021!
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Year in review
2019/20 was a great year for the RAP with loads of new anglers joining the program and great size ranges of fish being donated. It was also good to see many of our regular donors helping out with multiple donations for different species. In total, we had 154 anglers donate 663 frames or otoliths for ageing across NSW.
Snapper was the most popular species donated, with 258 samples over the year. Dusky Flathead and Mulloway also featured highly with 152 and 149 respectively.
Spanish and Spotted Mackerel donations were low this year. However, if you are lucky enough to catch one of these speedsters over the coming months, it would be great if you could donate the frame. Not only are we collecting age and other biological info, but we are working with University of Tasmania to collect samples for their research into ciguatera toxin poisoning. If you want more information, send us an email to research.angler@dpi.nsw.gov.au.
Top 5 donors for 2019/20
| Angler |
Total frames donated |
Area |
| Ross Bishop-Gatenby |
45 |
Port Stephens |
| Jamie Culver |
41 |
Port Stephens |
| Matthew Proctor |
40 |
Far South coast |
| Mike Hollis |
35 |
Hawkesbury River |
| Tom Perry |
34 |
Hawkesbury River |
The top donor of 2019/2020 was Ross Bishop-Gatenby with 45 samples! Ross caught all his fish in the Port Stephens area, donating a mixture of Snapper, Flathead, and Kingfish. Ross was lucky enough to land some great fish like this 77 cm red pictured below that was aged at 8 years.
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Other great contributions came from our second top donor, Jamie Culver, also from Port Stephens, who donated an amazing 5 of the 8 RAP species last year, which included an 18 yr old red! In third we had Matthew Proctor who donated 40 Snapper to the program from the far south coast, which ranged from 2 to 21 years old!
If you placed in the top 5, we have some prizes on their way out to you now! Thank you to everyone who got involved.
Do you have some frames you want to donate? Either head in to your nearest drop off location or email research.angler@dpi.nsw.gov.au and we will arrange a pick up!
Do you want your local tackle store involved?
2019/20 saw a brand new drop-off location join the program - Nambucca Boatshed and Café, who have already received some great donations from local and visiting anglers. If you would like your local tackle store to get involved with the RAP, please let us know by nominating them and we can work on expanding the program in your area (below Fishing Tackel.
A big thank you to all our drop off locations around the state for helping out the program! Below, another bag of frames are collected from Fishing Tackle Australia, thanks to our Coffs Harbour based anglers for all their donations.
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Snapper
Snapper were the most popular species for last year with 258 donations received. There was a wide range of sizes donated with fish from legal size to a trophy size 90 cm.
Cameron Mudge was lucky enough to catch this 90 cm fish at Broughton Island, aged at an impressive 9 years old
This is an extremely fast growth rate compared to many other fish donated over 2019/20 and the rest of the program! Check out the graph below with all the 2019/20 new additions (in red).
 At the other end of the scale, we had some very old fish donated to the program, like Zane Levitt’s 86cm Sydney Snapper (below). Zane's fish was estimated to be a whopping 26 years old, our third oldest snapper donated to the program. The fish was unable to be released after being tagged and therefore the frame was donated to the program to contribute to research.
Top 5 snapper donors for 19/20
| Angler |
Total frames donated |
Area |
| Matthew Proctor |
40 |
Far South Coast |
| Ross Bishop-Gatenby |
31 |
Port Stephens |
| Grant Ashwell |
28 |
Mid North Coast |
| Chris Cleaver |
22 |
South Coast |
| Jamie Culver |
21 |
Port Stephens |
Mathew Proctor was our top Snapper donor for the 2019/20 season with 40 frames. Matthew was able to land fish up to 66 cm but his most surprising donation was a 56.5 cm fish aged at 21 years! There is a trend that fish donated from the far south coast are generally older for their size than their northern Counterparts and this was seen with many of Mathews fish. Our 2nd top donor for the year Ross Bishop-Gatenby also provided some great reds from the Port Stephens area (pictured above). While Grant Ashwell provided 28 frames from the Mid North Coast, including two great fish measuring 86 cm.
Port Stephens, including Broughton Island and Seal Rocks, is a magic location to target Snapper, with 102 of our 258 of our donations coming from this hot spot.
We received a great spread of sized fish over the 12 month period, with equal numbers of male and female fish. See below.
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Dusky Flathead
With 152 donations duskies were another popular species last year. These recent donations revealed the incredible variability in growth rates of these fish.
While many fish received were aged between 2-6 years we had some noteworthy results:
- fast-growing: a 74cm flattie aged at 3 years from Port Stephens being our fastest growing 3-year-old fish recorded in the program!
