Tuna Australia tests safer longline gear to cut flyback risks

Tuna Australia and the Australian Maritime College spent two days in Launceston, Tasmania, running flyback simulations with ballistic impact cameras recording at 2 million frames per second. The work sat inside a five-year project in the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery, funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation with the Australian Fisheries Management Authority.

Under Australian rules, every branchline must carry a weighting system to help reduce incidental seabird capture, but that same weight can turn into a missile if a hook tears free or is bitten off and the line snaps back toward deck crew. The simulations tested several setups, including a screen designed to absorb recoiling weights, a bar meant to deflect them away from the fisher, and newer line-weighting ideas such as an improved weighted hook and a double-weighted branchline.

The Launceston tests also compared branchline configurations already regulated in the United States and New Zealand with Australian gear.

The eastern tuna longline fishery banned wire leaders in 2005 to reduce shark bycatch, and earlier trials found that a sliding 40g weight at or near the hook could be safer for crew, cheaper, improve sink rates, and still keep seabird bycatch down while holding catch rates steady. Live-bait fishing remained common enough that the 40g approach did not suit every operation.

An earlier FRDC project recorded four flyback incidents in which crew members were hospitalized, and it noted an AFMA observer who was injured in a flyback and filed a Comcare claim. AFMA's Bycatch and Discard Program works with industry in the field to trial new bycatch reduction devices and practices, including gear aimed at protected species listed under the EPBC Act.

Tuna Australia’s work was already getting attention by 23 April 2024, when it won the Safety Award at the Sydney Fish Market Seafood Excellence Awards and was highly commended for Research, Development and Extension for work on seabird protection and crew safety. CEO David Ellis said the goal was to find better ways to catch fish sustainably while lowering risks to boat workers, including members working out of Coffs Harbour, Port Stephens, Ulladulla, Narooma, Bermagui and Eden.