- slow-growing: a 47.9 cm flattie aged at 9 years old from the Brisbane Waters showing the incredible variability in growth rates of these fish.
 The longest and equal oldest dusky was also donated to the program this year with a fish measuring 96.5 cm caught in the Moruya River aged 16 years old.
Top 5 Dusky donors for 19/20
| Angler |
Total frames donated |
Area |
| Tom Perry |
34 |
Brisbane Water |
| Greg Gowlland |
28 |
Brisbane Water |
| Mike Hollis |
18 |
Hawkesbury River |
| Ross Bishop-Gatenby |
12 |
Port Stephens |
| Chris Franklin |
10 |
Brisbane Water |
Our 'Top Five' donors for duskies are predominantly made up of a dedicated group of flathead fishers from the Hawkesbury River system. Tom Perry, Greg Gowlland, Mike Hollis and Chris Franklin have done a great job donating a combined 90 frames for aging. The Hawkesbury System (including Brisbane Water) made up an impressive 98 of the 152 samples.
 Tom Perry was our top donor with 34 frames. He was also a lucky recipient of our monthly prize with the adjacent fish measuring 46 cm and aged at 3 years old.
Most of the duskies donated this year measured between 37 cm and 50 cm as seen below. We received very few larger fish in comparison as many anglers choose to release this size class which is great to see, however if you do decide to keep any of these larger fish, we would love if you could donate the frame and make the most of these beauties.As expected, the ones over 55 cm we did receive were all female. The majority of male fish were under 45 cm, but our biggest was 53.7 cm and aged at 4 years old (see graph below).
33% of Flathead donated were of unknown sex as the guts had been removed. As mentioned previously, we would love more sex information, particularly for flatties! Not only can we determine how sex may impact length at age, but we can only examine the gonads for maturity levels, which is really valuable when determining stock assessments for these populations.
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Monthly Winners!
We have had some great catches over the past few months and a few of our monthly winners reached new personal bests. Remember every frame you donate gives you an entry into the monthly draw not just trophy size fish.
Craig Black braved a cold wet night to snag this 109 cm Mulloway on the Central Coast (pictured below). This beauty was aged at 5 years old and Craig received a RAP shirt for his prize as a monthly winner.
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Tom Menzies caught this cracking 115 cm Mulloway spinning hard body lures from a Central Coast rockwall and was aged at 7 years old. Tom received a $50 voucher at Tackle Power for being a monthly winner.
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Jo Brennan caught this beautiful 82.3cm Kingfish from a Central Coast estuary, aged at 2 years old. Jo's kingy was one of only a few Kingfish caught and donated from an estuary.
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Anne Bramsen and her son have been catching some great duskies over the summer months on the Mid North Coast. While releasing some larger fish, they kept a feed of some smaller flathead and donated the frames to the RAP and won herself a new fishing shirt! Win-win-win.
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Finally, Damien Vella and mate Kevin Ritchies had a day to remember fishing on the Hawkesbury River. After a slow morning, they both landed trophy Mulloway with Damien’s fish measuring 140 cm and 19 years old and Kevin's fish topping that at 145 cm and 14 years old.
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New species being added to the RAP!
In addition to Mulloway, Kingfish, Snapper, Dusky Flathead, Spanish and Spotted Mackerel, in 2021 we are also now collecting frames for Blue Spotted Flathead and Pearl Perch! We will be running a prize draw for these new species our Facebook page very soon, so keep your eyes peeled!
 
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How can you get involved with the RAP?
Donate your frames
If you're interested in citizen science and are lucky enough to catch a Mulloway, Kingfish, Snapper, Dusky Flathead, Tailor, Black Bream, Spanish or Spotted Mackerel of any legal size, donate your fish frame at any participating drop-off point.
Join the Keen Anglers or tagging program
If you're an avid angler and would like to join the RAP team we are looking for anglers to join the Keen Angler Program and Mulloway Tagging Program. Please send us an email to find out more.
Monthly prize draws
All fish frame donations made to the RAP program gain one entry into the monthly prize draw for one of five $50 gift vouchers at selected tackle stores or a RAP long sleeve fishing shirt. Our lure promotion for all Mulloway donations is still running, so if you catch and donate a Mulloway frame you will win a packet of Berkley Powerbait Swim Shads.
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Over 80 donations were fish under 1m, with ages ranging from 3-9 years old, the remaining samples of over 1m fish ranged from 6-25 years old. Our largest and also oldest fish for the year was a 158cm beast caught by Chris Mina in the Georges River. Chris' fish pictured (held by his son) was aged at 25 years, our 10th oldest fish for the program. Check out the length at age graph above with all the new additions from 2019/20 (in red).
